Converted Jerusalem Revisited

A number of readers have been skeptical about my earlier post on converted Jerusalem. Several have noted that Rodney Stark’s population statistics for Jerusalem don’t fit well with information we get from Josephus, who claims that the population of Jerusalem was much larger than 20,000. In a 1982 article from the Journal of Jewish Studies assessing the accuracy of Josephus’s history, Magen Broshi gives this brief summary of some of Josephus’s accounting of the number of fighters defending Jerusalem during the Jewish war:

“Josephus also gives modest round numbers likely to be quite correct. His information relating to the defenders of Jerusalem ( War V, 248) is an example of such reasonableness, namely that Simon son of Giora led ten thousand warriors and five thousand Idumeans, that John of Gischala commanded six thousand warriors, and that tow thousand for hundred Zealots also joined him, and that the total involved was twenty-three thousand four hundred men. Another seemingly reliable figure is that of the ninety-seven thousand captive taken by the Romans in Jerusalem ( War VI, 420). These numbers stand out among inflated figures such as that of the corpses removed through one of the gates during the fifty days between May 1 and June A.D. 20, viz., one hundred and fifteen thousand eight hundred and eighty ( War V, 567: dates according to Niese). This precise number may appear credible but is in fact quite impossible.” Elsewhere, Broshi has estimated that the population of Jerusalem was around 60,000 in the early first century AD. Estimates of the population of Palestine during at this time vary between 1 and 6 million.

There are several possible responses to this: Josephus’s numbers may be mistaken; Stark may be underestimating the population of the city; or, both may be correct, but there was an influx of Jews to Jerusalem when the war started.

Further, Tim Gallant points out that the converts on Pentecost included many who were in Jerusalem for the feast. The crowd that hears Peter is made up of people from every nation under heaven. That of course reduces the proportion of the permanent population of the city that was converted at Pentecost. Whether Acts 4:4’s “about five thousand” also includes festive pilgrims is less clear.