Loading...One scholar (Rodney Stark, mentioned in my previous post) calculated the rate of growth of early Christianity to be about 40% per decade from the very beginning to about the time of the conversion of Constantine. There is nothing implausible about a religion growing that quickly per se; the Mormon church did for most of its history until recently. But there are problems with it and I deal with these in my book Triumph of Christianity (Simon & Schuster, 2018). I continue the discussion here.
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The problems with Stark’s rate of growth
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Hi Bart
In Mark 2 Jesus forgives sins of a paralysed man and then heels him. How is it possible that he forgives sins what is a things that later christians would have not made up and in the same passage there is a miracle that later christians almost certenly made up. Is there some kind of tradisional mixing going on?
He actually doesn’t forgive the man’s sins. He says the man’s sins “are forgiven” — just as a priest today may say. (He doesn’t say “I forgive your sins”) He’s speaking in the name of God.
Bart, citing Moss’s 2012 trade book without any qualifier is, I must say, quite irresponsible. You are well aware of the severe critiques that put in question practically the entire book other than the basic thesis: Christians used martyrdom to fit their political and ideological purposes which means that martyrdom (killed for being Christian) was a later developed category anachronistically imposed on the earliest years of Christianity.
Are you saying that I don’t think parts of the book are right because other reviewers found other parts that were wrong?
I have to believe that there was considerable, if not exponential, growth in the Jesus movement in the 2-3 years after Jesus’ death. Before his experience on the road to Damascus, Paul clearly viewed these people as an existential threat; would he (and others like him) have engaged in the persecution of the movement with such alacrity had it been merely a small, marginalized sect? I would surmise that he saw this rapid growth as an extremely dangerous development.
Hello, Bart!
What do you think Jesus’ view of the church was? Did he want to create one? What is he reffering to?
In passages like this the word church appears:
• Matthew 16:18 NRSV
[18] And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
• Matthew 18:17 NRSV
[17] If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
I don’t think the *historical* Jesus had any plans for a church — he was expecting the kingdom of God to arrive soon and to be teh head of it. His entire ministry was geared toward having people repent before it was too late. After his death, and some decades after the imminent end never arrived, his disciples came to think that he had planned for a church (rather than the kingdom) all along. That’s why you start finding sayings on his lips about such things, e.g., in these two passages of Matthew (neither of which is in our earlier sources of Mark and Q)
Dr. Ehrman, in Galatians 2:6, Paul says the Jerusalem apostles “added nothing to his message”. By this, does Paul mean:
A. He and the disciples already agreed on everything so there was nothing to add,
B. He and the disciples disagreed so strongly that Paul rejected their additions to his message
C. Something else entirely
Thanks, Dr. Ehrman. I hope you’re doing well. By the way, still hoping for an episode of MJ podcast where you help untangle how many Marys, Jameses and Simons there are in the New Testament. Take care, my friend. Looking forward to your upcoming NT seminar thing.
A. At least in Paul’s view. They all agreed on Paul’s major views.
I decided to do some number crunching myself. We know from Gal 1:18-19 that James, the brother of Jesus, had been converted to the faith by the time three years had elapsed since Paul’s conversion. If Jesus died in 30CE and Paul’s experience converted him around 34CE then James was a convert by 37CE. But we know from 1 Cor 15:5-7:
“And that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”
The appearance to 500 could have been a meteor (or cloud that was shaped like a person) since we don’t know what Paul means by “appeared”. But there had to have been at least 500 Christians by 34CE since James’s conversion happened after those 500 people allegedly saw Jesus in the sky and Paul’s conversion happened after James’s conversion. So, it’s reasonable to think that by 34CE there were around 1000 or more Christians in the world.
Bart, what are your thoughts on this?
I don’t think so. for one thing, I don’t think there’s anything to support Paul’s claim that 500 people saw Jesus at once. If that were true, surely it would have been mentioned in the other Gospels or Acts. I think it must jsut be a rumor Paul had heard. (Rumors like that happen a *lot* in fervently religious circles, and always have.)
I don’t see why Roman writers, say in Italy, would know about alleged sightings of Jesus in the middle east. Why wouldn’t the other gospel writers know about either rumors or sightings of Jesus? For years after Elvis Presley’s death there were Elvis sightings by people claiming to see him alive. But no biographer of Elvis is aware of all of those reports. Additionally, Paul writes that most of them are still alive but a small percentage of them have since died. That suggests Paul had multiple contacts with that community over the years which suggests it wasn’t just a rumor.
A thousand or more Christians by 34CE should be completely reasonable especially if many followers of John the Baptist joined the Jesus movement. If the Jerusalem Church started with about 25 people, including the eleven, we can calculate what is required to have one thousand Christians in four years. That means the Jerusalem church only needs to convert 250 people per year. That means each of those original 25 only need to convert ten people per year. That is very doable in group settings.
So, I don’t see any good objection to having 1,000 Christians in four years.
I don’t see why having multiple contacts ith a community means that the stories it tells are historical? In any event, Paul never indicates where he heard about this appearance. I’d say if 250 conversions a year was feasible in the first four years then it was feasible every year; but at that rate of growth there would have been more Christians than people in the world by 100 CE. so it seems unlikely. And it should not be overlooked that non-Christian sources don’t mention even the existence of Christians for many decades. I’d
If Paul had contacts with a given Christian community over many years it seems unlikely, they would give him a collaborative lie. That doesn’t mean that those 500 people actually saw Jesus, as I mentioned they could have seen a meteor or a cloud and that would be the actual historical event.
I think the children of God cult had conversion rates comparable to 250 people per year initially. The Jerusalem church has all the earmarks of a cult given that, for example, its members where sharing everything, their wealth and so on. If Peter spoke to a crowd of 350 people and ten percent of them converted (and that happened for Peter just three times per year) then the Jerusalem church would gain 105 people per year from Peter alone! If Peter had help from just one more person, who is as successful as himself, then those two alone could easily gain about 210 people per year for the Jerusalem Church.
I wonder how many followers John the Baptist acquired and how many of them migrated to the JC. Since all of this occurred in the backwaters of the Roman empire, it’s not surprising that non-Christian sources don’t mention it.
An “untruth” is not the same as a “lie”. People say wrong things all the time (roughly 29 trillion times a day) without meaning to deceive anyone. Just yesterday someone told me that UNC has a really great football team….
I agree that the 500 people could be an untruth, but I’ve also argued it could be historical.