gstafleu

It is sometimes said in this forum that the study of early Christianity is of necessity a soft science to which the strict standards of the harder sciences are not applicable. That this is not necessarily so is shown by sociologist Rodney Stark in his book The Rise of Christianity.

In Chapter one he starts by asking if "miraculous conversions" or even just mass conversions, are necessary to explain the observed growth rate of Christianity in the first few centuries. The "observations" are taken from a variety of scholars in the field. For example he says "The projections are also extremely consistent with Graydon F. Snyder's (1985) assessment of all known archeological evidence of Christianity during the first three centuries."

Stark shows that neither miracles nor mass conversions are necessary, because a growth rate of 40% per decade (or 3.42% per year) will do the trick. He finds this "very encouraging [...] since it is exceedingly close to the average growth rate of 43% per decade that the Mormon church has maintained over the past decade". Scary thought, that.

He starts with a conservative estimate of 1000 Christians, and gets the following results:
In case you think 1,000 in 40CE is too much, remember that thanks to the magic of exponential growth, the numbers double every 20 years. So putting the number at only 500 in 40CE (or shifting the number of 1,000 to 60 CE) only shifts the whole thing 20 years.

So, we have some "hard" results here. First, miracles are shown to be unecessary. Second, the growth rate used has been observed in the field (those scary Mormons). Third, given this pattern, there is no reason to assume that Constantine's conversion led to Christians becoming a majority. Rather, as Stark puts it, "Constantine's conversion would be better seen as a response to the massive exponential wave in progress, not as its cause." Or, in case somebody in the southerly mountains is asleep, it is not necessary to postulate any actions by either Constantine or Eusebius in order to explain the numbers observed in the 4th century.

Hard science can work even in BC&H. Whodathunk.

Gerard Stafleu

eheffa

Exactly what evidence do we have for the existence of the Christian movement prior to the fall of Jerusalem?

- quick answer - There is no evidence.

-evan

Transient

but this is all conjecture isn't it?
We have no idea really if there were "christians" at all in those early centuries, at least ones that would be recognizable by 4th century standards.
We certainly have no idea whether there were 1000 "christians" in 40ad.
All conjecture like just about any other analysis for that time period with respect to christianity.
If all religions exploded with the same graphs then the worlds populations would not contain them today maybe - has anyone projected those figures forward to 2008?
It is all a waste of time anyway - graph projections are mostly guesswork.

mountainman

Dear gstafleu,

Hard science requires hard (unambiguous monumental and/or documentary) evidence which is not present in this report. In fact, we have no hard evidence for the epoch in question. Please cite some if you think I am mistaken. The problem that Stark has to face with these demographics is that the archaeologists have not corroborated the existence of one single christian in the period. Why the millions of distinctive undergound members of the cult have hitherto evaded detection of archaeological research is a mystery which Stark needs to address. Until Stark does this, the evidence is soft conjecture, bloated by an unreasonable will and pressing authority to believe in the literature of Eusebius.

Best wishes,


Pete

Toto

Stark seems to rely on Graydon Snyder's Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine (or via: amazon.co.uk), and also accepts the history in Acts as having some relation to history.

Roger Pearse

I'm not sure why this is controversial, but all the Christian writers from NT times to 200 AD are freely available online here. Have a read of vol. 1.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Transient

And we just have to trust that the catholic church did not fudge some of these writings by their so-called "fathers"?
I have no reason to trust the catholic church and every reason not to trust them.

2-J

Has anyone read this? Does it present a compelling case?

gstafleu

The point of the exercise is to show that, if one assumes the values for numbers of early Christians that many "mainstream" scholars do assume (rightly or wrongly), then one does not need to assume either miracles or mass conversions to explain the numbers--something many mainstream scholars apparently do assume (BTW, Stark quotes many more scholars than just Snyder, I just didn't reproduce all his references).

The evidence we have for the first few decades is no doubt scarce and mostly based on mainstream interpretation of Paul's letters (mainstream dating of Paul himself, some guesses about the size of his audience, etc.). Using this "data" it turns out that the growth of Christianity can be explained via normal exponential growth, using values that have been observed in the field. The fact that the early data is uncertain does NOT invalidate this: it would only be invalidated by actual data from the first decades that contradicts the assumptions. IOW, if you say "we have no data" then that "we" includes you as well!

Gerard Stafleu

Roger Pearse

Such a conspiracy theory would apply equally to every piece of literature either of us have ever read.

A: "Julius Caesar was Jesus"
B: "But we have Caesar's works"
A: <gleefully> "Ah, yes, but clearly the Jews/Catholics/Masons/Establishment/Communists/Nazis/They have hidden the facts."

To which B will reply, if he is wise:

B: "If all the facts that would support your assertion have been hidden, on what solid evidence can your theory possibly rest?"

All the best,

Roger Pearse