Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 says: “6 After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.” Since this was within days/weeks of his death, the question (assuming it happened) is how many of the 500 would have been considered Christians at the time of Jesus’s death. Since a gathering of “brethren” is implied, one could chain an argument together suggesting at least 500 Christians at that time. (And such a chaining would be more sound that a lot of other inferences Bible scholars try to do.)
Simple answer: Lions.
As mentioned above, it is not clear what Jesus’s intentions were, or whether the bible is an accurate record of what happened or what was said. While Paul and his successors were clearly set upon building a church with proper followers and dogma, it does not seem clear whether Jesus wanted to build a structure, rather just get everyone to stop sinning and await the imminent apocalypse and coming of the father as good Jews.
Regarding the witnesses of said miracles, it’s not always clear how many actually saw what happened, and how many heard about it (probably exaggerated, a la the “telephone game”) through word-of-mouth.
With the Marriage at Cana (where Christ turns water into wine), the only people who seem to have had direct knowledge of the miracle were Mary, and the servants who looked after the wine vessels. When the master of the feast drinks the wine, it’s pointed out that he “did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew)” (John 2:9). It’s not stated how many servants were present. As for the other partiers, they were probably too drunk to have even noticed (the master remarks on how the best wine–i.e., Christ’s miraculous wine–wasn’t presented until late in the festivities, at the moment when one would usually start serving the inferior wine–since everyone would be too drunk to notice the difference in quality).
Similarly, for possibly the most impressive miracle of them all–the Raising of Lazarus–it’s not clear how many people were present. Martha and Mary of Bethany are named, but the mourners comforting them are just described as “many of the Jews” (John 11:19)–a rather indeterminate number.
One could go through all the miracles in a similar manner. As for the biggest one in terms of an audience–the Miracle of the Fish and Loaves–one has to again question how many people had a good view of the miracle. So, the disciples (presumably all twelve, although Andrew and Philip are specifically named in the Gospel of John) probably had the best view–right up next to Jesus, watching him take the two fish and five loaves, bless them, and break the loaves.
But what if you’re one of the 5000 several “rows” back? You see these guys up there, talking with one another. You’re too far away to hear them talking about how little food there is, and should one of them make a run to the store? Even if you’re closer, all you can probably hear is some mumbling, and then this Jesus guy (who you’ve heard might have some good things to say, and some people even claim he’s been healing the sick–worth it to stick around to hear if he’s got anything to say) blesses some bread or something, and his buddies start passing out baskets–oh, good! They’ve brought snacks! A few minutes later, the guy next to you passes a basket to you–you grab a piece of bread–hey, it’s like the bottomless basket of breadsticks at the Olive Garden! Keep them coming! And another basket comes along… fishsticks, too? Score! Now you don’t have to fix anything to eat tonight!
I apologize for the irreverence, but in this scenario, only those people who were up there closest to Jesus would even realize he was multiplying those fish and loaves. If you’re one of the disciples, you’d have a pretty convincing demonstration of Christ’s miraculous powers. But if you’re one of the multitude, hanging around waiting to see if something interesting happens/is said, then you wouldn’t even realize something special had just happened.
To make yet another reference to the Life of Brian–you’d be like the people at the back of the crowd, straining to hear Christ’s Sermon the Mount. “Blessed are the cheese-makers?? What’s so special about them?”
Well, going by later posts in this thread, it sounds like at the time of the Crucifiction, there weren’t any ‘Christians’ as the term is now understood. The first Christians arose once Paul/Saul started his works.
But what I want to add is…later on Christians were actively persecuted so that probably kept the numbers down. I remember way back in Sunday School they scared the poops out of us kids with detailed stories of early Christians being tortured by the Romans.
I have always wondered why Lazarus, and all those people who got up out of their graves after the ressurection didn’t at least convert their families, and why they had to die again. They could have it seems to me, make a lot of converts. Nothing is said about them.
Actually, quite a bit was written about Lazarus, albeit not in the bible. IIRC, he became a saint in the Greek Orthodox church after much proselytizing all over the region.
Supposedly, Lazarus, after Jesus’s own death and resurrection, went to the Riviera coast of Gaul and, after making converts there,.became the first bishop of Massilia (Marseilles), being buried in a crypt beneath the Prison of St.-Victor. There is in fact a St. Lazare buried there, but this appears to be a later Lazarus who was consecrated Bishop of Aix in 407 and died in 411, who had spent time in Palestine before returning to his native Provence and was confused with the Biblical Lazarus.
If you want to look at it that way, taking only one branch of christianity, Roman Catholicism based in Rome, how many people actually mandate and control the church? If a sticky situation comes up - say the churches no longer supporting schools from some general coffer [which I think happened back in the 70s?] and having to actually support themselves? Who decides that it is OK to have mass in latin and vernacular? who decided to let the nuns wear something other than the penguin suits?
Realistically, the Pope can mandate anything, he could unilaterally decide that all nuns will go back to penguin suits, mass will be in latin only and it is again a sin to eat meat on fridays and for the heck of it, mondays as well … but how much does he actually delegate to teh council of Cardinals and the heads of the various orders?
So really, the Catholic church is still controlled by only a few hundred people … even though it has millions of members.