Population Increase During Passover. While it is impossible to determine the population of first-century Palestine or any of its regions or cities, an abundant array of sources attests to significant population increases in Jerusalem during the Feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles resulting from the influx of pilgrims to the city.152 151 Though the injunctions to appear before God three times a year are required only of adult males, many women and children made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem as well (Ant. 11.109; Luke 2:41–42; see n. 14 below). Diaspora Jews, including women (J.W. 5.199), went to Jerusalem to fulfill these commandments, but they did so less often (as little as once in their lifetime) and in fewer numbers than Jews in Palestine. Of course many never went at all. See Allen Kerkeslager, “Jewish Pilgrimage and Jewish Identity in Hellenistic and Early Roman Egypt” in Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt (ed. David Frankfurter; Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 134; Leiden: Brill, 1998), 106–07; Sanders, Judaism, 129–31. 152 For discussions of the problems involved, and various population estimates of Jerusalem and Palestine, see M. Avi-Yonah, “Historical Geography,” in S. Safrai and Stern, The Jewish People in the First Century, 2:105–10; Magen Broshi, “Estimating the Population of Ancient Jerusalem,” BAR 4, no. 2 (June 1978): 10–15; idem., “Methodology of Population Estimates: The Roman-Byzantine Period as a Case Study,” in Biblical Archaeology Today, 1990: Proceedings of the Second International Congress on Biblical Archaeology, Jerusalem, June – July 1990 (ed. Avraham Biran, Joseph Aviram, and Alan Paris-Shadur; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1993), 420–25; Joachim Jeremias, “Die Einwohnerzahl Jerusalems zur Zeit Jesu,” Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina–Vereins 66 (1943): 24–31; repr. in Abba. Studien zur neutestamentlichen Theologie und Zeitgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), 335–41; Pastor, Land and Economy, 6–8; W. According to Josephus, Archelaus’s troops killed 3,000 worshippers in the Passover of 4 B.C.E. as they sacrificed lambs (many others escaped) (J.W. 2.10–13; Ant. 17.213–218), and at least 10,000, but perhaps over 30,000, were killed in a stampede in the temple on the fourth day of a Passover celebrated between 48 and 52 C.E. (J.W. 2.223–227; Ant. 20.105–112).153 From the numbers Josephus provides, it is possible to calculate that there were at least 1,200,000 Jews at the fateful Passover of 70 C.E.154 Josephus also r...
