ACTS 8:3

 Q: It has been said that Saul was responsible for the death of about 5,000 Christians. Is that number accurate?

There is not even the slightest evidence that he was responsible for any death except possibly Stephen's,

 whose martyrdom is so important that over one chapter of Acts is devoted to it. The persecution under 

Saul,  according to Acts, was limited to his arresting Christians and driving them out of town. Jews under

 Roman rule were not allowed to enforce the death penalty except in extraordinary cases. Therefore it only

 happened in the rare case of mob action. In fact, the somewhat  later stoning of James (Jesus’ brother)

 was so rare that the Jewish historian Josephus even remarks on it  and says that many Jews later felt that

 the killing of such a righteous man was the cause of the fall of  Jerusalem in AD 70. There is no mention

 of the killing of 5,000 righteous men in Acts, Paul’s letters, or Jewish or Roman sources.