Five Thousand Converts?

QUESTION: Explain Acts 4:4, "And the number of the men was about 5,000."

ANSWER: The Am. Revision has, "came to be about 5,000." This has been understood as the sum total of adult male believers up to that date, for the Greek word for men excludes women and children. The 20th Century version reads thus: "The number of men alone mounted up to some five thousand." But there are very eminent scholars  who  say that there was on that day a fresh accession of 5,000 men exclusively. This view is held by such as Chrysostom, Jerome, and. Augustine. The Greek verb, "came to be," instead of "was," seems to be against this interpretation.

—  Steele's Answers p. 140, 141.