Pentecost

Notes

• Scriptures:
  • Leviticus 23:10-17
  • Deuteronomy 16:10
  • Acts 2
• When:
  • Pentecost is the fiftieth day after First Fruits of the Barley Harvest.
  • It occurs on Sunday, Sivan 15 each year. - DSS Calendar - Outer Rings
    • First Fruits occured on the day after the Sabbath - always a Sunday of Passover week.
    • There is question as to whether it is ALWAYS Sivan 15
  • Some believe it is always Sivan 6: pentecost; Summary: “the great weight of evidence is that First Fruits and Pentecost were always intended to fall on Sundays, without regard to the day of the month they occurred”
  • Torah instructs: count seven weeks (49 days) from the day of the omer offering
    • Omer offering brought on the second day of Passover
• Name:
  • "Festival of Oaths."
  • Festival of Weeks
  • Shavuot
  • Feast of Harvest
  • Tied to First Fruits
• Customs:
  • This is the time when Essenes would rededicate themselves to the LORD and await the coming of the Messiah and the New Covenant.
  • On Shavout God communicated the “ten commandments”, Moses then went back up Mt. Sinai, remained for 40 days, got the Tablets/Tables, came down and threw them to the ground. He went back up, 80 days later on Yom Kippur, Moses came down with the new tablets/tables. Hebrew Matan Torah - the day of the gift of the Torah.

Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the Lord. You shall bring from your dwelling places two loaves of bread to be waved, made of two tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour, and they shall be baked with leaven, as firstfruits to the Lord. … And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. And you shall make a proclamation on the same day. You shall hold a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work. It is a statute forever in all your dwelling places throughout your generations. Lev 23

God established His people and poured out his Spirit.  Poured out the Holy Spirit to write the law in our hearts on Pentecost. (Acts 2)

And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Romans 8

Paul observed Pentecost. Acts 20

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14:3

RONALD D. ROBERTS, “PENTECOST,” ED. JOHN D. BARRY ET AL., THE LEXHAM BIBLE DICTIONARY (BELLINGHAM, WA: LEXHAM PRESS, 2016).

Historical Development of Pentecost

Two separate but related Pentecost traditions developed among Jews and Christians.

Pentecost in Jewish Tradition

In Jewish tradition, Pentecost retained its connection with the annual harvest, but it also became a covenant renewal festival and a celebration of God giving the law.

By the middle of the second century BC, Pentecost had become a covenant renewal celebration (Jubilees 14.1–6; 15.1–16; 22.1–9; Kee, Good News, 30–31). At some point in the Graeco-Roman period, the festival became primarily a celebration of the giving of the law (b. Shabbat 88b; Witherington, Acts, 131). A revival of Pentecost as a harvest festival has occurred among modern Jews, especially among Israelis (New Encyclopedia of Judaism, “Shavu’ot,” 707–8). Historically, two traditions for the dating of Pentecost exist. The Sadducees and Karaites understood “Sabbath” in Lev 23:15 to refer to the Saturday after Passover; thus, Pentecost would always be on a Sunday, but never on the same date every year. However, Rabbinic Judaism has understood “Sabbath” to refer to Passover; thus, since at least the second century AD, Pentecost typically begins on 6 Sivan (Wigoder, “Shavu’ot,” 707).

Pentecost in Christian Tradition

In regards to the historicity of the Pentecost narrative in Acts 2, three primary options exist:

1. The events of Acts 2 are a relatively accurate account of actual events.

2. Acts 2 is primarily a historical fiction created by Luke from numerous traditions regarding the early Christians’ experiences of the Holy Spirit.

3. Luke freely uses several traditions regarding actual events to create a unified narrative that bears some resemblance to actual historical events.

Christian tradition has remembered Pentecost as the day God sent the Holy Spirit unto the Church. In the Christian liturgical calendar, Pentecost is 50 days after Easter. It serves as a commemoration of the coming of the Holy Spirit and the founding of the Church (Unger, “Significance of Pentecost,” 169–77)