Of Pentecost and Pentecostals

I am still thinking about The Day of Pentecost.  That’s not a bad thing.  It is an extraordinarily important day in the life of the church.  In fact, for the first several hundred years of church history Pentecost, not Easter, was the great spring festival.  The gift of the Holy Spirit and the universality of its importance overshadowed even the Celebration of the Resurrection in the liturgical life and practice of the church.  So, it is a day that deserves more than passing mention.

I must admit, though that it is also a day that confuses us a bit.  We hear words like “Pentecostal” and we think of enthusiasts and speaking in tongues and somewhat fundamental theological positions.  These are not always accurate assessments, but this is what frequently comes to mind.  Mainline Christianity has allowed the more emotion-driven arm of the church to highjack terminology that rightly belongs to all of us.  We are all “Pentecostal” if we are Trinitarian at all.  We do not subordinate the Holy Spirit to the other Persons of the Holy Trinity.  We do not isolate God-people as “Creatorists.”  We do not cede the name of Jesus to the few.  So, why should “Pentecostal” be a description that puts middle-of-the-road Christians ill at ease?

I understand that there is a certain avoidance of “guilt by association.” A lot of hard-core, right-wing folks who identify themselves as Christians sometimes take extreme religious and political stances with which moderates and liberals are uncomfortable.  Some thinking seems to take the position of “If that is Pentecostal, then I want no part of it.”

A similar avoidance response can be found in regard to the “speaking in tongues” phenomenon that many Pentecostal groups exhibit.  This is odd, because the linguistic miracle of Acts 2 was that the peoples of the known world heard the gospel proclamation in their own native language.  It was a miracle of understanding, of comprehension, and of unity.  The glossolalia, the speaking in ecstatic (and unintelligible) languages of 1 Corinthians 12 and of modern Pentecostal practice is the polar opposite of anything that occurred on the biblical Day of Pentecost.  To label practitioners of “speaking in tongues” as Pentecostal from a biblical point of view is inaccurate at best.

So, I am on a campaign to re-habilitate “Pentecostal.”  Because, even lacking the gift of speaking in tongues, I am one.

Re-visiting the Tower of Babel

The Old Testament reading for this past Sunday, the Day of Pentecost, is Genesis 11:1-9, which is the story of the building of the Tower of Babel.  As Old Testament reading for the day, it is background for the linguistic miracle at Pentecost.  As God confused the language of people in the primeval stories so God unifies people as those in Jerusalem hear the gospel proclamation “each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.”  (Acts 2:6)

I have always been curious about the proper name – Babel – in this story from a chicken-or-egg perspective.  Did the Hebrew word come into the English language as a cognate, or did English scholarship impose a term on its translation?  Or is it an interesting (and confusing) accident? 

Turns out that there was a Babylonian tower temple north of the Marduk temple, which in Babylonian was called Bab-ilu (“Gate of God”).  The Hebrew form is Babel, or Bavel. The similarity in pronunciation of Babel and balal (“to confuse”) led to the play on words in Genesis 11:9.   This is according to The Encyclopedia Britannica.

So, problem solved.

I still marvel at the way scripture comments on itself.  One of the oldest tales in scripture finds its reflection in a work that dates to the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple.  In like fashion, as the Acts 2 narrative progresses it interprets Joel 2, that some scholars date to the eighth century BCE.  These are long periods of separation to be sure.  But sometimes the work of scripture takes a long time to percolate.

Thoughts on The Day of Pentecost

We have just observed the Feast of the Day of Pentecost.  Big day.  Great day.  But, as we examine the text critically, logistically and descriptively, we have a problem.  When you hear the Pentecost story and visualize it in your mind, what does it look like?   I ask this because the description is a bit confusing.  I think a lot of us see the first part of the story happening in the upper room.  But Acts does not say that these disciples were hiding.  Kinda hard to hide 120 people.  If we move backward a bit, Acts 1 has the account of the selection of Matthias as the replacement for Judas.  This takes place in an upper room, but there is no indication that they are hiding, or in fear.  There is also a break in the telling.  The election of the new member of the Twelve seems to have taken place pretty close to the time of Jesus’ Ascension.  That event is forty days after Easter. 

Our story today commences with the notation, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.”  Pentecost is fifty days after Passover, which coincides with Easter, so it is ten days more or less after the last event in Luke’s narrative.  In verse 2, the sound of the great rushing wind fills the entire house where they were sitting.”  Is it the same house?  Is it the same room in the same house?  We just don’t know.

Then, the noise of the wind and the disciples’ testimony draws a crowd.   And Peter addresses the people.  Have they come inside?  Or have Peter and the rest gone outdoors, perhaps even to a different location?  Is Peter speaking from the front porch?  We just don’t know – not from the biblical account.

When the people come together, they are identified as religious pilgrims who have come to Jerusalem to participate in the Feast of Weeks.  So, coming from all points between Jerusalem and Rome, the people represent a lot of languages.  And, everyone who came to wherever the apostles were heard the gospel in their native language.  But anyone who was in the city for the feast would have spoken Aramaic (the language of the Jews) or Greek (the common language of the Roman Empire).  Then again, when Peter speaks, he addresses “Men of Judea, and all who live in Jerusalem…”  So, he understands the audience to be not travelers, but residents.  So again, they would not require speaking in other languages in order to understand the apostolic proclamation. 

We are not going to resolve this conundrum today.  But we have to admit that there is cause for head-scratching here.  This is not to deny or refute any portion of the narrative.  It is probably the case that Luke was relying on multiple sources (he states plainly in his introductions that he himself is not an eyewitness) and has made little effort to reconcile those voices.  Also, it needs to be said that none of these things carry great weight in the story.  But, the more we know about text and context, the greater our opportunity for understanding.

I wonder what it looked like?