This coming Sunday marks the feast of Pentecost. In connection with that, I am posting a substantially revised version of an offering of mine at this site some years ago. As I’ll suggest, the astonishing events that we read about on that first Pentecost were, at one time, regarded as even more critical than we now think of them. Specifically, I will argue that when early Christians first told that dramatic tale, it was as a Resurrection appearance, just as clearly so as the better known stories that we tell around Easter time. The whole phenomenon raises fundamental issues of definition and understanding, and above all in how we think of that idea of Resurrection.I think the proposal is very speculative, but who knows? A resurrection appearance to 500 people does seem like a big event to misplace.[...]
For more on the events of Acts chapter 2 and their relation (or not) to the festival of Shavuot, see here and here.
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