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Acts describes the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost, a festival celebrated in the Second Temple period as the time when Abraham’s descendants were elected as God’s people, following a similar tradition found in Jubilees.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Jubilees 22:9
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
7 'And now I give thanks to You, my God, because You have caused me to see this day: look, I am one hundred and seventy-five years, an old man and having lived a full life, and all my days have been peace to me. 8 The sword of the adversary has not overcome me in all that You have given me and my children all the days of my life until this day. 9 My God, may Your mercy and Your peace be upon Your servant, and upon the descendants of his sons, so that they may be to You a chosen nation and an inheritance from among all the nations of the earth from now on to all the days of the generations of the earth, to all the ages.' 10 And he called Jacob and said: 'My son Jacob, may the God of all bless you and strengthen you to do righteousness, and His will before Him, and may He choose you and your descendants so that you may become a people for His inheritance according to His will always. And you, my son, Jacob, come close and kiss me.'
Date: 170–125 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Acts 2:4
New Testament
1 Now when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like a violent wind blowing came from heaven and filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And tongues spreading out like a fire appeared to them and came to rest on each one of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them. 5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven residing in Jerusalem. 6 When this sound occurred, a crowd gathered and was in confusion because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7 Completely baffled, they said, “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans?
Date: 70–90 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... This mighty act of God occurs about ten days after Jesus’s ascension, on the Jewish Feast of Pentecost. The timing is significant in two distinct ways. Originally this feast was a time for Israel to bring the firstfruits of its harvest to God in anticipation of the whole crop that would be gathered in (Exodus 23:16; Deuteronomy 16:9–12). God chooses this day to give the Spirit, which is the firstfruits of the coming kingdom of God (compare Romans 8:23). By the second century before Christ, the Feast of Pentecost had lost its original focus as a harvest festival. Instead, it celebrated the promise God had given to Abraham, that his descendants “might become an elect people ... and an inheritance from all of the nations of the earth from henceforth and for all the days of the generations of the earth forever.” (This description of the Feast of Pentecost comes from Jubilees 22:9, a Jewish document written in the second century BC) Thus, in Jesus’s day the Feast of Pentecost celebrated the covenant renewal of Israel and the inclusion of the nations within the covenant made between God and Abraham. Now, at this Feast of Pentecost, the Spirit comes in fulfillment of that expectation and hope ..."
Craig G. Bartholomew and Michael W. Goheen, The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014), 188–189.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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