Pentecost and a Gift of 70



I continue today with my discussion of the background to and development of the Feast of Pentecost.  As indicated in my last post, the earliest stratum of the celebration is as a harvest festival. The Jewish Encyclopedia indicates that following the Exile in Babylon (597 – 538 BCE), Shavuot (or Pentecost) came to include a celebration of the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people, especially the giving of the Law to Moses on Sinai.

Of interest is the idea or tradition that the law was given in 70 languages, presumably to correspond with what is referred to in the Book of Jubilees as the “Seventy Gentile Nations” (Jubilees 44:34). The Jewish Encyclopedia says this about this tradition:
The haggadic assumption that there are seventy nations and languages in the world is based upon the ethnological table given in Gen. x., where seventy grandsons of Noah are enumerated, each of whom became the ancestor of a nation. The earlier Christian writers also took this table as determining the number of existing nations and languages…
The word of God was pronounced on Mount Sinai in seventy languages (Shab. 88a; Ex. R. v.; comp. Acts ii. 5). The Torah was written in seventy languages in order that the nations should not be able to plead ignorance as their excuse for rejecting it (Tosef., Soṭah, viii.). Among the seventy languages the most noble is Hebrew, for in it was pronounced the creative word of God (Gen. R. xviii., xxxi.; Yalḳ., Gen. 52). The Jewish law required that every member of the Sanhedrin should have sufficient knowledge of the seventy languages to be able to do without an interpreter (Sanh. 17a; comp. Meg. 73b; Men. 65a).
[Read more: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=129&letter=N#ixzz0oPpy7S00]

The connection of this festival as a celebration of the giving of the Law in seventy languages with the giving of the Holy Spirit in order to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ in all known languages of the world is significant and obvious. The law was given on Sinai to all the world, according to later rabbinical thought. The Jewish people were given the privilege and responsibility for caring for it and living according to it as an example and a light to the nations, i.e., to all the world.

The Christian understanding of Pentecost extends this idea. The Book of Acts relates how the Holy Spirit empowers the early Christian missionaries and evangelists to take the Good News out to all parts of the known world. As these missionaries went forth, they established small communities of believers who received the Good News. These communities were the early Church. Thus, Pentecost is celebrated by Christians as the birthday of the Church – when the church was born of the Spirit.

{Images: Moses on Sinai from http://lifespathway.com/images/shavuot-724454.jpg;  tablets of the law from http://www.all-that-gifts.com/je/images/luhot_habrit.gif;  pentecost icon from http://www.archeparchy.ca/liturgy/images/pentecost_02.jpg}

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