Original Research

A socio-historical analysis of Lukan and Johannine pneumatological conceptions

Phillemon M. Chamburuka

Received: 08 May 2020; Accepted: 02 Sept. 2020; Published: 30 Nov. 2020

Copyright: © 2020. The Author(s). Licensee: AOSIS.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This article is a socio-historical analysis of Lukan and Johannine pneumatological traditions. It is important to note that these pneumatological traditions are broad in scope and content. This article endeavours to assess the relationship between the Lukan Pentecost (Ac 2:1–13) and the so-called ‘Johannine Pentecost’ (Jn 20:22) and grapples with the reasons why the Fourth Evangelist conception of the bestowing of the Holy Spirit (Paraclete) in John 20:22 is conspicuously different from the Lukan Pentecost in Acts 2:1–13. It is imperative therefore to ascertain whether there was a Galilean Pentecost and a Judean Pentecost. This scholarly debate is far from being settled because of the differences in approaches and theological persuasions, some of which will be discussed. It is concluded that the Lukan and Johannine pneumatological traditions are distinct traditions that were developed to suit the interests and concerns of their respective communities, as well as the thematic interests of the third and fourth evangelists.

Contribution: This article provides a scholarly analysis of the relationship of Lukan and Johannine conceptions of the bestowment of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Jesus. The article gives hermeneutical insights that are vital in interpreting pneumatological passages from a socio-historical perspective which will aid preachers, seminarians and theologians as they interpret these selected passages.

Keywords: Lukan; Johannine; Pneumatology; Paraclete; Gospel of John.

Introduction

The discourse associated with Lukan and Johannine pneumatology has a long history in New Testament scholarship, and many conclusions have been drawn. However, this article may not exhaust all these debates but will analyse the major overarching contributions in Lukan and Johannine corpuses from a socio-historical perspective. For purposes of clarity, this article will give a brief summary of the Lukan Pentecost (Ac 2:1–13), briefly explore the theories associated with the so-called ‘Johannine Pentecost’ (Jn 20:22) and provide a brief background to the Old Testament conception of Pentecost. However, before we delve into the above aspects, a brief definition of socio-historical analysis (criticism) will be discussed.

Definition of socio-historical criticism

According to Ehrman (1997:145), socio-historical criticism is an exegetical method that focuses on the social context of the world behind the text, whether this is the world referred to in the text or the world in which the text was actually written. Ehrman (1997:145) asserts that by closely reading a text, one can uncover phases of a community’s history. It is important to note that socio-historical criticism is an extension of a focus on the Sitz im Leben, that is, the ‘situation in life’ or context in life which has been expounded by form critics for a long time. Perrin and Duling (1994:24) argue that socio-historical criticism is interested in describing specific historical conditions and early Christian responses to them. This method focuses on issues that include, but are not limited to, social history, attempting to trace the social changes that took place over time, class conflicts in community and marginalised groups. This method is vital in ascertaining the social history associated with the Lukan and Johannine pneumatological traits.

The meaning of Pentecost: A Jewish perspective

Brown (1992:783) contends that the word Pentecost is a feminine noun formed from the numeral πεντηκοστός, meaning fiftieth, which is found in classical Greek from Plato onwards. But in Jewish and Christian literature, the word stands for the πεντηκοστή ἡμέρα, the 50th day, referring to the festival celebrated on the 50th day after Passover (Tob 2:1; 2 Macc 12:32; Decal 160, 176; Vita 3, 12). In Deuteronomy 16:10, Pentecost is described as the Feast of Weeks. Brown (1992:783) stresses that Pentecost was the second great feast of the Jewish year, a harvest festival, when the first fruits of the wheat harvest were presented to Yahweh. It was celebrated 7 weeks after the beginning of the barley harvest (hence, the name ‘Feast of Weeks’), that is, 50 days after the Passover (hence, the name ‘Pentecost’; see Ex 23:16; 34:22; Lv 23:15–21; Nm 28:26–31; Dt 16:9–12).

Jewish thinking about Pentecost developed during the period before and after Jesus (Brown 1992:784). Pentecost became the feast of covenant renewal in Jubilees 6:17–21 (ca. 100 BCE), and probably also in the Qumran community. This theological development almost certainly meant a link between Pentecost and the covenant of Sinai (Ex 19:1; 2 Chr 15:10). The heavenly voice at Sinai (Ex 19:16–19) ‘sounded forth like the breath (pneuma) through a trumpet … the flame became articulate speech in language familiar to the audience’ (Brown 1992:784). However, Philo (Decal. 33) did not associate the Sinai revelation with Pentecost. Moreover, in Rabbinic Judaism, these two developments eventually came together. The association of Pentecost with the giving of the law became explicit. Brown (1992:784) asserts that the words of R. Johanan are frequently quoted in various forms to the effect that ‘the one voice at Sinai divided into seven voices and these into seventy languages, so that all nations heard in their own language’. It is important to note that the link between Pentecost and Sinai was not documented before the 2nd century (Brown 1992:784).

The Lukan Pentecost (Ac 2:1–13)

After giving a brief Jewish background to the meaning of Pentecost, we now focus on the Lukan Pentecost of Acts 2:1–13. According to Luke, the Spirit descended on the day of Pentecost, 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus (Ac 2:1) (Buttrick 1962:36). Luke stresses that the disciples (about 120) were together, maybe praying, waiting for the coming of the empowering Spirit, who had been promised in Acts 1:8, when the dramatic miracle occurred. According to Dunn (1970:40), the Lukan Pentecost is closely related to salvation-history, which he perceived as ‘the beginning of a new age and new covenant, not for Jesus this time, but now for his disciples’. As Jesus entered the new age and covenant by being baptised in the Spirit at the Jordan, so did the disciples follow him in the same manner at Pentecost.

Dunn (1970:40) and Bock (2007:94) stress that Luke’s use of the word πάντες [all] presupposes that all 120 disciples (not just the 12), who were in the upper room, were endowed with the Spirit. Dunn (1970:40) argues that there is no room for the view that singles out the apostles for special or exclusive endowments of the Spirit and makes it possible to regard the apostles as the sole ‘channel’ of the Spirit to others; one same gift was common to all.

Dunn (1970:44) stresses that the fact that the Pentecost is the climax of Jesus’ ministry for disciples should not blind us into thinking that Pentecost is merely a continuation of what happened before. It is important to note that Pentecost is a new beginning – the inauguration of the new age of the Spirit which was not experienced before in the history of the early Church (Dodd 1963:26). Moreover, it is imperative to note that Pentecost marks the dramatic birth or conception of the church (Dunn 1970:49–51). Luke shows that the mission of the Christian church, like the ministry of Jesus, is dependent on the coming of the Spirit (Gaebelein 1981:269). Gaebelein (1981:270) contends that Luke’s stress on Pentecost as the day when the miracle took place suggests that (1) the Spirit’s coming is in continuity with God’s purpose in giving the law and (2) the Spirit’s coming signals the essential difference between the Jewish faith and the commitment to Jesus; for whereas the former is Torah-centred and Torah-directed, the latter is Christ-centred and Spirit-directed.

Dunn (1975:140) asserts that because Pentecost was later considered to be a feast of renewal, the disciples of Jesus were anticipating a pneuematological renewal and expectant of the eschatological manifestation of the divine. Dunn (1975) argues that:

This is more likely in view of the fact that Pentecost marked the end of the festival which began with the Passover; it was regarded as the closing feast of the Passover. It would be very natural if the disciples cherished some hope that the sequence of events which had begun on the Passover would end on the day of Pentecost – that the day of the feast which had been marked by the death and resurrection of Jesus would itself be the last great day of the Lord. The gathering together of the disciples in the sort of numbers mentioned in Acts 1–2 and the increasing anticipation and psychological preparedness which presumably led up to the experience of Spirit and glossolalia certainly makes it more than plausible that the climax was reached on the day of the feast itself, the hopes of the last age beginning to be fulfilled in the outpouring of the Spirit. (p. 142)

In the next section, we will examine the key symbols that are associated with the Lukan Pentecost.

Key symbolism mentioned in relation to Pentecost (Ac 2:1–13)

Luke uses key symbols in recounting what happened on the day of Pentecost, which ought to be delineated exegetically. The symbols include the number of people present, the venue of the experience, wind, tongues of fire and glossolalia:

• Luke states that the outpouring of the Spirit happened when 120 disciples were gathered at one place (Ac 2:1). According to Dunn (1975:146), the figure of 120 mentioned in Acts 1:15 has a somewhat artificial ring, but Luke does add ὡσεὶ [about] before the figure 120, which is most likely to be a reasonable estimate on an annual festival such as Pentecost.
• Luke does not specify the actual rendezvous of the Pentecost; he only states that the disciples were in one place – τὸν οἶκον [the house] (Ac 2:2). According to Gaebelein (1981:269), many scholars interpret τὸν οἶκον to be a reference to the Jerusalem temple because the term οἶκος was at times used to refer to the temple (Is 6:4; Ac 7:47; Vita 65–75). Moreover, the Gospel of Luke states that Jesus’ disciples ‘stayed continually at the temple, praising God’ (Lk 24:53). Their being at the temple gave them an advantage and an opportunity to address many pilgrims (Gaebelein 1981:269). However, it is most probable that the disciples were in the same upper room mentioned in Acts 1:13, as it remains difficult to ascertain that it was at the temple rather than at John Mark’s house, as suggested by Hargreaves (1990: 16).
• It is important to note that Luke presents the scene of the outpouring of the Spirit accompanied with visible and audible signs such as wind. The Lukan usage of the word ‘wind’ as a sign of God is etymologically linked with the Hebrew word ruach and the Greek word πνεῦμα, which may be translated to mean either wind or spirit, depending on the context (Gaebelein 1981:270). Many scholars, including Bock (2007:94), Brown (1992:784), Dunn (1975:146) and Gaebelein (1981:270), concur that Luke wanted to depict Pentecost (Ac 2:1–13) in line with the rabbinic legends of the Sinai theophany (Decal. 33) and Ezekiel 37:9–14, where wind is associated with a hierophany.
• The wind occurs simultaneously with tongues of fire in Luke’s narrative of Pentecost. Fire was a common phenomenon that symbolised divine manifestation in the worldview of the Jews (1st century AD) (Ex 3:2–6; 13:21; 24:17; 40:38) (Gaebelein 1981:270). Some scholars, including Bruce (1988) and Keener (1997), postulate that the fire that is mentioned by Luke at Pentecost was prophesied by John the Baptist (Lk 3:16). However, Dunn (1975:148) suggests that this conclusion is an overstatement, because, from a Lukan perspective, Jesus radicalised and gave a new meaning for this prophecy (Lk 12:49–49; Ac 1:5) with reference to eschatological judgement. Gaebelein (1981:270) argues that Luke appears to insinuate that in the past Israel was dependent of the old covenant characterised by divine presence, which was perceived in a corporate sense, but the Pentecost ushered a new dispensation in which the Spirit is manifest in individuals and brings a personal relationship with God.

Analysis of Lukan glossolalia at Pentecost

According to Luke, glossolalia first appeared in the Christian church at Pentecost, after the apostles and those associated with them became convinced, after much thinking and prayer (Ac 1:24), that the risen Jesus was God’s anointed (Ac 2:36), that the messianic age had begun (Ac 2:29–33) and that they were the people of the new creation inheriting all the promises made to the people of the old covenant (Ac 2:16–17; 3:25) (Buttrick 1962:671). Glossolalia seems to have been the most imperative evidence of the Spirit’s indwelling (Buttrick 1962:671). However, Bruce (1988) stresses that:

[G]lossolalia or any other ecstatic utterance is no evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit, because in apostolic times it was necessary to provide criteria for deciding whether such utterances were of God or not, just as it had been in Old Testament times. (p. 52)

For instance, Paul clearly instructed the Corinthians that: ‘no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit’ (1 Cor 12:3). A few decades later, the Johannine community insisted on a more implicit test: ‘every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in flesh is of God’ (1 Jn 4:2) (Bruce 1988:53).

Kittel (ed. 1987:724) asserts that the awareness of the speakers (at Pentecost) seems to be lost as in the case of drunkards (Ac 2:13). There is seemingly neither an orderly succession of individual speakers nor an overriding concern for the hearers. Dunn (1975:149) stresses that this has led some scholars, such as Haenchen (1987) and Fitzmyer (1981), to question whether we have here a miracle of speech or a miracle of hearing. Dunn (1975:149) argues that: ‘if some heard their own language while others heard drunken-like babbling, it would presumably mean that any miracle lay in the hearing rather than the speaking’. Moreover, this observation calls for an examination on whether the Lukan glossolalia is either intelligible or unintelligible.

According to Cooper-Rompato (2010:1), the Lukan presentation of tongues is commonly referred to as xenoglossia or xenolalia. The term xenoglossia comes from the Greek words ξένος [foreign] and γλῶσσα [tongue], which mean ‘speaking in a foreign tongue or language’. Xenolalia comes from the Greek words ξένος [foreign] and λαλεῖν [speaking], which also means ‘speaking in a foreign language’. Cooper-Rompato (2010:1) asserts that xenolalia means the ability to spontaneously speak in a foreign language without first having learned it, or even having been exposed to it. This contention supports the notion that the Lukan tongues were intelligible because those who witnessed it were able to hear their native languages. There is an assumption among some Pentecostals that the gift of xenolalia was given to the disciples on the day of Pentecost for the specific purpose of allowing a largely uneducated group of people to preach the Gospel to visitors to Jerusalem, whose foreign languages they did not know (Iccrs n.d.).

Buttrick (1962:306) argues that the miracle (Pentecost) of simultaneous translation, described by Luke in Acts 2:5–11, is told in a manner that parallels the Jewish tradition about the marvellous manifestations of divine power that accompanied the giving of the law at Sinai. According to this legend, there were 70 tongues of fire on the mountain, representing the 70 languages of the 70 nations of the earth (Buttrick 1962:306). Haenchen (1987) is more specific in his assertion that:

[A]ll rationalizing expedients are to be eschewed; the miracle of tongues was a literary construction built up out of reports of glossolalia as in Corinth and rabbinic legends of the law-giving at Sinai. (p. 56)

In essence, scholars such as Fitzmyer (1981) and Haenchen (1987) conclude that the Pentecost was a Lukan construction to suit his theme of universalism, in which his theological aim was to present the dramatic birthday of the church in terms symbolising the universal embrace of Christianity (Dunn 1975:150).

Be that as it may, Lukan pneumatology clearly stresses that the church was not properly brought into existence until the day of Pentecost (Ac 2:1–13). Dunn (1970:51) argues that, apart from everything else, the vital experience and possession of the Spirit, the constitutive life principle and hallmark of the church were lacking. Dunn (1970:51) contends that one cannot say ‘Christian’ without also saying ‘church’; the non-existence of the church prior to Pentecost means that there were no Christians properly preaching before Pentecost. This position of Dunn (1970:51) carries with it a Lukan bias, which states that the church was not in existence until Pentecost. This article concurs with Conzelmann (1960:14–16) that Luke strives to present salvation-history in three epochs, that is, the period of the law and the prophets, the period of Jesus and the disciples and the period of the church marked by Pentecost (Ac 2:1–13).

In Luke’s understanding of salvation-history, the 120 before Pentecost were in a position analogous to that of Jesus before baptism in the Jordan. They were in the old epoch of salvation, and whilst they may well have experienced many of the blessings of the old age and covenant, they were still, according to Dunn (1970:52), outside the new age – on the grounds that, until Pentecost, the new age and covenant had not come into operation for any but Jesus. For Dunn (1970:52), only at Pentecost did the apostles enter into that relationship with the Father, which was made through the death, resurrection and exaltation of the Son, and which was effected through the ascension gift of the Spirit, and whatever their old covenant experience of the Spirit, it was only at Pentecost that they entered into what Paul might have called the Abba relationship with the Father, in which the filial relationship of Jesus to God is repeated in the experience of the Christian through his or her reception of the Spirit of the Son (Dunn 1970:52).

It has emerged that Luke is tendentious, that is, he has a tendency of embellishing theological views with hyperbole. The historicity of the Lukan Pentecost is shrouded in controversy. However, the view that Pentecost was created by Luke to mark a dramatic birth of the church is more convincing. We also noted that Luke oversimplified glossolalia by regarding it as comprehensible, in order to suit his theme of universalisation (that every nationality who was present at the day of Pentecost was able to hear his or her language being spoken by the apostles). Moreover, Luke linked baptism in the Spirit with glossolalia but did not clearly demonstrate that every Christian in the early church spoke in tongues or was obliged to do so.

Analysis of the Johannine Pentecost

This segment will briefly explore and analyse the so-called ‘Johannine Pentecost’, which is at times referred to as the ‘Galilean Pentecost’, as depicted in John 20:22. This text states that Jesus bestowed the Holy Spirit upon the disciples during the post-Easter appearance in Galilee. It is important to note that there are several theories that account for the meaning and purpose of John 20:22 in Johannine pneumatological tradition, let alone its relationship with the Lukan Pentecost in Acts 2:1–13. This article will focus on the three major debates: (1) John 20:22 is reminiscent of the creation story in Genesis 2:7; (2) the Johannine Pentecost is dependent on the Lukan Pentecost, hence they can be harmonised, and (3) the Johannine Pentecost is independent of the Lukan Pentecost.

Scholars such as Beasley-Murray (1987:381), Brodie (1997:569), Brown (1988:99), Carson (1991:513), Haenchen (1984:211), Keener (2003:1205) and Lindars (1986:211) argue that the bestowment of the Holy Spirit in John 20:22 has close parallels with the Yahwist narrative in Genesis 2:7. Lindars (1986:612) asserts that the Greek term ἐνεφύσησεν [breathed], which is used in John 20:22, occurs only here in the New Testament. Nearly all commentators see in it a verbal allusion to Genesis 2:7, where Yahweh formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed [ἐνεφύσησεν] into his nostrils the breath of life. The same verb is also used in Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones (Ezk 37:9) (Lindars 1986:612). Therefore, this suggests that John sees the constitution of the church after the resurrection as a kind of new creation. They are created anew as well as given a task to perform. Indeed, they cannot perform it unless they have this inbreathing (Lindars 1986:612).

Keener (2003:1205) contends that Jesus, as the giver of the Spirit, is a recurrent theme in the Gospel, starting in John 1:33 and climaxing here (e.g. Jn 3:5; 7:37–39; 19:30, 34). This emphasis serves an important Christological function (cf. Jn 3:34) because, as the giver of God’s Spirit, Jesus himself is divine (especially here, where his action evokes God’s creative work of breathing life into Adam). In biblical imagery, only God would baptise in his Spirit (as in Jn 1:33; 3:5) or pour out his Spirit (Is 42:1; 44:3; 61:1; 63:11; Ezk 36:27; 37:14; 39:29; Jl 2:28–29; Hg 2:5; Zch 4:6; 12:10) (Keener 2003:1205). Beasley-Murray (1987) opines that:

Symbolism is a clear application of the notion of resurrection, and that in an eschatological context (deliverance for the kingdom). It is not surprising that it came to be viewed as a representation of resurrection in the time of the kingdom. In v 22 the symbolic action primarily represents the impartation of life that the Holy Spirit gives in the new age, brought about through Christ’s exaltation in death and resurrection. New age and new creation are complementary ideas in eschatological contexts. Strictly speaking, one should not view this as the beginning of the new creation but rather as the beginning of the incorporation of man into that new creation which came into being in the Christ by his incarnation, death, and resurrection, and is actualized in man by the Holy Spirit (cf. 2 Cor 5:17). (p. 381)

The second school of thought stresses that the Johannine Pentecost is historically dependent on or compatible with the Lukan Pentecost. There are slight differences regarding this theory; however, the bottom line is that most of these scholars conclude that the Fourth Evangelist was conscious of the Lukan narrative in Acts 2:1–13. The major reason for the assumed thematic dependence is that the Lukan Pentecost predates the Johannine Pentecost and therefore presupposing that the Gospel of John must have introduced the bestowment of the Holy Spirit soon after Easter as the first initial experience (which is a lesser impartation of the Holy Spirit), but that the disciples would await for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as portrayed by Luke (Ac 2:1–13). Carson (1991:512), for example, asserts that Calvin and other reformers interpreted John 20:22 as a process by which the disciples were sprinkled with the grace of the Spirit but not saturated with his full inducement of power until Acts 2:1–13. Carson (1991:512) further argues that, by Jesus’ exhalation, the disciples received the gift of the word, including the gift of tongues, which was then not manifested until Pentecost. Keener (2003:1197) contends that John retains a distinction between Easter and a later Pentecost, perhaps by John 20:22 symbolically pointing forward to the historical Pentecost. However, the view that Jesus merely symbolically promises the Spirit here does not pull together an adequate narrative climax on the literary-theological level of John’s earlier promises of the Spirit. Certainly, the verb for Jesus breathing on the disciples means more than mere exhalation (Keener 2003:1198). It is important to note that this perception is an attempt to harmonise the seeming contradictions between the Johannine and the Lukan narratives. It is also a reading of the bible in a linear sense, in which one reads a Johannine narrative with a Lukan narrative in mind.

For some scholars like Beasley-Murray (1987:382) it is plausible and theologically sound that there was one clearly pronounced Pentecost in Acts 2:1–13 and that the Johannine narrative is a shadow of the Lukan Pentecost. For these scholars, the Lukan Pentecost is a fulfilment of the promise of the Paraclete in John 16:7, which would only come if Jesus has gone to the Father. The other argument here is that the Paraclete cannot be bestowed upon the disciples soon after resurrection because Jesus is yet to ascend to heaven. This assertion is again an attempt to harmonise the Johannine Pentecost and the Lukan Pentecost. Carson (1991:513) asserts that John 20:22 is theological, not chronological, and thus there is no question of two bestowals of the Spirit, one at Easter and the other at Pentecost.

The third school of thought argues that the Johannine Pentecost is independent of the Lukan Pentecost. Morris (1981:847) argues that the relation of John 20:22 with what happened on the day of Pentecost (Ac 2:1–13) is obscure. He asserts that Luke thought that the Spirit was not bestowed until 10 days after the ascension, whereas John thought of this gift as taking place on the evening of the day of resurrection. The circumstances of the two gifts are completely different (Morris 1981:847). Furthermore, Keener (2003:1199) is of the opinion that the question whether John intends John 20:19–23 as an equivalent to Luke’s Pentecost presupposes the question whether he knows about Luke’s version of Pentecost. This assertion is key to the topic under discussion in this article because, if the author of John knew the Lukan Pentecost, it implies that he chose to ignore it or downplayed it, which is unlikely. Barrett (1978:570) argues that it does not seem possible to harmonise John 20:22 and Acts 2:1–13 because of the divergences of these traditions. Barrett (1978) contends that:

[T]he existence of divergent traditions of the constitutive gift of the Spirit is not surprising; it is probable that to the first Christians the resurrection of Jesus and his appearances to them, his exaltation, and the gift of the Spirit, appeared as one experience, which only later came to be described in separate elements and incidents. (p. 570)

Moreover, Dunn (1975:136–137) argues that it is plausible that there were more than one Pentecost. He opines that the Lukan narration of the Pentecost had a special bias on the outpouring of the Spirit in Jerusalem. Luke puts less emphasis on Mark 16:7, which presupposes a post-Easter appearance of Jesus in Galilee but instead focuses on the command that the disciples were to stay in Jerusalem until they were bestowed by the Holy Spirit (Lk 24.49; Ac 1:4) (Dunn 1975:137).

The above argument by Dunn is convincing because it gives us a clear picture of how Luke shaped his sources to suit his interests, especially his theme of universalism. We also note that there are multiple attestations that there were Galilean post-Easter appearances (christophanies), as attested by Mark 16:7, Matthew 28:16–17 and John 21:1–25. Dunn (1975:137) argues that there is a high possibility that there was a Galilean Pentecost, which was independent of the Lukan Pentecost. This assertion even gives room to other pneumatological experiences such as the Johannine Pentecost. We also get insight from Acts 19:2–6 that Apollos, a renowned preacher of the Gospel, was not aware of the Pentecost in Jerusalem (baptism in the Spirit) but was only acquainted with the baptism of John. Assuming that this account is historical, it shows that the Lukan Pentecost was not known by all Christians in the early church as what Luke presents to his readers. It further shows that the early church pneumatological experiences were not homogenous, as alluded to by Luke.

Conclusion

It has emerged that Luke is tendentious, that is, he has a tendency of embellishing theological views with hyperbole. The historicity of the Lukan Pentecost is shrouded in controversy. However, the view that Pentecost was created by Luke to mark a dramatic birth of the church is more convincing. We also noted that Luke oversimplified glossolalia by regarding it as comprehensible, in order to suit his theme of universalisation (that every nationality who was present at the day of Pentecost was able to hear his or her language being spoken by the apostles). Moreover, Luke linked baptism in the Spirit with glossolalia but did not clearly demonstrate that every Christian in the early church spoke in tongues or was obliged to do so. On the contrary, the Johannine Pentecost has its own problems. It has emerged that the Fourth Evangelist could have been indirectly influenced by the Lukan Pentecost, but he maintained his emphasis on the continuity of Jesus’ ministry, suffering, exaltation, appearances and ascension and bestowment of the Holy Spirit. However, we can conclude that the Lukan and Johannine pneumatological conceptions had overlaps, but these traditions are distinct because they were developed in different Christian communities to suit different theological interests. We can talk of unity and diversity associated with these pneumatological traditions. Therefore, a linear reading of the Lukan and the Johannine Pentecosts has problems because it is a mere attempt to harmonise different pneumatological conceptions.

Acknowledgements

The author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this research article.

P.M.C. is the sole author of this research article.

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author.

References