Talk:Pentecost

While Christian Pentecost clearly stems in part from Jewish Shavuot, I don't think that "Shavuot" is a good definition for "Pentecost". I've never heard anyone Jewish refer to "Shavout" as "Pentecost". By contrast, I've heard English-speaking Jews say both "Passover" and "Pesach", but in this case the Christian holiday is celebrating the same events. For that matter, Pentecost and Shavout do not even necessarily overlap on the calendar.

I'd say this case is more like Communion/Shabbat. The two are clearly historically related, but "Communion" is a weekly ritual commemorating the Christian Last Supper, while Shabbat is the day of rest itself, which includes a traditional meal with a couple of striking resemblances to communion (namely, the blessing and consumption of bread and wine).

On the other hand, Christian sournces may well use the terms interchangeably. If so, the definition should stand, but we should note that the usage is not a Jewish one. Maybe something like "The Jewish holiday of Shavuot, in whatever context". Evidently the name Pentecost derives from the counting of fifty days from passover to Shavuot, but again the term for this in Jewish contexts is Lag B'Omer. -dmh 19:54, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Try googling for the three terms: Pentecost, Jewish, Shavout -- it turns up many, many pages. The first few I looked through consider the terms "Shavout" "Pentecost" and "Feast of Weeks" to be interchangeable. I do know that the term "Pentecost" comes directly from the Koine Greek translation of "Shavout". --EncycloPetey 04:37, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopedic notes
I am moving the following paragraph to here since it is too encyclopaedic (and partially disputed) to keep in the main entry, but too useful to lose completely. Will replace it with a link to Wikipedia. --Eng in ear 15:32, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

According to the Law (Torah), Passover is celebrated on the 14th day of the first month Nisan, and is followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread which goes on for 7 days, from the 15th to the 21st of the month. The day after the weekly Sabbath which occurs in the week of Unleavened Bread is the day of Firstfruits or Yom Habikkurim. Counting 50 days from that, or 7 weeks and a day (hence the title "Feast of Weeks", takes place Pentecost. (Leviticus 23)

KJV
Is the KJV quotaion for the first sense (Jewish festival of Shavuot) correct? – Jberkel 09:32, 28 May 2020 (UTC)