Part Eight of “Does Jesus’ Jewishness Matter More Than We Realize?”
Genesis 10–11; Acts 1–3; 10; 15; 21
Have you ever heard that Pentecost was the “birthday of the church”? Or that Acts 2 is Luke’s “reversal of Babel”?
Both interpretations are common. The first is understandable as later Christian shorthand, though I think it misreads the movement from Acts 1 into Acts 2. The second is more problematic. Describing Pentecost as a “reversal of Babel” is not simply, in my judgment, an exegetical mistake. It risks distorting the theology of both Genesis and Acts.
The diversity of nations and languages is not the problem God sets out to undo in Genesis. Genesis 10 already presents the nations spread throughout their lands and speaking their languages. In Genesis 11, humanity attempts to consolidate itself: “Let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” God frustrates that project and scatters them. The scattering is judgment, but it also serves the divine purpose that humanity fill the earth.
Pentecost does not reverse that purpose. The languages do not disappear. The peoples are not gathered back into a single human society. Jews scattered among the nations hear the mighty works of God in their own languages. Pentecost does not overcome linguistic plurality. It honors it.
More importantly for Acts, calling Pentecost a reversal of Babel can distract us from the story Luke is actually telling. The people gathered in Jerusalem are not representatives of the Gentile nations being reunited. They are Jews from the Diaspora. Luke is narrating something happening to scattered Israel.
That becomes especially important when we remember what has just happened.
In the previous Dispatch, I reflected on Acts 1:6–8 and the disciples’ question to the risen Jesus: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” Jesus does not reject their expectation of Israel’s restoration. He redirects their concern about its timing. “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” He then commissions them to become his witnesses from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.
Acts 2 follows immediately.
Who Is Gathered at Pentecost?
Luke tells us that “devout Jews from every nation under heaven” are in Jerusalem. He then lists the places from which they have come: Parthia, Media, Elam, Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Egypt, Libya, Rome, Crete, and Arabia.
They come from across the known world.
But they are Jews.
They are diaspora Jews gathered in Jerusalem for a Jewish pilgrimage festival.
That matters.
Immediately before Pentecost, the disciples have asked Jesus about the restoration of Israel. They have replaced Judas and restored the Twelve, a number difficult to separate from Israel’s twelve tribes. Then, at Pentecost, Jews scattered throughout the nations are gathered in Jerusalem.
Luke is not yet telling the story of the nations streaming into a new religion.
He is telling the story of Israel.
Pentecost looks much more like a sign of Israel’s gathering from dispersion than either the birth of a community detached from Israel or a reversal of Babel.
Peter’s sermon confirms the point.
He addresses “fellow Israelites.” He interprets what has happened through Israel’s Scriptures. He proclaims Jesus as Israel’s Messiah. When his hearers ask what they should do, Peter calls them to repent and declares:
“The promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away.”
The story remains Israel’s story.
The Temple and the Restoration of Israel
Acts 3 continues in the same direction.
Peter and John go to the temple at the hour of prayer.
That detail is easy to overlook because Christian readers know where the story eventually goes. But Jesus’ followers do not act as though his death and resurrection have made Jewish worship obsolete.
They continue to worship at the temple.
After healing the man at the temple gate, Peter again speaks to “Israelites.” He calls them to repentance so that
“times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord”
and so that God may send the Messiah appointed for them, Jesus,
“whom heaven must receive until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.”
The language of restoration has not disappeared.
The question raised in Acts 1 remains alive.
Israel’s prophets continue to define the horizon of expectation.
Jesus’ followers still understand themselves within Israel’s story.
The Real Problem Comes When Gentiles Enter
The major development in Acts is not that Jesus’ Jewish followers stop living as Jews.
It is that Gentiles begin to join them.
Acts 10 makes the issue unavoidable.
Cornelius is a Gentile. Peter knows that entering his house crosses an important social boundary. Yet while Peter is speaking, the Holy Spirit falls on Cornelius and the others gathered with him.
Peter and the Jewish believers with him are astonished.
Luke tells us why:
“the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.”
The surprise is not that Jewish identity has become irrelevant.
The surprise is that Gentiles are receiving Israel’s eschatological gift without first becoming Jews.
That question comes to a head in Acts 15.
Some Jewish followers of Jesus argue that Gentiles must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses in order to be saved.
The Jerusalem council rejects that requirement.
But notice the question being debated.
No one is asking whether Jewish believers should stop living as Jews.
The issue is what should be required of Gentiles.
Peter appeals to what God has already done by giving the Holy Spirit to uncircumcised Gentiles. James appeals to Amos 9 and connects the inclusion of the nations with the restoration of David’s fallen dwelling.
The Gentiles are being included in what Israel’s God is doing.
But they do not have to become Jews in order to participate.
That is a major development.
It is not the same thing as Jews ceasing to be Jews.
By Acts 21, the Jesus movement has spread far beyond Judea.
Gentiles have been entering the movement for years. Paul has established communities throughout the eastern Mediterranean.
If Jewish identity were gradually disappearing from the movement, we might expect to see it here.
Instead, Paul arrives in Jerusalem and meets James and the elders.
They tell him:
“You see, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the law.”
These are followers of Jesus.
They are also Jews who are zealous for Torah.
James and the elders have heard reports that Paul teaches Jews living among the Gentiles to abandon Moses. They want him to demonstrate publicly that those reports are false.
Paul therefore participates in a temple purification rite.
Luke then makes the distinction explicit. The earlier decision concerning Gentiles still stands.
Gentiles are not required to become Jews.
Jewish followers of Jesus are not required to become Gentiles.
Both remain visible within the movement.
Why Jesus’ Jewishness Matters
The evidence in Acts presses back into the question of Jesus himself.
Jesus’ followers had heard him teach. They had traveled with him. They had watched what he did. They had heard him proclaim the kingdom of God. According to Luke, the risen Jesus then spent forty days teaching them about that kingdom.
What kind of community emerged from all of that?
A Jewish one.
They worship at the temple. They interpret Jesus through Israel’s Scriptures. They continue to expect Israel’s restoration. They remain embedded in Jewish communal life. And when Gentiles begin entering the movement, the question is not whether Jews must stop being Jews. The question is how Gentiles can be included without becoming Jews.
Later Christianity would become increasingly separate from Jewish communal life. Eventually Christianity and Judaism would emerge as distinct religious traditions.
But Acts does not begin there.
We should be careful not to read that later separation back into Jesus and his first followers.
If Jesus intended to leave behind a community detached from Israel, Torah, Jewish worship, and Israel’s hope, why is that intention so difficult to see in the community that knew him first?
Jesus’ Jewishness matters because the movement he left behind still understood itself as part of Israel’s story.