There are two Pentecost traditions in the gospels. The first one, in John 20, has Jesus bequeath the Spirit on the same day as the Resurrection. Then, in Acts 2, we have the vivid version which is celebrated in our liturgical calendar. The word “Pentecost”, from the Greek word meaning “fiftieth”, was first given in the Old Testament to the Feast of Weeks, Shavuot, falling on the fiftieth day after Passover. Christians celebrate Pentecost on the fiftieth day after Easter Sunday and at the end of the seventh week.

Numbers matter in the Bible. In the Old Testament, 50 was the year of jubilee because it was rare for people to live beyond their fiftieth birthday. Of the many features of a jubilee year, three were consistent: slaves were set free; debts were cancelled; and fields for crops were allowed to lie fallow. This meant there was no such thing as lifetime slavery among the Israelites; that they aimed for no cross-generational poverty; and that they cared for the environment.