Q: Where were the disciples when the Holy Spirit came on The Day of Pentecost?  —Pat

A: No one knows for sure where the disciples were gathered.  Some have believed that it was the upper room mentioned in Acts 1:13. Others think that the place could have been a room in the temple, a synagogue, or the temple courtyard itself. The author of an outstanding recently written commentary on Acts, Ben Witherington, offers this summary of the evidence:

“This event on Pentecost begins in a house where the disciples were ‘all together.’ It is not made clear whether this is the same location as the upper room where the Last Supper was eaten, or where the disciples were staying (cf. 1:13). There is some interesting evidence of the validity of the tradition that the place on Mount Zion now known as the Cenacle was the location where the earliest Christians met and that it quickly became a holy site, a place for ongoing Christian worship. Somewhere along the line the event migrates to the temple precincts, the only place such a crowd could or would likely be congregated, but Luke does not explain the sequence, only the events.” The Acts of the Apostles, A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (pp. 131-2).

—Dan Vander Lugt

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