Historical Epistemology and Pentecostal Origins: History and Historiography in Ethiopian Pentecostalism

This article revisits the issue of historiography in Pentecostal studies, seeking to connect this debate to recent theories of history coming from postcolonial and poststructuralist thought. I argue that the historian of Pentecostalism should seek not only to reconstruct past events, but, more than that, to offer a historical analysis of Pentecostal historiography. By drawing on four related theoretical insights into history and applying them to a concrete example from Ethiopian Pentecostalism, I aim to contribute to the epistemological reflection of Pentecostal historiography.