I don’t think there is any more need to parse out Jesus’ breathing on them and saying “Receive ye the Holy Ghost”, than there is to parse out “And God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul”, from Genesis.
The two events are innately parallel, in my view. In the first event, man was born from below; in the second, from above. In the first event, man was born, of the earth, earthy; in the second, born again, of the Spirit, spiritually.
In other words, I believe the beginning of a new category of mankind (we call them Christian, born-again, believers) began then and there. Pentecost was a second sovereign work of additional grace, and added a transcendent dimension of empowerment to accomplish the sustained increase of the Body of Christ.
This is my best sense of it, and I base my life on it. I like the parallels and symmetries of it.
Thanks for the effort spent in the linguistic rendering of these words, by the way.
I like your insight on that.
I never thought of it that way before.
Actually, I felt a strong urge to do so, because many readers (and some preachers) take this to mean that these disciples received the Holy Ghost ahead of everyone else. That, of course, was not so, because the coming of the Holy Spirit as another Comforter (of the same kind) was not yet, according to John's account of Jrsus' counsel at the Last Supper:
"But I Myself am telling you* The Truth. It is expedient for you* that I Myself depart~. For if (and it may be) I not depart, the Paraklete shall not come to you* " (Jn. 16:7 APT; keys as before).
Actually, I neglected to add an important grammatical fact in the previous comment. What Jesus said to them when they were regathered into the Upper Room on the second evening of that day (in the gloom after sunset but before dark) was, as said before:
"Certainly soon receive*** Holy Spirit!" (Jn. 20:22d APT).
Here the *** indicates that the verb "to receive, to take hold of" is in the second aorist tense, active voice, imperative mode, second person plural; and the interpretation is that this is in the dramatic aorist, having the sense of a future certainty.
One thing to note is that Thomas was not there. Did he miss out on something? For the moment, perhaps. Did Jesus not know Thomas was not there? Of course He knew. So this was a recognition by Jesus that they all now, finally, after His resurrection, were converted and wholly believed in Him. That is, they had the same certainty of total commitment to belief on the Messiach--as did Moses and David and Mary Magdalene--in this interim phase between the Age of the Law and the Age of Grace, but they had not yet the empowerment if the Holy Ghost while Jesus was still there to comfort and protect them, as I see it.
The passage here tells us of Jesus' command to certainly receive into themselves the Holy Spirit when He comes to them in the near future. Thomas' conversion came eight days later, if we read on, but before the day of Pentecost, so he really didn't miss anything, IMHO.
I hope this makes sense to you. I am not claiming a great scholarship in the Koine. I am merely recounting the results from the keys present in the center column of A Precise Translation, which was translated by a quite expert scholar, to provide a volume that is meant to supplement the Authorized Version translation, not replace it.