CS1 -
I'm saying Modern tongues is not in the Book of Acts The Holy Spirit working in the lives of the believer is. That is the Main theme of Acts unless you think it is about man ? and not God Spirit?
“The H/S working in the lives of the believer is.” – yes, I agree. Again, I’m not suggesting that the H/S was not at work on Pentecost.
Nehemiah6 -
What Kavik has pointed out is correct, and that is how the whole section from chapters 12 through 14 must be interpreted. This was all about Christians speaking a foreign language supernaturally by the power of the Holy Spirit (as in Acts 2).
Well actually, I don’t think any language was spoken supernaturally in Acts 2; there were just two: Greek and Aramaic, both of which the apostles spoke.
Beastslayer1970 –
The disciples at Ephesus in Acts 19 presumably spoke 1 known language and were conversing and understanding Paul and presumably Luke.
Luke says there were 12 men in all and when Paul laid his hands on them they began to prophesy and speak in tongues. So which known language where they talking in and to who?, Paul or Luke, or both?
The passage simply states that while in Ephesus, Paul found “some/certain disciples”. The text does not offer much more about these people nor does it mention their nationality as it’s not relevant to the story. The natural assumption most make is that they were from Ephesus, but…they may not have been. Ephesus contained the Temple of Artemis – considered to be one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Ephesus had served as a crossroads between East and West for centuries. In short, it’s quite possible (and given what happened, quite probable) that these disciples were not native to Ephesus. We are not told what their native language was. It appears however, that both these people and Paul conversed in the ‘common language’ (dare I say “tongue”) of the day: Greek. When Paul baptized them, they may have simply been, out of joy perhaps, expressing themselves in their native language; one that Paul was obviously not familiar with. The fact that this happened and was reported in the narrative further lends to the idea that these disciples were not native Ephesians. I don’t see this incident as an issue with respect to real language.
CS1 -
A linguist doesn't know all languages of the earth.
This is a common argument, i.e. there are “thousands of languages spoken in the world today, how can anyone know that ‘tongues’ are not one of them?” Yes, there are indeed thousands of languages spoken in the world today – unfortunately not one of them is remotely close to what people are producing in their glossolalia/tongues.
As linguist Dr. William Welmers puts it: “Among us (Linguists), we have heard many hundreds of languages. Furthermore, we have heard representative languages in virtually every group of related languages in the world. At worst we may have missed a few small groups in the interior of South America or in New Guinea. I would estimate that the chances are at least even that if a glossolalic utterance is in a known language, one of us would either recognize the language or recognize that it is similar to some language we are acquainted with."
I concur with this completely.
Dr. Welmers further makes this challenge: "Get two recordings, one of a glossolalic utterance and the other in a real language remote from anything I have ever heard. I'm confident that in just a few moments I could tell which is which and why I am sure of it."
As a Linguist, I also completely concur with his challenge - real language is unmistakable, as is glossolalia.
Beastslayer1970 -
Yet Acts 19 does not say known languages it says tongues.
Yes – but keep in mind that “tongue(s)” simply means “(real) language”. Said language is, of course, known to the person speaking it (typically his/her native tongue (sic!)), but it may not be known to someone listening to it.
Nehemiah6 -
Here are these Galileans, who normally speak Aramaic (and probably Greek when required) but they are now speaking in our approximately 15 FOREIGN LANGUAGES fluently and clearly, so that we hear them speak "the wonderful works of God". That could include both God's creative and redemptive works, and we are not told exactly what was said.
There were not 15 foreign languages; only two – see some of the posts further above. The ‘list’ in Acts does not name one language; in fact, nowhere in the entire narrative is even one language mentioned by name, nor does it even remotely suggest that communication was ever a problem to begin with. The list is a list of place names; specifically, the lands of the Jewish Diaspora. Note that two places are ‘missing’; Cyprus and Syria. The list was put there not to demonstrate linguistic diversity; there wasn’t any, but rather for very political reasons. See the following link for an in-depth discussion on the political significance of “the list”:
https://www.ibr-bbr.org/files/bbr/BBR_2000_b_01_Hengel_IoudaiaGeography.pdf
You might need to cut and paste the link. If it doesn't work, do a search for "
Ioudaia - List in Acts".