PART 2
The miracle of language at Pentecost was making the God of the Jews accessible to all people and moreover, not having to do so in one prescribed language; namely, Hebrew, the sacerdotal language of Judaism.
Jewish religious custom and tradition demanded that any teaching, praying, reading, prophesying, etc. done from the temple (where the apostles were) be rendered first in Hebrew, then followed by a translation into the vernacular. There even existed an ecclesiastical office for the individuals who did these translations (called the ‘mertugem’). On Pentecost, the apostles broke this tradition and “began to speak in ‘other’ (i.e. other than Hebrew) languages (Aramaic and Greek), as the Holy Spirit kept giving a bold, authoritative, inspired manner of speaking to them.
The apostles, by help and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, did away with this cultural and religious tradition, and addressed the crowd in Greek and Aramaic; the mother tongue of the attendees, instead of the culturally and religiously correct, and expected tradition of Hebrew first, then translations into the vernaculars.
Hebrew was to be exclusively used during “the declaration of first fruits,” which was the sacred liturgy associated with the festival of Shavuot, or Pentecost. In other words, during this particular festival, the crowds would have expected religious services presented in the holy tongue of Hebrew. But what they ended up hearing were powerful messages in “other tongues.”
Doing this from the Temple where they were, broke a slew of cultural and religious taboos. The shock to the crowd was that they did not first hear the expected and culturally correct Hebrew first, then vernaculars. May sound a bit silly nowadays, but at the time, to do such a thing was unthinkable. Further added to the crowd’s reaction was to hear Galileans (the “country bumkins” of their day) speak so boldly, completely inspired, and with such authority.
To suggest, as the apostles did that the God of the Jews was now available to non-Jews and in any language, completely dispensing with Hebrew altogether was tantamount to heresy; hence also part of the crowd's reaction (i.e., they must be ‘drunk’ to dare to do such a thing). Again, sounds a bit ridiculous in today’s times perhaps, but there was a time when many religions had specific sacred languages ‘attached/associated’ with them, and it was heresy to veer from their usage in the prescribed manner.
With regards to the concept of “initial evidence of tongues”, according to the Pentecost narrative, there were around 3,000 people who were baptized that day. If these 3,000 were 'baptized in the Spirit', I would think that at the very least, according to some Pentecostal/Charismatic beliefs, they should have starting “speaking in tongues”. Yet *nothing* of the sort is recorded. Certainly 3,000+ people “speaking in tongues" would at least merit a sentence or two in the narrative, wouldn’t it?
If one argues they were not baptized in the spirit, but only in water, not only would the apostles have been violating a slew of work prohibitions on a high holy day (and would not likely have been allowed to do such a thing), considering one of the main focuses of the day was about being baptized in/receiving the Holy Spirit, that would be a rather anti-climactic ending to the narrative, wouldn’t it?
No xenoglossy, no modern tongues-speech, just real, rational language(s). There was a language miracle at Pentecost provided by the Holy Spirit, no argument there; just not the one most people assume. And of course, again, when the apostles received the Holy Spirit, the only tongues (read ‘languages’) spoken were their own. In short, the gift of languages was not evidenced on Pentecost – it didn’t need to be.
When we put all the above together, we see that in Acts 2, the actual gift being emphasized is the fact that the Holy Spirit has empowered the disciples to _prophesy_ and to boldly proclaim the Word of the Lord, and this is exactly what we find in verse 14. According to the ESV translation, Peter lifted up his voice and _addressed_ them, but perhaps a better translation would be that he lifted up his voice and _prophesied._ We tend to think of prophecy as a kind of foretelling of future events, but in the Hebrew use, it was more often associated with _speaking forth_ the Word of the Lord. I would argue that, if looking for a gift of the Holy Spirit to assign to Pentecost, it would be more the gift of Prophesy than of Languages.
This more correct historical, cultural and linguistic view negates that awkward discrepancy between the real, rational languages of Pentecost and the so-called “prayer language“ of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that tongues-speakers have skated around and explained away by instituting various “types” of “tongues”. There is only one type of “tongues” in the Bible – real rational language(s).
The miracle of language at Pentecost was making the God of the Jews accessible to all people and moreover, not having to do so in one prescribed language; namely, Hebrew, the sacerdotal language of Judaism.
Jewish religious custom and tradition demanded that any teaching, praying, reading, prophesying, etc. done from the temple (where the apostles were) be rendered first in Hebrew, then followed by a translation into the vernacular. There even existed an ecclesiastical office for the individuals who did these translations (called the ‘mertugem’). On Pentecost, the apostles broke this tradition and “began to speak in ‘other’ (i.e. other than Hebrew) languages (Aramaic and Greek), as the Holy Spirit kept giving a bold, authoritative, inspired manner of speaking to them.
The apostles, by help and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, did away with this cultural and religious tradition, and addressed the crowd in Greek and Aramaic; the mother tongue of the attendees, instead of the culturally and religiously correct, and expected tradition of Hebrew first, then translations into the vernaculars.
Hebrew was to be exclusively used during “the declaration of first fruits,” which was the sacred liturgy associated with the festival of Shavuot, or Pentecost. In other words, during this particular festival, the crowds would have expected religious services presented in the holy tongue of Hebrew. But what they ended up hearing were powerful messages in “other tongues.”
Doing this from the Temple where they were, broke a slew of cultural and religious taboos. The shock to the crowd was that they did not first hear the expected and culturally correct Hebrew first, then vernaculars. May sound a bit silly nowadays, but at the time, to do such a thing was unthinkable. Further added to the crowd’s reaction was to hear Galileans (the “country bumkins” of their day) speak so boldly, completely inspired, and with such authority.
To suggest, as the apostles did that the God of the Jews was now available to non-Jews and in any language, completely dispensing with Hebrew altogether was tantamount to heresy; hence also part of the crowd's reaction (i.e., they must be ‘drunk’ to dare to do such a thing). Again, sounds a bit ridiculous in today’s times perhaps, but there was a time when many religions had specific sacred languages ‘attached/associated’ with them, and it was heresy to veer from their usage in the prescribed manner.
With regards to the concept of “initial evidence of tongues”, according to the Pentecost narrative, there were around 3,000 people who were baptized that day. If these 3,000 were 'baptized in the Spirit', I would think that at the very least, according to some Pentecostal/Charismatic beliefs, they should have starting “speaking in tongues”. Yet *nothing* of the sort is recorded. Certainly 3,000+ people “speaking in tongues" would at least merit a sentence or two in the narrative, wouldn’t it?
If one argues they were not baptized in the spirit, but only in water, not only would the apostles have been violating a slew of work prohibitions on a high holy day (and would not likely have been allowed to do such a thing), considering one of the main focuses of the day was about being baptized in/receiving the Holy Spirit, that would be a rather anti-climactic ending to the narrative, wouldn’t it?
No xenoglossy, no modern tongues-speech, just real, rational language(s). There was a language miracle at Pentecost provided by the Holy Spirit, no argument there; just not the one most people assume. And of course, again, when the apostles received the Holy Spirit, the only tongues (read ‘languages’) spoken were their own. In short, the gift of languages was not evidenced on Pentecost – it didn’t need to be.
When we put all the above together, we see that in Acts 2, the actual gift being emphasized is the fact that the Holy Spirit has empowered the disciples to _prophesy_ and to boldly proclaim the Word of the Lord, and this is exactly what we find in verse 14. According to the ESV translation, Peter lifted up his voice and _addressed_ them, but perhaps a better translation would be that he lifted up his voice and _prophesied._ We tend to think of prophecy as a kind of foretelling of future events, but in the Hebrew use, it was more often associated with _speaking forth_ the Word of the Lord. I would argue that, if looking for a gift of the Holy Spirit to assign to Pentecost, it would be more the gift of Prophesy than of Languages.
This more correct historical, cultural and linguistic view negates that awkward discrepancy between the real, rational languages of Pentecost and the so-called “prayer language“ of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that tongues-speakers have skated around and explained away by instituting various “types” of “tongues”. There is only one type of “tongues” in the Bible – real rational language(s).