Not trying to get into an argument, but, I have discussed 1 Cor. 14:2 quite a bit in other threads as well as some of the things you bring up. Didn’t want to repeat myself here, but….
With respect to 1 Cor. 14:2 – The whole passage is talking about real, rational language.
Let me use an analogy - If I attend a worship service in “East Haystack”, some remote town in the US out in the middle of nowhere, two things are going to be evident: one; there’s only going to be so many people at that service (i.e. there will be a finite given amount of people there) and two; the chances that anyone speaks anything but English is pretty slim to nil.
If I start praying aloud in say Lithuanian, there’s no one at that service that’s going to understand a single word I’m saying. Even though I’m speaking a real language, no one there will understand my “tongue”. That does not mean or imply that no one else understands Lithuanian; just no one at that particular service.
In this sense, therefore, I am speaking only to God, since he understands all languages. To everyone at the service, even though I’m praying in the Spirit (as defined in my original post), to the people listening to me, I’m still speaking “mysteries” – i.e. even though I’m praying as I ought, no one understands me; no one has a clue what I’m saying as no one speaks my language.
When one looks at the original Greek, the verb which is usually translated as “understandeth/understands” is actually the verb “to hear” in the sense of to hear someone with understanding. The verb is not “to understand”. That part of the verse is more properly “no one hears [him] with understanding”, i.e. no one listening to him understands what he’s saying.
There is nothing in this passage that suggests modern tongues-speech nor is there anything that even remotely suggests that the speaker does not understand what he himself is saying. It is the listeners who do not understand, not the speaker – no matter how hard some people want the speaker to also not understand…….it just isn’t there.
Your explanation seemed pretty reasonable up until the last paragraph where you said that, "There is
nothing in this passage that suggests modern tongues-speech nor is there anything that even
remotely suggests that the speaker does not understand what he himself is saying."
In I Corinthians 14:19, Paul treats praying with his mind and praying with tongues as two different categories. This, exegetically, is where we can see that the speaker could not understand speaking in tongues. In verse 13, he also says for the one who speaks in tongues to pray that he may interpret. This is why many interpreters from various backgrounds, including Pentecostal and Charismatic, but also cessationists who do not believe speaking in tongues is for today understand that speaking in tongues was a language not understood by the speaker.
“Also, I have provided absolutely true testimonies of people speaking in modern tongues languages they have never learned, and most of the time the language has been unknown to anyone, but once, even praying normally in tongues, the language changed to a language understood by a foreign visitor.”
These types of stories seem to abound in tongues-speaking circles, but unfortunately, they are all anecdotal at best. There are no documented cases of xenoglossy – anywhere. Thousands of examples of tongues-speech have been studied. Not one was ever found to be a real rational language, living or dead.
Your statement is false. There are numerous documented cases of xenoglossy.
And what you post is not true of modern times. Your field's academic papers are not the only source of literature out there. If the question is whether something has ever occurred or not, then a sample size of one, 'anecdotal evidence' is appropriate. History, anthropology and clinical psychology can produce valid research with small sample sizes, even a sample size of one. What you wrote is not true, because the field of Pentecostal history has publications that recorded cases of individuals who spoke in tongues in languages understood by the speaker. Linguistic research that uses larger samples can also have an 'anecdotal' aspect to it, if all the data collected is reported by one individual. You still have to trust the linguist or social scientist, just like you would have to trust the individual who tells you the 'anecdote.'
It would be rather foolish to think that first-hand accounts, which can be considered a valid source of data for history or used for evidence in a court room, cannot be true if data is not collected using the methods of the social sciences. In fact, the Bible never has any examples of randomized samples. It does discuss the use of the testimony of witnesses.
If you want some examples of testimonies along these lines, you could look at the testimonies recorded in The Apostolic Faith, the newsletter of the Azusa Street Revival for some early examples in the history of the Pentecostal movement. I looked through a couple of editions of it and found many examples including some with the type of details you asked about.
If you are doing Linguistic research and publishing, I hope you do not say, 'X has never been published' so easily in your academic writing. That is a difficult assertion to make, and scholars in other fields have written along the lines that 'the authors are unaware of any literature that addresses' whatever subject they are writing about.
Acts 2 also records cases of xenoglossy. I realize you hold to a different interpretation of this. But the interpretation you supported in the past does not fit Acts 2 or the historical context well, and makes some huge assumptions.
I should think that the tongues-speaker would, at the very least, want to know specifically what language s/he was supposedly speaking and would want to ask the person who heard him/her exactly what was said. Was it just a word, a phrase, a short monologue, what? Did the person’s tongues-speech switch over to the target language such that everyone listening could notice the switch, or was it just the one person who heard it in their language? Did that person hear the speaker physically speaking their language, or was it something that just sort of came into their head? Were these people living in the country where the language is spoken, or did it occur somewhere far removed (which would beg the question with some stories I’ve heard of how did a person from a remote part of the world come to be attending a Pentecostal/Charismatic service in the US?). I’m not doubting it could happen, but unfortunately, the specific details are recalled rather vaguely at best. Personally, this is an area I would love to see more study done on.
Some of the types of details you are interested in show up in testimonies in 'The Apostolic Faith.' But most Christians are not research scientists and do ask all the questions you are interested in.
You say you do not doubt it could happen? Really? You broadly categorize modern speaking in tongues as speaking in a non-language, and state that there are no documented cases of xenoglossy. Why would you write that without bothering to look up documented cases (mentioned in previous threads, btw) unless you had an a priori assumption that such a thing were impossible?
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