Tongues???

PART 3 –

Let’s now turn to modern Pentecostal/Charismatic ‘tongues’. These are completely different from Biblical ‘tongues’. It’s simply the Christian form of glossolalia. A phenomenon practiced by many other cultures and religions. It’s all done essentially the same way.

Glossolalia itself being simply, as Robert Zerhusen terms it, “non-cognitive non-language utterances” (NC-NLU’s) composed of random free vocalization – essentially “playing with language”. Due to the nature of glossolalia, the language producing centers of the brain (particularly the area controlling grammar) are not overly engaged when one practices it, as a study done by the University of Pennsylvania (2010), using SPECT imaging, demonstrated. Mr. Zerhusen, by the way, whom I refer to frequently in these posts, is a pastor and theologian whose interests include the application of cultural anthropology and linguistics to NT studies.

As a Linguist, I have studied glossolalia and my findings concur with other previous studies done. Let’s look at some facts regarding glossolalia/tongues - Glossolalia consists of *only* those sounds found in the speaker’s native language (and any language they may have been exposed to) ,though typically the phonemic inventory (set of sounds) that any given speaker will use is considerably less than what occurs in his/her native language. Anyone can learn to produce glossolalia relatively easily in a matter of minutes. Further, ‘word’ stress and general accent are typically those of the speaker’s native language. A person from Georgia is going to sound like a person from Georgia when “speaking tongues”, i.e. there’s no “foreign accent”, so to speak, in glossolalia. It is the generation of simple syllables all of which are almost exclusively ‘open’ syllables. There is no grammar, thus also no syntax.

Concerning sounds, American speakers do however typically trill their r’s when “speaking in tongues” (with some it’s more a what’s called a ‘flap’ – the ‘t’ in “water” – than an actual trilled ‘r’) – it makes the glossic utterance sound more “foreign”.

All of the preceding also applies to the so-called “singing in the Spirit”; it is simply sung glossolalia rather than spoken.

The above, as well as many additional features too lengthy to explain in detail here, demonstrate that ‘tongues’ fail as language on virtually any criteria by which ‘language’ is defined.

Incidentally, just because the sound or tone of someone’s glossolalia/tongues does not match your preconceived idea of what a ‘tongue’ is supposed to sound like, does not make it inherently “demonic”. Further, there is no such thing as “faking tongues” – the question is “faking what?” Faking the fluent production of syllables? To produce syllables fluently is to produce syllables fluently. I would posit a definition of “faking tongues” as the ‘conscious effort of a speaker to produce glossolalia’ as opposed to the natural flowing of syllables as is normally produced by the subconscious.

Glossolalia as practiced in most other cultural and/or faith traditions around the world typically entails a petitioner seeking aid in the emotional and/or spiritual healing process, who is helped by the practitioner (minister, priest, shaman, healer – whatever s/he is called in that culture). It is rarely, if ever, the petitioner him/her self who is engaging in the actual glossolalia; it’s almost always involves a third party.

In these instances glossolalia is used as a tool to establish a ‘connection’ to the divine, a message is received (either directly or indirectly via an interpreter) that is extremely pertinent to this third party’s situation and, as a result, with the message delivered, the petitioner may begin the process of emotional/spiritual healing.

Though this more ‘correct”, if I may call it that, use of glossolalia does occur the context of Christianity, from all accounts I have read or been told about, instances of this are exceedingly rare. Whether or not it is rare because most people do not practice glossolalia ‘correctly’ (due to a misconception of what it actually is) is a matter for further study/debate. In addition, whether or not Christian practitioners realize that glossolalia is simply the tool used to enter into the process (not the means) may also be a matter for debate.

The bottom line is that by far the more common practice used by Pentecostal/Charismatic Christians seems to be one of interpreting Scripture to fit the modern practice/connotation of what glossolalia is perceived to be. The only praying going on with tongues is the deep subconscious praying of the individual (in whatever their native language happens to be); inspired, of course, by their deep faith and beliefs. There is nothing divine or miraculous going on here. There is nothing being done that can’t be explained in natural terms. If you really stop and think about it, the Holy Spirit (being one of three aspects of God, if you subscribe to the concept of the Trinity) does not need to inspire people on how to pray to itself.

Interpretation may again also be inspired by one’s deep faith and beliefs, but the relatively generic messages of most interpretations do not suggest anything that is divinely inspired. This is clearly evidenced in that if one gives the same glossic string to ten different people who can interpret tongues, one will get ten different interpretations typically non-related to each other. In this respect, glossolalia fails even the most basic criteria which define communication itself.

The all too common come-back to this issue of ‘multiple interpretations’ is that God/the Holy Spirit simply gives different interpretations to different people. As one on-line writer quips (and I couldn’t have said it better myself), “Pentecostal Darwinism does not exist – there’s no mutation or transformation of one message into several for the sake of justifying an obvious discrepancy. If this were the case, it would completely eradicate the need for glossolalia in the first place.”

Another internet writer puts it rather bluntly - “People who claim to speak in tongues need to understand that they are making a testable claim. The claim has been tested, numerous times. And the tongues speakers have failed the test, every single time.”

This same writer further goes on to say: “You want this to be real. You’ve convinced yourself it’s real. The only reason it sounds like a language is that you want it to sound like a language. But it’s not. It’s meaningless. You’re not producing a language. It's a purely manufactured experience initially created by psychological manipulation (all the praise music and the sort of altered state that it puts you in to begin with... and the emotional frenzy of the service before that) as well as intense pressure to perform from those standing around you.”

The above is admittedly a somewhat harsh statement from a former tongues speaker, but it begs the question of just how accurate the above paragraph really is. I suspect more than most practitioners would care to admit.

Glossolalia mimics language, but upon further closer examination, it is simply a façade of language.

If T-speech met the criteria of language and had a definite lexicon, structure and grammar, I’d be the first to say, “Hey, you’re on to something here that’s supernatural and really needs to be looked at more closely and studied”, but tongues simply isn’t that. Neither are modern tongues xenoglossy – there are, in fact, no known provable cases of xenoglossy…anywhere.

Let me ask if you have ever heard someone speak in tongues and thought “That doesn’t sound like tongues” or “That sounds demonic”. What was your basis for thinking that? What was it that made you doubt the ‘authenticity’ of their tongues as opposed to yours? I’d be curious to know.

Next time you speak tongues, take out your phone; put it on voice recorder, and record yourself for about a minute. Then play it back and take a listen, truly listen to the utterances – play the recording back over and over and write them down and look at them. Can you see the patterns, the play on sounds, repetitions of syllables, predictability of syllable structures, the constant use of particular vowels over others – then ask yourself, is this language or simply something that mimics it and is only a façade of language? Next, listen to the tongues/glossolalia of say a Shaman from Siberia and you’ll notice he’s producing his tongues the same exact way you are. They may even sound like something you’ve heard before – are his ‘tongues’ any less divine than yours?

As a Linguist who has studied the phenomenon, my take on it is that tongues/glossolalia is to some Christian believers a very real and spiritually meaningful experience, but consisting of emotional release via non-linguistic ‘free vocalizations’ at best – the subconscious playing with sounds to create what is perceived and interpreted as actual, meaningful speech. In *some* extreme cases, it is clearly a self/mass delusion prompted by such a strong desire to “experience God” that one creates that experience.

I am not condoning glossolalia; particularly if it is a way for the speaker to strengthen his/her own spiritual path, but understand what it really is and perhaps just as importantly (indeed, if not more importantly) ……understand what it is not.

To the above I should have added......

Some tongues speakers will argue that 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 were 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."

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 and one who has studied various languages from literally all corners of the globe, both ancient and modern, I completely concur with his challenge - real language is unmistakable.....as is glossolalia.

Let's keep our definitions straight. If we are talking about Biblical terminology, glossalalia is what the disciples did on the day of Pentecost. In the 1800's, some of the liberal theologians began to speculate that it was some kind of babbling. Certain academic fields call free vocalization 'glossalalia' and the term 'xenoglossia' has been devised to refer to speaking in a language you to not know.



This reminds me of a time I visited a small country church in Georgia, after getting my linguistics degree. I heard a man speak in tongues, and the phonemes he used weren't all English phonemes. I made a mental note of that. I have heard speaking in tongues that doesn't seem to fit with your theory here in regard to phonemes, accent, etc.



Interpretations of Pentecostals and Charismatics, though admittedly varied, seem to align with the interpretations of many other Christians from different traditions who do not speak with tongues. Your interpretation of speaking in tongues in Acts 2 seems rather unusual.



As a social scientist, if you consider your studies to fall into that area, your commentary here is a bit unscientific. What I mean is, none of your research can back up what you say. You can say whether you found support your hypothesis. I suspect there are a lot of fake tongues. IMO, a more sensible approach to research would be to try to look into cases where people actually understood speaking in tongues in their own language. There are many references to this from the early days of the Azusa Street revival. I've come across for or five. I have known people who have spoken in tongues and others understood what they were saying.



I have heard that asserted. And that may be evidence for fake interpretation, which is an area for concern. But, again, you should be researching other kinds of cases, like when two people receive the same interpretation and one gives it. This happened to a guy I went to Christian school with in middle school and one of my college roommates. The same thing happens with prophecies, too. And there are those cases where one goes to one place and receives a prophecy, goes elsewhere and someone else prophesies the same thing he heard at the first place. It has happened to me.



Bold assertions, but not true. It wasn't true in Acts 2. Christians should agree on that. And most of us don't have as non-eventful intepretations of Acts 2 as yourself. In Acts 2, the disciples spoke in languages and many in the crowd heard them speaking in their own languages and dialects. And the assertion in your quote isn't true in the cases of those who heard speaking in tongues in their own languages at Azusa Street and since.


If your research question had to do with whether God healed people supernaturally nowadays, would you search out people who had been prayed for and stayed sick, or would you look for the actual cases where people had been healed? I'd look for the latter.


As far as testable claims, could a lab experiment requiring individuals to speak in tongues and intepret on a recorder, be prone to selection error in terms of your sample? Does a willingness to experiment with gifts of the Holy Spirit in a lab without His permission potentially demonstrate a lack of the fear of the Lord? I don't want to judge anyone, but it doesn't sit well with me personally. There could be a selection error that stacks the deck with those more inclined to speak in fake tongues or give fake interpretations.



I was thinking something like this about your interpretation of Acts 2 when I read it.



I have seen emotional Pentecostals. There are some Appalachian churches where enthusiasm is held in high regard, and all that. But there is also a variety of styles for Pentecostals. I grew up in the A/G which wasn't as into enthusiasm, didn't try to get the crowd excited, etc., but believed in and practiced tongues and interpretation.


Lots of churches that aren't Pentecostal have adapted praise and worship music like Charismatics and some of the Pentecostal churches had been doing for a couple of decades. Are all these churches really whipped into an altered state of consciousness? Speaking in tongues doesn't always, probably doesn't usually, occur in a state of 'emotional frenzy.'


In the A/G churches I attended in my youth, there wasn't intense emotional pressure to speak in tongues, either. They didn't pactice everyone speaking in tongues at the same time. Someone might speak in tongues, usually between songs. Someone else interpreted. Or someone might give a prophecy.


I don't recall if it was an interpretation of a tongue or a prophecy that repeated back to me a question I had just thought, something along the lines, "You have asked...." right after I thought it when I was a teenager. It sure got my attention. I've experienced similar things since, and I've seen witnessed a bit of prophecy that touches on personal details of individual's lives that one could not naturally know.

That just seems rather unrealistic to me. I would expect a linguist to give some kind of answer about human languages having features that carry meaning, like morii, tone, etc. and certain phonemic or morphological patterns to it that could be used to distinguish real from fake languages. How would he match a real language spoken 'in tongues' to the Linguist who'd studied that language? He doesn't know all the languages.

Then there are dead languages. What if speaking in tongues were done in a dead language? I know you dismissed tongues of angels, but Paul suggests the possibility, and we have no idea whether such languages would have the same features. That puts speaking in tongues into the category of something that can't be tested. I suppose interpretations could, but selection error is an issue.

I could probably stump either one of you if I wanted to.

I would state definitions as follows:

Xenoglossy – the ability to speak a language one has zero previous knowledge of or contact with – this is how most people view what happened on Pentecost.

Akolalia – the phenomenon of speaking language ‘X’ and people hearing language ‘Y’ – another way many people view what happened at Pentecost (i.e. a “miracle of hearing” rather than speaking).

Glossolalia – I would also define this as NC-NLU’s as glossolalia is non-cognitive, non-language utterances; free vocalization, but oftentimes not all that random (with some speakers it’s very predictable once one or two utterances are given). Glossolalia also describes modern Christian ‘tongues’ as well as the glossolalia used in many other cultures and faith traditions around the world.

None of these terms are “historic”; most are relatively ‘new words’ Linguists and others have devised to name various language phenomenon.

As far as the guy in Georgia’s glossolalia including phonemes not found in English – very possible and quite likely if English is not the only language he has ever been exposed to.

Not sure I understand what you’re saying with respect to varied interpretations for the same glossic string. Tongues and interpretation are two separate phenomenon. I don’t believe a given glossic string has much of anything to do with its supposed interpretation(s). Multiple unrelated interpretations for the same glossic string seem to evidence this.

As for “tongues” in the Pentecostal narrative – it’s a fairly simple scenario, but requires a lot of explanation as most people don’t know about ecclesiastical diglossia, nor are they aware that it existed in Judaism. Admittedly, it’s a very different view of what happened, but one that when put into context of Judean diglossia as well as the actual languages spoken by the “attendees”, is a rather simple explanation. The list in Acts simply does not represent linguistic diversity when speaking about the Jews of the Diaspora. It does, however seem to suggest that the first apostolic mission was to the Jewish nation as a whole (Diaspora included).

Reports of people hearing tongues in their own language (xenoglossy) are, unfortunately, just that – reports. There’s never anything solid to back it up. Virtually nothing is known about the speaker and the hearer with respect to the language supposedly spoken. It’s kind of too bad in a way – a solid case or two of purported xenoglossy would be great to study!

Unfortunately, stories of xenoglossy seem to have entered the realm of “urban legend” in many Pentecostal/Charismatic circles – it almost seems that a pastor has to have an example of this happening in his repertoire, for whatever reason. For some it seems like nothing more than a feather in their cap. Nine times out of ten the classic story is about some Jewish person in the crowd (why a practicing Jew would be found at a Pentecostal service begs a slew of questions, but anyway…). The speaker (usually the pastor) speaks in tongues and it’s heard by this one lone Jewish guy in the crowd as Hebrew or Aramaic – these seem to the two “go to” languages. Stories such as that have almost become cliché. The thing is, unless the guy was born in Israel and speaks Hebrew as his native language, it’s doubtful he’s going to know what’s being said (though he may recognize it as Hebrew/Aramaic) – most Jews learn their prayers in Hebrew by rote – the same way pre-Vatican II Catholics learned their prayers in Latin – there;s very little understanding of what specific words mean – you learn to recite it in language X, this is what it means in your language.

With interpretation – if only one person is supposed to speak and offer a supposed interpretation, it seems all too easy for someone else to say they received the same interpretation after the initial one’s been offered.

Yes a bold assertions with respect to testing tongues (a “testable claim” as that person put it). Acts 2 in light of the above doesn’t apply here.

I’m sure you’re aware of the results of Azuza Street - To paraphrase from an internet writer (a Lutheran minister), Charles Parham, one of the founders of modern Pentecostalism, was completely convinced that Biblical tongues was xenoglossy –real foreign languages; as a result, he organized and sent missionaries to foreign countries completely convinced that their ability to speak in tongues would negate the necessity of learning the languages of the countries they were going to. This quickly turned out to be, as they say, an ‘epic fail’. Not one person was successful in communicating even basic day to day needs.

The result of this ‘experiment’ was that Pentecostals were quickly becoming skeptical of tongues in general. After repeated proof that these tongues were not examples of xenoglossia, Parham’s doctrine of tongues had to be completely revamped. Pentecostalism had to rethink the entire phenomenon. They now needed another explanation for what they were practicing since it became painfully obvious real languages was not it – the end result was the modern Pentecostal “re-definition”, so to speak, of tongues as “heavenly languages” or “prayer languages”.

James K.A. Smith in “Thinking in Tongues” (April, 2008) sums it up nicely where he writes “The miraculous phenomena that manifested themselves at the Azusa Street revival, for example, compelled serious and sustained reflection. The events needed explanation, and the Pentecostal preachers and leaders turned to the resource that was most important to them: the narrative of Scripture. The resulting implicit theology was not a synthesis of revelation and philosophy but rather a synthesis trying to make sense of experience in light of the narrative of Scripture.”

With supernatural healing, I would seek out both; people who had been healed and those who had not.

I agree with you to some degree on actual testing – in theory, it’s pretty simple and straightforward to test in a controlled environment, but the reality is something different entirely. As an on-line article I recently came across states rather nicely… “Are there any modern documented cases of T-speech in a nonrecalled identifiable human language? Linguists who have investigated first-hand say, “No.” But we must realize what kind of documentation they require. Ideally, (1) there should be a tape-recorded sample of the alleged foreign speech, of reasonable quality and length. (2) There should be living authorities (for example, native speakers) who recognize the language. (3) There should be documentation as to the identity of the speaker. (4) There should be a reasonably complete life history of the speaker, excluding the possibility that he was earlier in contact with the language.

Admittedly, the likelihood of such a test in a controlled environment as described above is fairly slim. Still though, even a good video (many churches record their services) would be better than nothing to start with.

Again, with respect to Acts 2 – it’s a pretty radical view perhaps, but when taken into context in light of the phenomenon of diglossia and the actual languages spoken by the Diaspora, it seems to me to be a lot more realistic a scenario.

With respect to the internet writer’s comments, I believe the writer is speaking about the initial experience of speaking in tongues for a given individual, not the way it might normally be practiced in a given church. To that point, yes, I agree – there are various degrees of “enthusiasm” in churches from the more ‘restrained’ to the absolute chaotic and frenzied.

As to the post on Dr. Welmer’s comments –

I don’t really think one needs to even dig that deep (morii, tone, etc.). Phonemic and morphological patterns I believe is what he was getting at – if you’ve heard enough languages from literally all corners of the globe, distinguishing real human language from something like glossolalia is not all that difficult.

I didn’t get the impression that he was speaking solely about himself so much as Linguists as a whole with respect to languages studied.

Whether living or dead – human language is human language; hard to mistake glossolalia for real language.

Paul’s reference to angelic languages is pure hyperbole. Even if it were not, in traditional Jewish belief (a belief also referenced in the Mishnah), angels speak only one language, and a real one at that: Hebrew. It was common belief that if you wanted your prayer to go directly to God and bypass the angels (who were, as their name suggest, simply the messengers who delivered said prayers to God), one prayed in Aramaic (even though it should be done in Hebrew) as angels did not understand it. This may be why some traditional Jewish prayers are even today still recited in Aramaic rather than Hebrew.

It’s quite possible that someone familiar with several languages and linguistic theory could come up with a pretty darn convincing glossolalia posited as a real language – but I’d have to question how much of it is a conscious effort as opposed to the subconscious flow of natural glossolalia.

One of the most “realistic” sounding examples of glossolalia I have ever heard in fact came not from the Pentecostal/Charismatic community, but rather from someone who was a schizophrenic (certain forms of schizophrenia present with glossolalia). Unfortunately, I have no clue as to the individual’s personal background including exposure to other languages than English, but I really had to listen to what he was saying a few times over before I started to see the telltale patterns and realizing what I was hearing was glossolalia.

These are 'secular definitions' or 'academic definitions' from other fields. This is a Bible discussion forum, and what the disciples in Acts 2 were doing, and what Paul and some of the Corinthians were doing was 'glossalalia'.

I studied several languages for my Linguistics degree and for electives, and I've been exposed to a number of languages since. I can say that some proported speaking in tongues doesn't sound like languages, or could just be a few repeated phrases. I wouldn't say all of it is genuine either. But I've heard other speaking in tongues that does sound like other languages. I heard a message in tongues once in Indonesia and I didn't know if it was a message in tongues or someone praying in their provincial language until the interpretaiton came. I have a fairly well-trained ear with my background I think. I don't specialize in deconstructing existing languages to learn them or write them down.

Your criteria also don't rule out the idea of someone speaking in tongues with an accent, btw. I sure heard plenty of students in high school Spanish using the sounds from the English language instead of those from Spanish.

I had a friend in middle school who said when he heard someone speak in tongues, he got these words that came to him in English and someone else gave those same words as an interpretation. I also had a college roommate who had the same sort of experience. Of course, it is subjective. You could say they are lying or reinterpreting their experiences wrongly. My own thought process is, first, I believe the word of God first and foremost, but from an experiential perspective, many prophecies are clearly supernatural. For example, you go to one church and hear a prophecy and you go elsewhere and someone else says the same thing. This happens quite a bit. Or someone who doesn't know an individual prophesies details about his personal life that he couldn't naturally know.

It's a simple explanation, I suppose, but I don't see how it fits the text or what I've read of the culture back then. Why would the disciples speaking in Greek be an indication that Joel's prophecy about the outpouring of the Spirit had been fulfilled? All they had to do was speak Greek.

And why would you think that glossalalia, in I century Greek, did not refer to speaking in other languages?

And then there is the problem that your theory just doesn't fit what the text directly states:

Acts 2
8 And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.”
(NKJV)


What about the problem of what Acts 2 actually says? Doesn't that throw a monkey wrench in your theory?

I believe it was the Pneumareview website that has an article about a documented case of speaking in tongues in a known language housed at a Lutheran seminary library. I've never been there to check it out. But I have known a couple of people who have experienced speaking in tongues and someone else identifying the language. I also correspond with a theologian overseas who knows two people who speak in tongues in English even though they don't know it. I spoke with a missionary's daughter, a pastor's wife, who heard a little old lady speaking in tongues in English in a village in mainland China.

I have spent 30+ years in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement (mainly Pentecostal), and I can't remember one sermon where a pastor told a story about a Jewish guy in the congregation who understood speaking in tongues. I do remember one account of someone verifying the message in tongues and the interpretation. Otherwise, I've heard accounts in one-on-one conversations with people.

This feels a bit like a straw man. But there are plenty of Jews who live in Israel and speak modern Hebrew.

You can criticize a lot of claims taking that approach. This happened to two people I knew personally.

Parham's theory wasn't really supported by scripture, even using a traditional interpretation of Acts 2 that the disciples were actually speaking in languages. The text doesn't say they actually preached the Gospel. There is no indication that they could control what language they spoke, or that they understood it.

I read an article by Garr. On one occasion at Azusa Street, he spoke in tongues, different from what he normally spoke, and an Indian identified what he spoke as Bengali. When he went to India, he wasn't able to speak in tongues in Bengali.

I don't think the 'heavenly language' idea was every an early Pentecostal view. Maybe a few held to it. I've heard it from Charismatics.

There are non-Pentecostal commentators of the Bible who read I Corinthians 12 and Acts 2 and come to the same conclusions as Pentecostals, generally, about what speaking in tongues was and how it operated in the first century.

If you were doing academic research, I suppose it would depend on your research questions and your hypothesis. If the question is whether supernatural healing occurs, researching the actual healing would make more sense, IMO.

That could be quite difficult to obtain, especially since may need the Holy Spirit to cooperate.

By 'diglossia' you just mean the disciples were speaking Greek instead of their native Hebrew or Aramic? The passage doesn't say that, and that wouldn't be so surprising.

Why would Paul have necessariliy subscribed to a belief recorded a couple of hundred years later? What were the dissenting opinions in that particular section of the Mishneh?

If Paul did not mean it as hyperbole (which seems a convenient excuse to dismiss the passage), then why would he have asked the question? If angels just spoke Hebrew, then that's one of the tongues of men.

I have to disagree on the definitions – if you posit that the disciples were speaking modern day Pentecostal/Charismatic tongues, than, yes, what they were doing was glossolalia, but I don’t believe that’s what they were doing; they were just speaking and referring to real languages.

I agree to a point – yes, I’ve heard glossolalia that sounds like real language…until you really listen to it. As I mentioned some of the most “convincing” I’ve heard actually comes from a schizophrenic patient. There are some examples where you do really have to listen to it for a little bit before realizing it’s not real language.

You have me at a disadvantage – I have never heard a speaker of tongues sound like anything but where they are from. Sometimes the tone or pitch of the voice is different (I would posit that it’s something done subconsciously to fit a preconceived notion of what a foreign language is ‘supposed to sound like’). Also too, as I’ve mentioned, American speakers tend to trill their ‘r’s and there is a noticeable absence of the “ash” sound (/æ/); again, because that rhoticised ‘r’ and ‘ash’ sound way too much like American English.

If a person is familiar with more than one language, s/he could use the sounds found in that language (but not in English) and, depending on how much of the foreign language known or the person’s “native proficiency”, I would not rule out also adopt the accent of language into his/her glossolalia. A person who only has ever known or been exposed to English is not going to have an accent in their glossolalia.

So, in short, yes it’s possible a speaker could have an accent in their glossolalia, but the accent is going to be a language s/he is familiar with.

I agree with you on prophesies, but I don’t think they are related to tongues in the sense that that the glossic string does not carry with it any sort of inherent interpretation; it’s the tool used to “channel”, if I can use that word (best way I can explain it by what I mean), the prophecy; the two are separate but closely linked phenomenon. Outside of religious context we’d call it clairvoyance. The ‘prophecy’ isn’t related to the ‘tongue’ at all. One can have a prophesy without glossolalia being involved.

Peter was only quoting Joel to show that what had just occurred was the outpouring of the Spirit that the OT spoke of. I’m not sure how or why people equate Joel with “tongues”. Kind of a stretch.

I would posit that, again, the text references these places as being representative of the Jewish nation as a whole – i.e. not just the Jews from Judea, but all Jews from all these lands of the diaspora are hearing this message – I don’t think it has anything to do with linguistic diversity so much as the first apostolic mission being intended for the Jewish nation as a whole. I can however see where it can easily be interpreted to mean languages, but the diaspora Jews spoke only two as their native languages; Greek and Aramaic.

I’m not suggesting the “tongues coming out as Hebrew or Aramaic” stories are everywhere, but they are by far the majority of ones I’ve heard about with reference to tongues coming out as real language.

Yes there are plenty of Hebrew speakers in Israel– I currently work with a guy from Israel whose native language is Hebrew. Kind of cool listening to him on the phone with his family. Outside of Israel though, not so much; Yiddish is more the norm with prayers being learned in Hebrew/Aramaic by repetition.

The whole tongues coming out as real language is kind of a grey area of sorts – can’t prove it, neither can you disprove it. In almost all cases the stories are reported third hand – was it the actual language or something that just sounded like it? What is the background of the speaker with respect to the language? Is crytomnesia involved at all? What is the fluency of the “hearer’? There are simply too many “unknowns”. As I said, it would be great to have something more concrete.

Agreed with respect to supernatural healing.

Yeah, that was the other point – if indeed one could posit xenoglossy, you’d need the cooperation of the source of that phenomenon which I suspect would prove a challenge.

No what I mean by diglossia is that that in this instance, they should have addressed the crowd in Hebrew, no other language, but they did not; they broke this ‘cultural barrier’ and spoke to the crowd in Greek and Aramaic; their native languages (the crowds and theirs).

The belief was already there; I just remarked that the belief was even commented on in the Mishnah (which, of course was written considerably later).

As far as dissenting opinions go, some commentaries in the Mishnah opine that angels do in fact understand Aramaic; they just do not hold the language in very high regard. Thus, if they hear a prayer in Aramaic, they are likely to ignore it as it is not considered to be of much value. This opinion is not shared by the majority of believers however; more common is the belief that angels simply do not understand Aramaic as they speak only Hebrew.

Still other comments found in the Mishnah state that each of the seventy nations mentioned in Genesis had an angel assigned to that nation (Israel's for example, was Michael) and that angel spoke only the language of that country and no other (which in a way doesn’t really make much sense actually).

The bottom line here is that in traditional Jewish belief, any language spoken by angels was a real language.

On a more esoteric note, angels are pure spirit (‘light beings’ as some would say). If they need to communicate among themselves, I highly doubt it’s via anything that would require a human vocal tract. In instances in the Bible where they have assumed human form; their speech is always a real language.

Paul’s comment was simply for dramatic effect – hyperbole, nothing more should be read into it.

If we are using Biblical terminology, what the disciples did in Acts 2, and what the Corinthians and Paul did in I Corinthians 14 are 'glossalalia.' Linguists and liberal theologians from the 1800's have a different definition for the same term.



I believe Biblical glossolalia today is speaking in genuine languages, whether human or angelic. There may be false manifestations of it as well.


Since this is a Bible discussion forum, why don't we use 'glossolalia' for the genuine Biblical phenomenon.



That kind of goes against your free vocalization theory. It sounds like a lot of rational thought would have to go into this.


You'll notice that your theory doesn't really deal well with the possibility that speakers may be speaking a foreign languages with an accent.



And if the person were speaking in a real language with an accent made up of phonemes from their own language, as many non-native speakers of languages do, your theory wouldn't account for that either.



A form of supernatural speech was going on, and Peter quoted a passage regarding an outpouring of the Spirit accompanied by prophesying. Why would a group of men violating an (alleged) social norm by speaking in Greek be evidence of the outpouring of the Spirit? Why would the diaspora who had gathered there be amazed at Galileans merely speaking Greek?


The main problem I have with your theory is that it directly contradicts Acts 2. They were filled with the Spirit and spoke in languages, not just Greek. It wasn't just Greek or Aramaic because the diaspora there heard them speak in 'the language in which we were born'. Why would we think Greek had totally replaced the languages of all these regions? That might have happened to native inhabitants of a colony like Alexandria, but not in all those regions listed.



You are focusing on a 'big theme' you feel is important, but ignoring the details of the text.



How can it not be? The only two interpretations I know of by Greek native speakers from the early centuries of Christianity are that the disciples were actually speaking in their languages or that the people there were supernaturally hearing their dialects. Has anyone in history ever held to your viewpoint? How about early on in the church's history? I believe the reason we don't hear other people promote your interpretation is because it just flatly contradicts what is stated in the passage.



That's the problem with having a sample-size of one. I've heard and read accounts of speaking in tongues in Bengali, Japanese, Russian, etc. Maybe once or twice in Hebrew, but I don't recall hearing that from the pulpit.



Well, I don't expect you will suddenly change your viewpoint from reading a post on a forum like this, but it might cause you to think about something or spark an idea. Do you actually research this topic? If I went to Europe in a few months, I could spend time tracking down two 'subjects' my theologian Internet penpal knows who don't know English, but speak in tongues in English. But it's not my area of research and it's not realistic to do that while bringing the family with me.


Why do you think they should have only addressed the crowd in Hebrew? In Jerusalem, the people may not have been fluent in Hebrew, and may have spoken Aramaic. In the outlying areas, some of the people may have spoken Hebrew as their native language. Some of the diaspora may not have known either language. Many of them would have grown up hearing the LXX in a Greek-speaking synagogue that considered the translation to be inspired, rather than the Hebrew Torah.



The Pharisee/Orthodox Judaism line of Judaism was just part of the religion in the first century. There were other groups like the Saducees, who had some of their own beliefs. Jesus disagreed with a number of Pharisaical teachings, going contrary to what they considered to be the tradition of the elders. There are many Pharisaical beliefs that are not in line with Christian teaching on a number of issues.


If Paul suggested the idea of tongues of angels to a predominantly Gentile crowd who already had trouble with error in their congregation, wouldn't that have been irresponsible if he didn't even believe tongues of angels could exist?



You can tell me all you know about it from your experience being an angel. Angels may speak in a way similar to humans, or in a way that can easily be transferred to the vocal cords as human speech. All we have to go on on this topic is the fact that Paul wrote, 'Thou I speak with the tongues of men and of angels....'


In the instances where angels have assumed human form and have spoken in human languages, it was always in a context where something was being communicated to humans. We don't have any passages about angels talking to each other that aren't written for the benefit of human beings. I've never seen an invisible angel with my own eyes, either. That doesn't mean they can't be invisible.



That sounds more like something you want to believe, so you believe it. This shows up in a list of extreme-- but mostly possible things that a believer could do.

I have never found tongue speaking Christians to be stronger in the Lord then those who do not speak in tongues and I have been around a lot of both.

Samuel23,

I'm sure if you asked Christians who spoke in tongues, they'd tell you their experiences were different. It depends on who you hang around with and where you've been to church. I could think of the most godly folks I've ever met who spoke in tongues, and compare them to the drunk guy on the street who says he is Baptist in a street-witnessing situation and draw the opposite conclusion.

There seems to be a correlation between interest in prayer and interest in spiritual gifts in my experience. I've met lots of people who are really into prayer, who fast and things like that who are Pentecostal or Charismatic in their beliefs. I can only think of one who wasn't, and she started going to a Charismatic church after she moved away. Intercessory prayer groups for the city in one city I lived in had Charismatic types. Even the Lutherans who joined were Charismatic Lutherans. The meeting was held in a traditional denomination started by the Puritans, and the people who attended seemed to mainly be Charismatics.

Glossolalia is glossolalia – you can’t change the definition of the word to suit the situation. If one subscribes to the notion that Acts and Corinthians describe NC-NLU’s (modern tongues-speech) then, yes, the term glossolalia would definitely apply; however, if you subscribe to the notion that Acts and Corinthians describe real contemporary languages, then glossolalia cannot apply. I do not refer to what was happening in Acts and Corinthians as glossolalia because I do not believe that’s what was being done. Both passages describe real language(s) situations.

No, the use of a trilled ‘r’ and the lack of ‘ash’ by most speakers do not go against the free vocalization – in glossolalia the speaker will typically only use a very limited ‘subset’, if you will, of the phonemes s/he knows (those of his/her native language and any other language(s) they’re familiar with or have been exposed to. ‘Ash’ seems to be one of the phonemes not found in the majority of phonemic subsets of the vast majority of speakers. Though a trilled ‘r’ is not a phoneme found in ‘standard’ American English, it’s virtually entered the repertoire via several sources (media being the main one) over the past several decades. That said, what I hear though is more of a single flap than an actual ‘trilled’ r. The single flap of course is an allophone of /t/ in English so it is not a non-English phoneme.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean by a speaker speaking a foreign language with and accent – the only accent they’re going to have speaking a foreign language is their own. A speaker of American English isn’t going to pronounce German like a speaker of Russian would; they might however pronounce it with a thick American accent.

Why do you assume that “supernatural speech” as supposedly described in Joel has to be done using glossolalia (NC-NLU’s)? I think trying to connect Joel with Acts other than as an outpouring of the Spirit (i.e. trying to connect it to ‘tongues’) is kind of stretching it.

As to why those gathered for Shavuot would be amazed to hear Greek and Aramaic is because the proper language that should have been used in that situation would have been Hebrew; not the vernacular languages. That’s the thing – it’s hard for us today to see how radical violating ecclesiastical diglossia would have been perceived. We just don’t have anything like it today, particularly here in the US.

I the closest thing I can think of that might be a fairly okay analogy would be the concept of “questioning authority” in most of the world prior to say the late 1650’s early 1960’s. Typically, if a person in authority told you to do something, you did it, no questions asked (you might question it in your mind, but never out loud). To do so would not typically, as they say, ‘end well’ for the questioner. Not daring to question authority is a concept that I would submit anyone under the age of say 30 (to play it safe) can’t even begin to fathom. The same held true for ecclesiastical diglossia – violating it was seen as a social/cultural taboo; it just wasn’t done.

Yes, they spoke in languages – Greek and Aramaic. The lands of the western Diaspora were all lands in the Mediterranean Basin that had been Hellenized for centuries; Greek had replaced whatever native language(s) were there for hundreds of years. One example is Galatian. We know from early inscriptions that Galatian was actually a Celtic language, in all likelihood it seems it may have been somewhat close to Gaulish (going by the few inscriptions). The Galatians were part of the so-called “Continental Celts”. The root of their name “Gal” is the same as “Gaul” and “Gael”. By the time of the first century however, very little remained of their Celtic culture; it had been replaced by Hellenic culture, including the language. By the time the Biblical letters to the Galatians were written, the language was Greek (and so were the letters), not Galatian.

For Jews living in the western Diaspora, there really was only one language: Greek. These lands had been Hellenized for generations and Greek, due to it being so widespread as a lingua franca, was seen as perfectly acceptable as opposed to keeping Aramaic as one’s mother tongue and learning Greek as a second (or third) language. In fact, because of the dominance of Greek among the western Diaspora, there was a need for a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Septuagint, which became the standard text used in the synagogues of the western Diaspora, is evidence that Greek was the native language of these Judeans. One may even postulate that in the western Diaspora, Greek was slowly being seen more and more as an acceptable ‘ecclesiastical language’ alongside Hebrew.

It’s the eastern Diaspora that gets a bit tricky.

Whether Aramaic or local languages, I agree, could be argued well either way simply due to the lack of evidence. It is however reasonable to suggest that a Jewish ethnic and religious group in the eastern Diaspora would tend to keep their language and culture as well as learn the language and culture of the country they are living in. Zerhusen states “Although Greek was used in Palestine and had penetrated parts of the eastern Diaspora, the Aramaic language continued to dominate in the east. Jacob Neusner says of the use of Aramaic and Greek among the eastern Diaspora: "Most Jews...did not speak Greek but Aramaic (this is inferred from Josephus' writings, and from later literature), and in later periods produced literature in Hebrew and Aramaic". F.F. Bruce, discussing the language situation of the eastern Diaspora listed in Acts 2:9-11, wrote: "Parthia, Media, Elam (Elymias) and Mesopotamia lay east of the Euphrates, the Jews in those areas spoke Aramaic. These were the lands of the earliest dispersion, to which exiles from the ten northern tribes of Israel had been deported by the Assyrians in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. We may recall here (see 2 Kgs 18:19-28) that prior to the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests and exile of the Judeans, ordinary Judeans spoke Hebrew as their native tongue and were unfamiliar with Aramaic. This linguistic situation was completely reversed by the time the Judeans returned from their exile. When they returned to Palestine, Hebrew was no longer their native tongue, having been replaced by Aramaic. The most reasonable explanation for this linguistic shift is that the native language for the eastern Diaspora had become Aramaic.”

As a fairly modern comparison, I live in a city that had a huge textile producing mill in the late 1800’s early 1900’s. The mill actively recruited workers from literally all over Europe (east and west) and thus, we have a huge ethnic diversity here – many of these ethnic groups still preserve their language and culture to this day. Even today I see this happening – my city has seen in the last ten years or so a huge influx of Bosnians, Somalians and Hispanics. They all closely preserve their language and culture (and learn our culture, and English as a second language to theirs – well to be honest, some of them do learn English, some do not).

Though this may not be the same situation as Jews living in the Diaspora two thousand years ago, there’s no reason to assume people wouldn’t do the same thing with regards to preserving their identity and not wanting to blend into the masses. AS an example, the Jews of Parthia – I would argue that Aramaic would have been the language of home and within the Jewish community while Parthian would have been a second (or third) language to be used with the “locals” when needed, it was never a mother tongue (i.e. first language) of Jews living there.

The list in Acts certainly seems to reference the Jewish nation as a whole. It doesn’t come out and directly state it, but it does seem to be implied since the list does not address a diversity of languages.

It is a radical change of thought that definitely goes against the “established school of thought” concerning the Pentecost narrative. The concept is not more than, I’m guessing, 30 years old, if that. I think that people have just accepted what they’ve been taught as absolute to the point where it just has never really been examined outside of the context of religion.

As I’ve mentioned; not everything in the Bible needs to be miraculous or supernatural – sometimes it just an account of the normal goings on (such as Corinthians) – in Acts, it describes the apostles receiving strength from the Holy Spirit to speak to the people in their local vernaculars without having to adhere to using Hebrew – to your point, I believe they were keenly aware that not everyone (perhaps even including themselves) knew enough Hebrew to teach and understand the message they were trying to get across. One can imagine that they were very aware that the best way to accomplish this was to go against the establishment, so to speak, and spread the word in easy to understand language(s) that everyone spoke including themselves.

Speaking for myself, I’d love to hear someone speaking in tongues and have it come out as a real language – I’d have a ton of questions for the speaker. It also begs the question of whether or not it would come out a real language only to a particular ‘hearer’ and everyone else would just hear NC-NLU’s? If that’s the case, “tongues” it seems would have really nothing to do with speaking so much as hearing.

As far as Paul’s use of hyperbole is concerned, I’m going to quote a passage of text from an article on the subject entitled “The Tongues of Angels” by one N. Busenitz:

“The phrase in 1 Corinthians 13:1 is parallel to Paul’s subsequent statements (in v. 2) of knowing “all mysteries and all knowledge” and of having “all faith so as to [literally] remove mountains.”

Both of those statements articulate hyperbolic impossibilities (since no one can know all mysteries or have all knowledge or possess all faith). In verse 3, Paul gives additional extreme examples: giving “away all my possessions” and giving “my body to be burned.” While martyrdom is obviously possible, it still fits the pattern of Paul’s use of extreme examples in order to illustrate a crucial point: even the most superlative expression of any gift (including that which is impossible) would be worthless if it is devoid of love.

One of the things that is important to note about the grammar of the phrase is that, in the Greek, it literally reads: “If with the tongues of men I speak and of angels.” That construction is unique and occurs only here in the New Testament. The grammar suggests that Paul intentionally separated the tongues of men from the tongues of angels, articulating the normal expression of the gift of foreign languages before emphatically inserting a hypothetical hyperbole. This pattern is seen in Paul’s subsequent examples as well.

A simple chart shows the parallel between 1 Corinthians 13:1 and Paul’s other superlative statements in the immediate context:

Based on a comparison of all of Paul’s hypothetical examples, a strong case can be made that the apostle was using superlative, hyperbolic, and extreme examples to showcase the superiority of love. This contextual consideration leads us to conclude that the “tongues of angels” was a rhetorical expression, used by Paul to make a point. It did not describe the actual gift of tongues, which consisted only of “the tongues of men.”

However, for the sake of argument, if one insists on taking the phrase “tongues of angels” literally, there are still two important factors to consider:

(1) It represents the rare exception and not the rule, as evidenced by both the unique grammatical construction of 1 Corinthians 13:1 and the other parallel examples Paul included in vv. 2–3. Consequently, this verse cannot be used to establish “angel-speech” as the normal expression of the gift of tongues.

(2) When angels spoke in the Bible, they spoke in a real language that people could understand. Thus, this phrase “tongues of angels” does not support the notion of non-cognitive speech.

When the grammatical and contextual evidence is considered, the “tongues of angels” simply does not provide charismatics with biblical support for a non-human form of tongues.”

In sabro quasindo

Parameshvar bal agni baatoonee.

Get out a Greek New Testament. They were speaking in glossalalia. Linguists (and before them liberal theologians in the 1800's) have redefined the word 'glossalalia' to mean playing with language.

If you were talking about 'evolution' to mathematicians, it would mean something different than if you were using the word around biologists. Look in a dictionary. Notice that there is definition 1, definition 2, etc.

I am saying we are in a Bible forum, so it makes sense to use words according to their Biblical meaning.

I believe I was commenting on a different part of your comment when I said it went against the theory of speaking in tongues being free association.

If an were 'speaking in tongues' supernaturally in Tokarian B with an American accent, a few phrases, you might dismiss that as your definition of 'glossalalia' even if it were Biblical glossalalia (which you would call xenoglossia.)


Glossalalia had a perfectly good meaning in the Biblical text for 1800 years or so. Why muddy the waters by using a modern redefinition of an ancient Greek word?

I believe in the gifts of the Spirit, I do not believe the present day Pentecostal movement is of God. The present Pentecostal movement promotes these false teachings, two baptism in the Spirit, slain in the spirit, drunk in the spirit, women over men in the church, many teach materialism, they also elevate man while lowering God, also, there is so much spreading of stories and events that are either partly true or an out and out lie. In a word, the movement is full of false spirits. If a person truly studies the beginning of Pentecostalism one can easily see that it was not a move of God but a move of false spirits. About tongues, I have no problem if it is really from God.

Think about your argument. You have the apostles violating a cultural taboo (which I know of no historical evidence for) that Jews only spoke Hebrew (or Aramaic) in Jerusalem, and then saying that this was the fulfillment of a prophecy from Joel about the outpouring of the Spirit?

Why would violating a (n alleged, but historically unsupported?) taboo be evidence of a fulfillment of prophecy?

If you want to look at Judaistic culture, there was a Jewish midrash that interpreted the 'qol'-- lightening or voices-- in the passage about the giving of the law to refer to the people speaking. The Jewish midrash taught that the people of Israel spoke with the 70 nations of the world when the law was given. If this midrash reflected a belief in the first century, then the 120 speaking in various languages on the day in which they celebrated the giving of the law could have been very significant to those who witnessed or later pondered these events. In the Old Testament, 3000 died in the golden calf incident, which is associated with the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai, while about 3000 were added to the church in Acts 2.



My question is, do you have any reason at all to support your ecclesiastical diglossia theory? The information I am reading is contrary to it. I am looking for the link to a paper this morning I found on a Harvard website that I had open on another laptop. It made reference to the evidence for a Greek synagogue in Jerusalem, and made reference to the Greek inscription there.

Edersheim's scholarship is from the 1800's, but scholars still recommend it today. In his 'Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah', he wrote of how Helenistic synagogues would use the Septuagint translation. They spoke Greek. They treated the LXX as an inspired text, and may not have even learned Hebrew. There were Hellenistic widows in Jerusalem. How would they have been differentiated from the non-Hellenistic widows if they were only allowed to speak Hebrew?

I read this in an online comment, that there were high priests who spoke Greek and had to have Pharisees teach them Hebrew. I'd have to verify that.

From what I've read, there were Greek-speaking synagogues in Jerusalem. It's likely that the seven in the Jerusalem church were Greek speaking Jews... and a proselyte. Stephen may have gotten into a debate with men from a Greek-speaking synagogue in Jerusalem.

Here is a good place to start on Hellenistic Judaism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenistic_Judaism

There is also the fact that the ecclesiastic diglossia concept doesn't fit with the actual statements in the text. Acts 2 says they spoke in other tongues, other languages. You read more or less the same words in translations in I Corinthians 13, and treat it as if Paul is actually talking about speaking in the languages of men and angels, right? You may take it as hyperbole, but still talking about speaking (lalia) in languages (glossa).

So why would you interpret statements in Acts 2 about the disciples speaking in languages to mean something different? Why would you interpret statements from the individuals who heard the languages about hearing the men speak in the languages in which they were born to mean something else?

We also need to be realistic about language. The Hellenized Jews may have spoken the local area languages, especially if they had been there for centuries and intermarried with proselytized women. Then, they may have spoken Greek as the lingua franca, and likely studied the Pentateuch in Greek. I'm relying on Edersheim, but it may have been the case that they did not memorize prayers or scripture in Hebrew.

Also, Judaism in the first century was very diverse compared to later orthodox Judaism. There was the 'temple cult' led by the Zadokite/Saducee priests, many of whom did not consider anything beyond the first five books of the Bible to be inspired, who also had an anti-supernatural bias. There were Pharisees who accepted the whole Bible and a lot of other traditions. Closely related to this group would have been the scribes who copied the Hebrew Torah and taught it. One of the Pharisaical scholars, possibly any member of the Sanhedrin, or any recognized teacher of other groups or unaffiliated Jews might have been labeled as 'rabbi.' Archeologists have dug up information about the Qumran community as well. There may have been many other unique groups and many kind of 'generic' Jews who weren't part of the Pharisee club. Then there were the huge masses of Hellenized Jews throughout the empire who spoke Greek and read a Greek translation of the Torah in their synagogues.

Those labeled as 'rabbis' were not in charge of the synagogues in the second century. But after the temple was destroyed, some of those from the Pharisee strand of Judaism took over and re-formed the religion. Hellenistic Judaism fizzled out. It might have been possibly incorporated into Christianity, and part of it may have followed the Pharisaical strand of the religion that became Orthodox Judaism.

Where is your evidence that the authorities insisted everyone speak Hebrew in the holy city? Did people throw rocks at the high priest after he spoke with Pilate, for speaking in Greek? Why was there a Greek inscription on a synagogue? Why do scholars accept that there was a Greek speaking synagogue at that location in Jerusalem?

I found the Harvard page that mentions the Greek synagogue:
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic1202528.files/Lesson 3/3b Sanders.pdf

My main objections to your diglossia theory are that:

1. It contradicts what I have read about the history of Judaism in the first century.
2. You haven't presented any evidence for your alternative view of history.
3. It clearly contradicts the narrative in the text.

I also notice you don't deal in detail with the narrative of Acts 2, particularly with the parts that contradict your theory.

Look at how 'all' is used in some passages in Greek. "The love of money" is called "the root of all evil" in one translation, but translated "all kinds of evil" in another. One saying I've heard about interpreting the text is that "All does not always mean all." Jesus' disciples told Him that all men seek for him.

Be that as it may, faith exists. All faith is a real thing. It is not totally made up.

Having all faith is the most extreme amount of faith it is conceivable to have. Faith is something real, not something invented as hyperbole. The problem with using 'hyperbole' is that it implies that something is impossible, and not to be taken literally.

Paul is writing here in terms of extremes. He does that in chapter 12, too. He contrasts cursing Christ with saying Jesus is Lord. Both are extremes, but neither of them are impossible.

I agree with extremes. Paul is talking extremes here, not impossibilities. Possessions exist, right? Human bodies exist, right? Why wouldn't tongues of men and of angels exist? Why is this the only thing out of the list that is fictional?

If you've read enough hagiographies, you'll find a story about someone who gave all their belongings away. In fact, with the culture of monastic orders, etc., that probably wasn't all that uncommon in history. Francis of Assissi was supposed to have even given away the clothing he was wearing. Giving one's body to be burned? Paul had witnessed the martyrdom of Stephen. If he knew of no Christians who had been martyred through burning yet, the idea wasn't inconceivable. Nero did that with the so-called 'human candles' when he burned Christians in the first century.

These are extremes, not impossible things. They aren't fictional things.

Okay, so why would you say the most superlative expression of any gift would be fiction? Why would you think Paul thought that?

Since the construction shows up once in the New Testament, you say, what is your basis for your conclusion you draw from it? Why couldn't it be a Hebrewism, kind of like Mark throwing the word 'kai' like 'wa' is used in Hebrew. The phrase "and the cold the foal of an ass' sounds okay in the original Hebrew, but doesn't sound quite right in Greek, unless you speak a Hebrew-influenced (or possibly Aramaic-influenced) dialect of the language. Can you rule that sort of thing out of Paul's use of the construction here throwing in some words after 'kai'? It comes off as sort of poetic sounding prose in English translation.

It looks to me like the chart puts a deathnail into the case you are trying to build, since nothing else in the chart is fictional. Why would 'tongues of angels' be fictional. Again, Paul is talking about some of the most extreme manifestations of gifts or works imaginable. He's not talking about fictional spiritual gifts.


Whether it is the 'rare exception' rather than the rule, I don't know. Martyrdom may have been a rare exception at one point in time, but not another. It wasn't the rare exception from the perception of the groups of Christians Nero burned, not when they looked around and saw their fellow Christians being set on fire.

But you aren't arguing for a 'rare exception'. You are arguing that no Christians speak in tongues of angels, or ever did. If it is a rare exception, why would you argue that it did not exist.

As far as the grammatical construction, I don't think you have an argument there. Do you have anything to argue what the rare grammatical construction even implies?

Sorry, but that is an uber-lame argument. The angels speaking in scripture were speaking to humans who didn't speak angelic language (assuming it wasn't Hebrew or some other human language). So they spoke in languages, presumably, that people understood. But you can't say that the prophets weren't enabled to speak angelic speak and just translated it either, for certain, since the Old Testament doesn't comment. I suppose we can assume dialogue took place in Hebrew in the Old Testament, but some parts of the Greek texts of the New Testament may be translating Hebrew or Aramaic dialogue.

At the very least, we should all acknowledge that Paul suggested the possibility of tongues of angels. There is no basis for asserting that Paul must have meant it as hyperbole because such a language could not exist. Why bring it up if it didn't exist?

Your approach to scripture is very different from mine. I try to be careful, not assert things that can't be supported or inferred from the text, and not to dismiss what evidence is there. Your ecclesiastic diglossia theory as you presented it seems to just ignore and disregard what the text actually says.

Now, if there were a liberal or an unbeliever who just believed the account in Acts 2 was fabricated, as some do, and he was willing to just pull a theory out of somewhere and assert that what really happened was a controversy about speaking Greek in the holy city (with no historical, cultural proof to support the idea that this was a big deal) because he didn't consider understanding the Bible to be all that important, I can understand that. But if you believe the Bible is inspired and what it teaches is important for us, doesn't your theory have to match the actual words on the page? And shouldn't it match up with what is recorded in history? Maybe you haven't presented your evidence, but you just seem to be contradicting scripture and history to me.

And then to discount the statement Paul actually made here in I Corinthians 13 as a fictional manifestation of the gift, when the rest of the things in his list are not fictional, that isn't a careful approach to the text, either, IMO.

You should be careful about painting so many other Christians with a broad brush.

Do Pentecostals (or are there Pentecostals that) have faith in Christ and believe the Gospel? Yes. If that is the case, can you say that those who do do not have the Holy Spirit? No.

Does scripture indicate that if believers ask the Father for the Holy Spirit, that He won't give a bad thing (like a father giving a scorpion to a child who asks for an egg)?

If Pentecostals pray to be filled with the Holy Spirit, doesn't that verse apply? Yes it does.

Is the idea of someone who is already a believer being filled with the Holy Spirit Biblical? Yes it is? See Acts 4. See Ephesians 2 and 5.

Can you definitively prove that the Pentecostal idea that 'baptism with the Holy Spirit' refers to something subsequent to salvation is false teaching from scripture? No you can't? Can Pentecostals show evidence for those who have already believed the Gospel being filled with the Spirit or receiving the Spirit subsequent to having faith and being baptized? Yes? (Acts 8, Acts 19--where the Spirit came on these men after they were baptized in the name of the Lord.) Can Pentecostals show you were 'baptized with the Holy Ghost' and the Holy Ghost falling or coming upon individuals seem to be used interchangeably? Yes, they can.

If you believe Pentecostals are wrong about their doctrine of the Holy Spirit, you still have no basis for accusing Pentecostals of having false spirits over this doctrine. Have you ever held to one belief about scripture, and changed it? Does that mean you used to have a demon and got rid of it? Do you see how such a judgmental approach is wrong?

The Pentecostal movement is rather diverse. I'm not going to say everything that has ever happened in the Pentecostal movement is from the Holy Spirit. That would be a foolish assertion. But it would also be foolish to assert that everything that goes on in a Pentecostal church is of a different spirit, given the promises of scripture and the teaching on spiritual gifts.

You should also be very careful not to speak a word against the Holy Spirit, since that is a grave and unforgivable thing. If you categorically accuse a group of operating through false spirits, and many are operating by the power of the Spirit of God, don't you see how that could be a problem?

The KJV translators in all honesty, knew too well that the italic word “unknown” is not in any Greek extant but it cannot be pointed out as an error. In fact they help the reader understand the context. Linguistic view of tongue simply means real language either known or unknown, that can be understood as the speaker in his native language but foreign to the hearer. Biblical usage of the word unknown means mystery or that is hidden or literally not known by the hearer BUT THEN AGAIN THEY ARE REAL LANGUAGES OF MEN.

Now, one writer says "To show the folly of such a view, we need to take the statement in 1 Cor 14 and remove the word “unknown” in the following experiment". Let’s strike out or remove all the italic word unknown and let's play the game :

1 Cor 14:2 (2) he that speaketh in an _______ tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.
1 Cor 14:4 He that speaketh in an _______ tongue (singular) edifieth himself
1 Cor. 14:13 Wherefore let him that speaketh in an _______ tongue pray that he may interpret.
1 Cor 14:14 For if I pray in an _______ tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. For if I pray in an _______ tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.

1. Is it true that a person that speaks in a known tongue does not speak to men?
2. Is it true that someone who speaks in a known tongue speaks to God?
3. Is it true that someone who speaks in a known tongue is not understood by any man?
4. Is it true that someone who speaks in a known tongue speaketh in the Spirit mysteries?
5. Is it true that someone who speaks in a known tongue edifieth himself?
6. Is it true that someone who speaks in a known tongue must interpret?
7. Is it true that someone who prays in a known tongue is really his spirit that is praying?
8. Is it true that someone who speaks in a known language has to pray to interpret what he says?
9. Is it true that someone who prays in a known language does not understand what he is praying?

I know the trick, use something when it goes along with one’s belief but go against if one’s beliefs trouble by it. The only alternative is to deny it.

God bless