To claim that they spoke gibberish, and that Peter assumed it was languages is one of those alternate interpretations I don't go for, because it's a feeble attempt to justify today's error. No, Peter said it was the same thing they received, so it was languages. Do you question the inspiration and truth of written scripture?
They think they have the same gift as what the apostles received, even though the contrary has been proven.
But they claim tongues of angels because they are grasping at straws trying to justify their practice.
I just pulled up a couple of ancient commentaries on the passage, both early 400's, from John Chrysostom and Ambrosiastor. Here is a quote from John Chrysostom:
Do you see how one void of love is like to things inanimate and senseless? Now he here speaks of the tongues of angels, not investing angels with a body, but what he means is this: should I even so speak as angels are wont to discourse unto each other, without this I am nothing, nay rather a burden and an annoyance. Thus (to mention one other example) where he says, To Him every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things on earth, and things under the earth, Philippians 2:10 he does not say these things as if he attributed to angels knees and bones, far from it, but it is their intense adoration which he intends to shadow out by the fashion among us: so also here he calls it a tongue not meaning an instrument of flesh, but intending to indicate their converse with each other by the manner which is known among us.
Ambrosiaster wrote,
It is a great gift to be able to speak in different languages. To speak with the tongues of angels is even greater.{/quote]
Neither expressed an objection to anyone speaking in tongues of angels as something that could not be real.
These are both from https://www.catenabible.com/1cor/13
Click on verse 1.
Neither expressed an objection to anyone speaking in tongues of angels as something that could not be real.
These are both from https://www.catenabible.com/1cor/13
Click on verse 1.
Furthermore, your argument is weak because anyone who listens to it carefully can distinguish between a language and gibberish. That is, if they aren't trying to make it into a language, calling it Chinese or something when it's not. Either it conveys a message or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then it's just gibberish.
So why not provide the translation? What's the big deal? But what has been analyzed so far shows pseudo-language. All people can go on is that a sample of 100's of tongues recorded are all pseudo-language, so it can be reasonably assumed that it's a valid sample showing that all tongues are pseudo-language. I'm just saying that statistically it's the only conclusion that people can come to, and that's all we have to go on.
Records of actual events where people spoke in tongues and others understood it are evidence also. Samarin's clips are not all we have to go on. I have not read his book. The part of his methodology (if I recall correctly that it was his) that dismissed tongues that were monotone that lacked intonation seemed a spurious methodology in my opinion, since, as I have said, I have heard prayer in English in the same high pitch monotone and understood it.
I don't agree. Everyone heard and understood what was said.
Have you actually read I Corinthians 14 then? Paul describes speaking in tongues. Someone speaks in tongues. No one understands him. The speaking in tongues has to be interpreted (and there is a gift for that) in order for others to understand and be edified. Much of the chapter is spent persuading the Corinthians that speaking in tongues need to be interpreted to edify others before giving instructions along these lines in verse 27-28. In Acts 2, the disciples spoke and others presents heard them speaking in their languages, without interpretation. These were different contexts. Paul's instructions have to do with church gatherings.
Our paths diverge here, because your argument is not convincing. Putting some professor on the spot and asking what language it is, is going to cause him a bias of looking for a language and poking a guess at it, just like anyone would.
But that is a fair way to go about it. Linguists who do this sort of thing knowing what the research area is should be subjected to double-blind tests, using the same methodology on natural languages unfamiliar to them that they use on speaking in tongues. A linguist with an anti-supernatural bias is a prime target for confirmation bias. A linguist who analyzes 'speaking in tongues' with the assumption that it is a real language may be more likely to treat it like a real language.
A historian who studied it (PhD from UGA) told me that one of Agnes Ozman's tongues was verified to be Chinese by someone who worked in a Chinese laundry. I have also read a few days later of a Bohemian hearing her speak in Bohemian (now known as Czech.)
I am pressed for time, but I found Garr's account of this online some time ago. You really overuse the term 'urban legend.' An urban legend is a specific kind of thing, not just a case when someone alludes to something and does not provide full evidence.
I looked it up and I vague remember reading it. Parham did have a publication by that name. Seymour used the same name for his newsletter. I don't know whether Parham's newsletter survived or not, but you can find copies of Parham's newsletter on line. I believe the A/G's Flower's Pentecostal heritage library is where I downloaded the copies that i looked at. I do not know if Parham's newsletter had these kinds of accounts. People mailed in various experiences that Seymour published and he published about the revival there at Azusa as well.
Those were my concerns as well. The Acts 2 situation did not fit Paul's instructions either, but that appears to have been more of an evangelistic situation than what we think of as a church meeting.
At least at that level, a lot of speaking in tongues does not fit the criteria that some linguist critics level at speaking in tongues. Some of it does not only use the phonemes of the speakers language. Some if it is not just repetitive sounds. Some of it does sound like real languages, to my ears as someone with linguistic training and in this case also to this academic who studied and taught Arabic and knew Farsi.
Right, that was one of Parham's errors. Another was guessing that what they heard was real languages, which as far as I can tell from the accounts, was pseudo-languages as it still manifests today.
So how was it identified? Where is the detail? Was it just guessing, or was it actually understood and translated? If you don't provide the detail, how can this be taken as something other than urban legend?
You cited The Apostolic Faith, it was Parham's publication.
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