What Did You Say? (1)
For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God; for no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries. 1 Corinthians 14:2 NASB
No one understands – Paul’s remark about speaking in tongues fuels great debate. Some denominations of Christianity consider the practice obsolete, ending with the age of the apostles. Others hold the experience as a virtual requirement of salvation. Few pay any attention to the history of these experiences. Even fewer raise any question about the fact that the letter to the Corinthians is the only letter that broaches the subject. All of this means we need to do some digging.
First, we should notice that the translation is a gloss. Literally, the Greek text says, “no one hears.” Of course, Paul is probably implying that no one understands, but there might be a reason why he chooses akoúō (“to hear’) rather than ginosko or katalabaino (“to know” or “to understand”). After all, he suggests that these sounds are really only spoken to God. Perhaps the true expression of “speaking in tongues” is silent.
Second, the term glossolalia also has a private element:
Speaking in tongues (1 Cor. 12–14; cf. Mk. 16:17; Acts 2:4) is a gift (1 Cor. 14:2). This speaking is primarily to God (14:2, 28) in the form of prayer, praise, or thanksgiving (14:2, 14–17). Its benefit is for the individual rather than the community (14:4ff.). In it the noús is absorbed so that the words are obscure (14:2, 9, 11, 15–16). Since the sounds are not articulated, the impression of a foreign language is left (14:7–8, 10–11), and uncontrolled use might suggest that the community is composed of mad people (14:23, 27).[1]
Behm’s explanation is a bit confusing. If the sounds are not articulated, then how can they be mistaken for a foreign language? What he must mean is that the sounds are not understood by those who hear them. But it is also important to note that the noús (mind) plays no active role here. In other words, even the speaker doesn’t know what he’s saying or doing. This leads us directly to Heschel’s analysis of the ancient role of the nabi:
In the old days, then, the nabi was the excited ecstatic who came forward as a mediator of supernatural revelations which had come to him in inner experiences, whereas ro’eh and ḥōzeh were seers of every kind who gained supernatural knowledge, not with ecstasy, but by various external means of perception, favorite among them being the illusions of darkness, half sleep, and dreaming. The word nabi is supposed to denote a person who had the gift of tongues or glossolalia through the inspiration of a higher being. This sort of speaking is not meant to be heard by others, the obscurity of its expressions making it totally unintelligible to the bystanders. The nabi appear as men of occult knowledge, proclaiming future events, although prediction in itself does not necessarily belong to the essential character of the nabi. They are differentiated from the diviner and the magician by the fact that their ecstatic experiences are rooted in mystical dispositions, whereas divination and magic are grounded in a knowledge that has been acquired. Of course, they practiced various exercises in order to induce their trances. Loud music (I Sam. 10:5) and bloody mutilation of their own bodies were used as a means for promoting ecstasy. In contrast, the seer, to whom all delirious frenzy is alien, is able to divine the will of the gods through the interpretation of various omens, for example, the rustling of trees (cf. II Sam. 5:24) and the flight of birds (cf. Gen. 15:11). Of these two elements, from the fusion of which later classical prophecy is considered to spring, divination is held to be an original Semitic phenomenon. Ecstatic prophetism is held to be alien to the Semites, and not found in the desert.[2]
nabi is the Hebrew word for “prophet.” Heschel clarifies that the biblical idea of “prophet” is not the same as the idea of a prophet in the rest of the ancient world.
“Ecstasy is an experience which is incommunicable. It its mystical state, the soul must rise above the level of thought and emotion in order to find a junction of the ground of the soul with absolute reality. It is a moment of speechless communion . . . Words cannot grasp it, categories elude it; verbal articulation is an impossibility. It is a stirring of the soul rather than an engagement of the mind; an interim awareness beyond communication.”[3]
“Prophecy, on the other hand, is meaningless without expression. Its very substance is a world to be conveyed, a message to be imparted to others. The habit of the mystic is to conceal; the mission of the prophet is to reveal.”[4]
Prophets in the Bible are not ecstatic mystics. They are men and women called by God to specific tasks. They do not speak in unintelligible sounds. But the Greek oracles do. Common in the Greek world, oracles depended on two crucial characters, the manic who had direct contact with the god, and the prophetes who interpreted the manic’s experience. The manic’s direct connection with the god demonstrated itself in writhing on the floor, uttering unintelligible sounds, dancing, frothing at the mouth, etc. The prophet’s task was to convert all this behavior into a recognizable message. Citizens of Corinth were well-acquainted with this ecstatic process.
“It is strange that in all the discussions of prophetic ecstasy, scholars overlooked the significant fact that in the leading prophetic figures between the time of Moses and the time of Amos, no sign of ecstasy is reported.”[5]
All of this background helps us answer the question, “Why doesn’t Paul write about speaking in tongues in any of his other letters?” Tomorrow we will see.
Topical Index: speaking in tongues, glossolalia, nabi, prophet, ecstasy, 1 Corinthians 14:2
[1] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (p. 124). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.
[2] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets: Two Volumes in One (Hendrickson Publishers, 1962), Vol. 2, pp. 127-128.
[3] Ibid., p. 140.
[4] Ibid., p. 141.
[5] Ibid., p. 134.
