SIT, TIP, Prophecy and Confession

[geisha779]

One way to tell if interpretation or prophecy via TWI was fake is if it contradicted the written word. Although I can't go back and listen again.....given our stilted theology....some of it probably was blatantly false. Just a guess. We already have the written word and much of what was brought forth was simply reworded scripture. I don't need someone to tell me something I can go to scripture and read. I miss the point there a bit....but I suppose one could argue it was meant to edify. In Acts, when people heard the wonderful works of God it was followed by a dramatic change and people were added to the church.

As new kinds of people were added, tongues were there as a sign. Who needed a sign that the dynamic had changed? A confirmation. Israel. Which is why I suspect, Paul, tells the Corinthians to grow up....tongues are for a sign. He then gives a reference to the Old Testament account that relates why God chose tongues in the first place. It was as a judgment for Israel. This is why they were falling on their faces....they were not only being enlightened, but convicted. God was speaking to them in other tongues. In the OT account Israel was enslaved by a people they couldn't understand. That was a big deal and that was a judgement from God.

SIT also implies judgement. With men of other lips and other tongues......it is not an all love you bless you thing. It is a serious message from God to a particular people.

Just a side thought....when Jesus started speaking in parables it was after the healing and many miracles, teachings and public displays. They still were trying to kill Him, so He said....fine, I am only speaking in parables and in doing so He was confounding them and hiding His message. He explained Himself to those who would listen and hear.

The Corinthians were lost and Paul was trying to bring them back to reality.

The more we start to examine the purpose of SIT the clearer Paul's words become IMO. It is fascinating stuff.

[Raf]

Here was something interesting:

Have you ever heard, in interpretation or prophecy, the message brought forth that "God chose us before the foundation of the world"? I did, lots of times. And it was a staple of messages on those Gartmore Weekly Tapes, too.

At one point, Chris Geer had a dramatic shift in his doctrinal stance. I won't go into detail except to say that he now interpreted those "foundation of the world" verses to be the "overthrow of the world," corresponding to the Greek word katabole. God didn't choose us before the foundation of the world, which would have required a foreknowledge of the fall of Lucifer and of Adam. No, he chose us before the overthrow of the world, which would correspond to the period between the time Adam sinned and the time God cursed the ground and cast Adam and Eve out of Eden.

Guess what happened? Come on, guess.

Right. OVERNIGHT, references to God's calling us from before the foundation of the world disappeared from the interpretations and prophecies of everyone who adopted this doctrine. Gone from Gartmore Weekly Tapes. Gone from many (though not all) of the fellowship and branch meetings I attended in New York. You could tell who had heard and accepted the new teaching from those who had either not heard it or not accepted it just by the fact that the reference vanished from their interpretation and prophecy permanently.

Proof? No, not proof. Illustration. Demonstration. FAKERY.

[TrustAndObey]

Raf, I'm guessing that study didn't go far afterwards, since the whole "Foundations of the world" was still recited into the 2000s era quite frequently..

Course, this whole SIT, I think I'd be interested in what the point is in it.. Geisha just shared some of what I see from scripture But rather from the viewpoint of now, I see no benefit in the current age version..

Someone speaking unknown and weird sounds, to communicate with God? Let's see, God energizes the words, so He can communicate back to himself, in this private prayer language.. Am I misunderstanding this? Or is it your spirit that energizes itself and gives itself the words? Doesn't sound much different than God knowing your heart and needs already.. So umm, instead He decides we just need to speak weird babblings so He can once again hear about those things He already knows about in this private prayer language? Am I still misunderstanding something here?? And this is suppose to be the power of God? I'm just so not impressed, cause I see ZERO purpose or benefit.

Oh, it's speaking those things you can't utter.. Right.. Well, that would handle it for me. God, Take care of things I can't utter.. See how easy that was using words I can understand.. So umm but instead we need to use these unspeakable oh wait their speakable just not understandable, these groanings that no one understands? Well, again I'm not going to know about them either way.

I'm not trying to make fun of this beliefs.. I'm trying to understand the real benefit, not the fake ones TWI promoted.. Yes, I can read it edifies yourself.. So does pride and ego.. Or is it for those with low self esteem? Yeah, just still not understanding! Can someone help me understand what this miraculous gift done the way it is in this era suppose to accomplish in your private prayer life?!

[Raf]

Actually, we do see evidence that the overthrow doctrine didn't last more than a couple of years, so I'm not surprised to hear the old prophecies came back.

[Raf]

Quick (hopefully) doctrinal digression:

TnO,

Looking at the rest of your post, I think the heart of your question is doctrinal. From that perspective, it's still a struggle to answer in a way that will satisfy you, because I assume you are familiar with all the same scriptures as we. So reminding you that Paul said those who SIT do edify themselves (he doesn't say how, but excludes the understanding) only reminds you of something you seem to be rejecting anyway. If God says you're edified but doesn't say how, why is it not good enough to know He says you're edified?

Going further than your post:

I'm not trying to reverse my main argument here. I believe it's clear that what Paul wrote applies to the people Paul wrote it to, but I'm not convinced we today are doing or have done the same thing those people did, so its application to me is moot. Likewise, when Paul wrote "I would that ye all spake with tongues," was he writing to the church at Corinth or to every Christian everywhere for all time (or at least until The Return)? And if to every Christian everywhere for all time, why no instruction on how to do it? Why no instruction on how to interpret or prophesy?

We used to say that tongues, interpretation and prophecy are by inspiration, not by revelation. Not only is that distinction nowhere to be found in the Bible, but it seems to be flat out contradicted by I Cor. 14:29-31. Any plain reading of that text tells you that words of prophesy come by revelation.

Have you ever been in a meeting where one person delivering a word of prophecy was interrupted by someone else who said, "Stop! God has a word to deliver from me. Here it goes..."? I'm not saying it never has happened. For all I know, it has, but it would be exceedingly rare. Has anyone witnessed this in TWI or offshoots?

I'm sure some may argue that these verses refer to people with the gift ministry of a prophet, not to people manifesting the word of prophecy that is one of the nine manifestations, but where is that distinction said or even implied in the verse or its context? The context of the whole passage is manifestations, not gift ministries. He just spent verse after verse after verse telling us how profitable prophecies are to the congregation. Are we to believe that when he finally gets to talking about prophets speaking in a worship setting, all of a sudden, without a word of warning, he's talking about something OTHER than the manifestation of prophecy?

My point is that we do not see instruction in the Bible on HOW to speak in tongues. We see what it looked like, and we emulate what it looked like, but we're not producing the same thing (my assertion) that they did, so it follows we're not actually DOING the same thing. There's an instruction that seems to be missing, in my opinion. Likewise, aside for "pray that you may interpret," there's no instruction on how to do it. And the only thing approaching instruction on prophecy seems to be that the person prophesying receives a revelation and starts speaking, even though he may be interrupting someone else by doing so. Is there an offshoot that practices this?

All these are doctrinal questions, and I do not pretend to know every answer. Was hoping the doctrinal threads that popped up would feature some exploration of these issues, but unfortunately, they have not gone that way. Maybe Mark Sanguinetti's studies answer some of these issues already, but he starts with a presumption I no longer share, which is that modern SIT and Biblical SIT are identical.

[OldSkool]

I just want to throw something out there. In TWI, and I don't remember where at this point but I think it was in one of the classes, there were anecdotes given of people being in a fellowship and understanding the "language" spoken during someone manifesting speaking in tongues w/interpretation. Now as I recall, the person who understood the language was blown away because the language was spoken so perfectly.

First off, has anyone ever met one of these people?

Second off, if the language spoken is perfect, then shouldn't the language pass linguistic analysis?

Just saying.

[Raf]

I do not recall those anecdotes from the Intermediate class [Earl Burton], which I only took once. I don't believe I ever took the TIP class [VPW], but I may have.

But the anecdotal assertion that the language was spoken perfectly (a running theme in many of these anecdotes) seems to me to run counter to the assertion that the reason linguists do not detect languages from a phonetic analysis is because of the "accents" of the people speaking. Samarin used the term "accent" to mean something different from what we typically mean when we use that word. We see this in his placement of quotation marks around the word "accent," and we know from further study that glossolalists lose their regional accents when they SIT. In other words, you cannot tell a New Englander from a Texan based on their glossolalia.

So "when" you speak in tongues and produce a language, you sound like a native speaker of that language according to the anecdotal evidence. Unless a linguist is listening. Then you sound like a gringo asking for directions to ell banyo and the linguist is too boneheaded to recognize the language.

[OldSkool]

I do not recall those anecdotes from the Intermediate class [Earl Burton], which I only took once. I don't believe I ever took the TIP class [VPW], but I may have.

Someone please chime in and correct me, I think it was from Craig's way of abundance and power class. Either way, I have been taught that while in the way international.

[Raf]

Ah! I have no exposure to the WAP series, but if Craig said it, that settles it. I just believe it.

[chockfull]

But the anecdotal assertion that the language was spoken perfectly (a running theme in many of these anecdotes) seems to me to run counter to the assertion that the reason linguists do not detect languages from a phonetic analysis is because of the "accents" of the people speaking. Samarin used the term "accent" to mean something different from what we typically mean when we use that word. We see this in his placement of quotation marks around the word "accent," and we know from further study that glossolalists lose their regional accents when they SIT. In other words, you cannot tell a New Englander from a Texan based on their glossolalia.

So "when" you speak in tongues and produce a language, you sound like a native speaker of that language according to the anecdotal evidence. Unless a linguist is listening. Then you sound like a gringo asking for directions to ell banyo and the linguist is too boneheaded to recognize the language.

This is one of the questions I have remaining that looking at research brought up. Specifically, the idea of consonant mapping. If the consonants in a language are completely foreign to a speaker, is SIT supposed to work that God magically changes the sounds on the back end to be perfectly natively spoken? I mean it is not beyond what I see possible in scripture. At the tower of Babel, the languages were changed so they couldn't understand one another causing a scattering of the people there. That had to be immediate. Or is speaking supposed to produce a language with the known limitations of the speaker's native language? Like a bad accent? Don't know answers, just more questions. I mean it had to be that TWI interpreted it the latter to be putting in exercises to "increase fluency" - i.e. possibly develop foreign consonant sounds.

The tower of Babel record brings up even more questions. First, is the whole tongues concept some kind of prophetic healing or fixing of what happened at Babel? A spiritual language that is a token of what the future holds? Revelations talks about concepts like spirit being the entire sustenance of life, like the new body seen of the resurrected Jesus. What will the language be like there?

Next, the whole field of linguistics brings up even more questions. The idea of a language having attributes such that its main intent is conversational - back and forth, includes metadata, can invent new vocab words, can learn - I mean that has to be the main intent of any language. The whole bit of using TIP manifestations as a miraculous spiritual translator, that's a bit tedious. Translators are tedious in broadcasting. So any language at / after the gathering has to be new so all can understand one another. It would make no sense people running around doing the same routine to understand one another there. Is this somewhat of a spiritual short-term fix, like Babelfish / Google translate?

Questions, questions, and more questions.

[Raf]

I've been fortunate to encounter a linguist who is conducting the exact kind of phonemic inventory comparison I earlier shared would be an ideal, objective way to identify whether a sample of "unknown" language actually corresponds to a known language. This, I am assured, is how linguists go about identifying languages they encounter with which they are not familiar. Here's the (rather simplistic) answer I got. I don't think it begins to address the depth of the conversation we've been having on this thread. Ok, maybe begins:

"There are methods; they involve looking for sound sequences that repeat in particular structured ways. Similar methods are used when linguists in the field encounter an undocumented language: linguists can document the language even if they don't speak it."

This was specifically in response to a question about me producing a known language through glossolalia if the linguist investigating were unfamiliar with the language. It's a bit of a superficial answer, and I can't tell yet if it crumbles on close examination or if it is restrained in its confidence of linguists' ability to detect language. I'm at this guy's mercy in terms of him choosing to respond to follow-up questions, and I'll share what I think is relevant as the responses come in.

Edited November 15, 2012 by Raf

[TrustAndObey]

Quick (hopefully) doctrinal digression:

If God says you're edified but doesn't say how, why is it not good enough to know He says you're edified?

Actually my question while it may have some "doctrinal" points in it, and just like this topic can diverge also, the question itself I tried to keep on track wit this topic and "think" it has relevance.. But I could be wrong..

My question is not with the scriptures about being edified.. But rather what profut one gets from how SIT is done now days.. My personal view, and it is only that, is that the only occurrences of SIT in scripture in Acts show a language while maybe not understood by the speaker, was understood by those present.. And I see a benefit and a profit to that.. Even to the individual. But now days.. The gibberish, free vocal, groanings, or whatever words you want to describe today's acts as.. Where honestly is the benefit and profit?

Is that still a doctrinal question? Not on topic? I'm trying to keep it about today's vs first century which I realize is still a "debated" question.

Maybe I make no sense... :(/> And I'm thinking with this topic having doctrinal and practical points, it is hard to not go into both..

I mean, first, has anyone even actually described WHAT the heck is SIT that we all refer to.. I mean, today's version. What is it.. TWI said it was inspiration and not revelation, but that leaves "in my mind" more ???? than answers. What exactly does that mean? If the spirit is involved, is God? It is HIS spirit after all in us (despite TWI emphasizing OUR spirit, scriptures repeatedly calls it His).

Edited November 15, 2012 by TrustAndObey

[Raf]

Here's the thing, TnO:

What you appear to be asking is, why SIT if it's not producing a language that the speaker understands? Practically, there's no benefit to your understanding. Empirically, there may be some comfort to you to feel this connection with God, to know that he's working in you and with you and for you (I feel like I'm prophesying). But even Chockfull would probably agree that the main benefit you get out of it is what scripture says you'll get out of it, which in my view makes your question doctrinal.

Off topic? I only insisted on staying ON topic when the scriptural discussion threatened to overwhelm the practical one we've been having here. That's not the case now.

But if you're saying "I KNOW what the Bible says, or what TWI says, and even if I take those things for granted, I still don't see the point of SIT," then your question is purely practical -- and unanswerable. In other words, best as I can tell, the answer to your question is either scriptural or a shrug.

[Raf]

I mean, first, has anyone even actually described WHAT the heck is SIT that we all refer to.. I mean, today's version. What is it.. TWI said it was inspiration and not revelation, but that leaves "in my mind" more ???? than answers. What exactly does that mean? If the spirit is involved, is God? It is HIS spirit after all in us (despite TWI emphasizing OUR spirit, scriptures repeatedly calls it His).

My belief is that today's SIT is nothing more than free vocalization wearing Christian clothes. I trust Chockfull would disagree with this assessment.

As for inspiration vs. revelation, that is a TWI distinction that I'm trying and failing to find in scripture.

My belief is that Biblical SIT always produced a human language. The only thing in question in the Bible is whether the people hearing could understand it (hypothetically). I Cor. 14:2 says no, not because it's not a human language, but simply because the audience typically didn't know it. The first incidence of SIT fairly clearly establishes that human language is produced, and nothing about the word "glossa" changes from human language to indecipherable utterance from Acts through Revelation. This leads me to conclude that I Cor. 14:2 is set in a context of meetings, not a blanket statement. Chockfull disagrees and considers I Cor. 14:2 a statement of the very change in definition I deny.

We are at an impasse there, on a doctrinal question. No discussion of linguistics is relevant any longer, for if he's right, linguists will never detect a language in glossolalia because God won't allow it. If I'm right, linguistics will never detect a language in glossolalia because there is no language to detect. When both sides can look at the same evidence and come to opposite conclusions based on presuppositions, then the problem isn't the evidence: it's the presuppositions. One of those presuppositions must be wrong.

We would know Chockfull's presupposition is wrong if a linguist detects a language in SIT (he'd lose the battle over I Cor. 14:2, but win the war on the existence of valid modern SIT -- interestingly, however, it would still prove nothing about any particular person's claim of SIT: it would only say that someone else did it. Still doesn't mean we didn't all fake it, but certainly would weaken that argument).

I wish I had staked out a position that would allow me to claim victory no matter what the outcome of independent, unbiased research. Instead, I chose a position that can hypothetically be proved false... and hasn't been.

So, back to inspiration vs. revelation: I'm guessing here, but this is always how I understood it blended with how I now understand it.

Revelation would be God telling you "Say this," and you just repeat what He tells you to say.

Inspiration removes the "hearing voices in your head" part: you just speak, and trust God to give you the next sound (SIT) or the next word (TIP). It's extemporaneous. You don't hear anything ahead of time. You just go...

...and improvise. There is nearly no distinction between what TWI taught as "inspiration" and "making it up as you go along," also known as improv with your understanding, free vocalization without it. There is, to the best of my ability to look through scripture, no documentation for inspiration as described by TWI as the mechanism for interpretation and prophecy. (This is not crucial to my argument; if someone can prove me wrong here, please go right ahead).

Edited November 15, 2012 by Raf

[TrustAndObey]

What you appear to be asking is, why SIT if it's not producing a language that the speaker understands? Practically, there's no benefit to your understanding.

...

But even Chockfull would probably agree that the main benefit you get out of it is what scripture says you'll get out of it, which in my view makes your question doctrinal.

Let me help clarify the questions and purpose..

I see where I'm not being clear.. What I really am saying, is I do see what the scriptures say, and am not questioning it, but instead I'm asking a pure practical - what does each person say they get from it. Rather than quote scripture, I'm asking for personal explanation of the benefit in detail. It's easy to quote and say "it edifies me", it's another to explain how your SIT, if it edifies you, does such a thing.. Purely practical, non doctrinal, and purely personal.. Such as your example, "it would give you the warm fuzzy/comfort God's working in/with you....!".. That's what my question is after.. I'm not trying to define doctrine/scriptures, I'm trying to understand people's practical/personal understanding. Is that any clearer?

The reason it is on topic, is Chock asked for proof we faked it.. I believe I faked it, but am willing to do a double check.. So I'll start with I don't believe I had any benefit out of it other than keeping the ever watchful TWI eye off of me.. Personally. Now I wanted to bless others, so yes, interp/prophecy came from inspiration, but were talking the definition of the words came from my mind, thoughts, and on the spot improv of what my brain could think of to bless others.

If it's a shrug, ok.. How about others? How did it benefit you? SIT, personal prayer?

And that led to the second set of questions.. Defining in detail, how these really work? Or so we say. Not doctrine scripture, but rather personal detailed practical info. I never really questioned TWI's understanding in detail, so I never formed a full, how it works in that much detail understanding. You speak, words are there, but where did they come from? From God? From His spirit in you? Clearly TWI said it wasn't your mind.. And so if from God, just cause it wasn't known seconds before, how is that different than revelation.. God still gave you, revealed to you the words to speak.. Just cause it was all happening at one time, how is different than? Clearly, I'm just trying to help in my understanding of what people think and believe. And am willing to check myself and explain away..

Ok, so did I do any better at explaining these questions, purpose, belief?

[TrustAndObey]

... back to inspiration vs. revelation: I'm guessing here, but this is always how I understood it blended with how I now understand it.

Revelation would be God telling you "Say this," and you just repeat what He tells you to say.

Inspiration removes the "hearing voices in your head" part: you just speak, and trust God to give you the next sound (SIT) or the next word (TIP). It's extemporaneous. You don't hear anything ahead of time. You just go...

But still God gives the words.. And you speak them.. So you don't "hear" them in your head. But I don't think revelation must be "heard", does it? It just has to be "revealed". Meaning the source didn't come from you. If it wasn't from you, and you didn't know ahead of time, and now you know it, isn't that revealing something? Does TWI belief say it bypasses the mind? Cause I know each word was in my mind before I spoke.. Proof I faked it? Or revealed to my mind? Again.. I'm trying to understand people's take on it then, now, however.. But know full well, that I think I faked it, and I think that current SIT doesn't match the Biblical record (but that's getting into doctrinal).

[Raf]

Ah! Now I see. Thank you.

TWI did not teach that it bypasses your mind. If I recall correctly, what TWI taught was "The Great Principle," which in sum says that God's spirit teaches your spirit, your spirit teaches your mind, and you speak it forth. This Great Principle is clearly articulated in the Bible verse... in the verse... CARP! I know I left that verse around here somewhere!

[waysider]

"Where is the benefit?"

I believe we can extrapolate somewhat of an answer to that from Newberg's study. According to the findings, part of the brain relaxes and frees itself from the encumbrance of critical thinking. I liken that to relaxing in an easy chair after a long, grueling day of physical work. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so...unless you allow yourself to set unrealistic expectations for it.

"How does TIP and Prophesy work?"

It's really quite simple. You already have a framework of what sorts of things can and can't be said. These are things that you hear frequently repeated in meetings and teachings. (Ex: God is with you, God loves you, stay your mind on the word, etc.) You know what it's supposed to look/sound like because you've been presented with lots of examples in classes, twig fellowships, branch meetings and so forth. (culturalization) Have you ever been to a campfire event where someone makes up a scary story? I think the same mental facilities come into play. Try this. Take the following lead-in and expand it out for a few more sentences: "It was a cold and rainy night and we found ourselves headed down a dark and narrow road. Just as we turned hard into a sharp corner to the right,__________________________________.

[Raf]

I've been thinking, and something just occurred to me:

Newberg's study proves that free vocalization is an innate human ability.

Hear me out: Newberg found that it is possible for someone to speak a string of syllables unknown to the speaker as any kind of language without activating the language centers of the brain. That IS free vocalization.

The problem with this view, of course, is that last line: Newberg's test subjects would adamantly deny that this is what they were doing, and Newberg did nothing to address that question. So for those who hold that Newberg's test subjects were, in fact, doing something supernatural, it's not possible to draw the same conclusion from Newberg's study that I'm drawing here.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if Newberg performed the same series of tests on someone who knew he was faking it. Would such a person also be able to utter a meaningless string of syllables without activating the language centers of the brain? I'd bet the mortgage the answer is yes. The emotional centers might show differences, but not the language producing centers.

Time to find Newberg's e-mail.

Edited November 16, 2012 by Raf

[chockfull]

I've been fortunate to encounter a linguist who is conducting the exact kind of phonemic inventory comparison I earlier shared would be an ideal, objective way to identify whether a sample of "unknown" language actually corresponds to a known language. This, I am assured, is how linguists go about identifying languages they encounter with which they are not familiar. Here's the (rather simplistic) answer I got. I don't think it begins to address the depth of the conversation we've been having on this thread. Ok, maybe begins:

His answer on mapping what he calls "sound sequences" to me is similar to Samarin's consonant maps and statistics applied to them. I'd ask him about what's in the field with computer analysis of that kind of stuff.

[chockfull]

TWI did not teach that it bypasses your mind. If I recall correctly, what TWI taught was "The Great Principle," which in sum says that God's spirit teaches your spirit, your spirit teaches your mind, and you speak it forth. This Great Principle is clearly articulated in the Bible verse... in the verse... CARP! I know I left that verse around here somewhere!

Yea, a lot of mental model constructs - smacks of man making it up.

IMO there is somewhat of a problematic issue with the Holy Spirit / holy spirit concept that is trying to patch over. The Trinitarian view of Holy Spirit has that entity not very well defined - just an ethereal presence that you can "pray into" meetings, or its presence can be felt, etc. Nothing very concrete I've ever heard on that one, including what the third person of the trinity is supposed to do, how to interact with it, etc.

But accepting VP's / Stiles interpretation of capital HG / small hg leaves a whole lot of loose ends. The main one being you have to completely construct something like the "Great Principle" to make it logical and plausible.

[Raf]

Response to post 1845: From what I can tell, and the reason I contacted this particular linguist, is that he's going into much, much more detail than Samarin ever described. I could point out that so far, he has seen no indication that the glossolalia he has studied matches any known language, but at this point that finding can be taken in opposite directions by us in accordance with differing doctrinal presuppositions.

...

On a different note, I've been thinking about EB's Improv... I mean, Intermediate Class. Anyone else remember the part where they analyzed an interpretation or prophecy that included the expression "muck and mire of the world"? Burton (I think it was him) taught that this was an example of the speaker's injection of his own words into the prophecy, and that we should ignore it.

WHAT? Can anyone give me one solid reason why God can't use that expression in a particular setting where and when it will resonate with those present? I keep thinking about that poor guy, who probably followed every instruction given to him in the TIP class, only to have his word of prophecy cruelly and disingenuously dissected as an example of what NOT to do in prophecy, based on NOTHING.

Just thinking out loud.

Edited November 16, 2012 by Raf

[chockfull]

But still God gives the words.. And you speak them.. So you don't "hear" them in your head. But I don't think revelation must be "heard", does it? It just has to be "revealed". Meaning the source didn't come from you. If it wasn't from you, and you didn't know ahead of time, and now you know it, isn't that revealing something? Does TWI belief say it bypasses the mind? Cause I know each word was in my mind before I spoke.. Proof I faked it? Or revealed to my mind? Again.. I'm trying to understand people's take on it then, now, however.. But know full well, that I think I faked it, and I think that current SIT doesn't match the Biblical record (but that's getting into doctrinal).

You know, the major tenet explained in the "inspiration vs. revelation" deal was as already mentioned that the prophecy words supposedly bypass the brain, thus the distinction. The contrast was made to revelation, that it's conscious thought.

In my experience, and this is totally anecdotal and not proof related or science based, anything to me that's seemed to be revelation is not something like a major mental recognition. It has been more just logical trains of thought that seem like common sense to the brain, then when examining later, there is not sufficient evidence of all the steps being able to be arrived at through facts and mental capacities alone.

I would currently be fine describing interpretation / prophecy as being "revelation". As I think that word has plenty of potential to be defined more broadly and all-inclusive than the mental gymnastics of TWI's interpretation.

Response to post 1845: From what I can tell, and the reason I contacted this particular linguist, is that he's going into much, much more detail than Samarin ever described. I could point out that so far, he has seen no indication that the glossolalia he has studied matches any known language, but at this point that finding can be taken in opposite directions by us in accordance with differing doctrinal presuppositions.

I'm cool investigating all he has to share, and allowing each other leeway for differing doctrinal beliefs. I'm just not going to fight with you guys any more.

[waysider]

On a different note, I've been thinking about EB's Improv... I mean, Intermediate Class. Anyone else remember the part where they analyzed an interpretation or prophecy that included the expression "muck and mire of the world"? Burton (I think it was him) taught that this was an example of the speaker's injection of his own words into the prophecy, and that we should ignore it.

If a speaker can "inject" those words, why should we assume he can't inject others?

And, how are we to sort out which words are "injected" and which are not?

[chockfull]

Newberg's study proves that free vocalization is an innate human ability.

Hear me out: Newberg found that it is possible for someone to speak a string of syllables unknown to the speaker as any kind of language without activating the language centers of the brain. That IS free vocalization.

OK, so reflecting on the "free vocalization" definition that I've taken issue with. The reason I have taken issue with it is that there seems to me like elements of that definition that incorporate defining any seeming non-language mouth noise by that term, and then using it to prove people SIT are doing the same thing. I STILL see logical issues with that. IF people are faking it, then the definition would be applicable across the board. IF they are not, though, and something categorically different is going on like energizing of God, then I find the term to be more of a condemnation by association type of thing.

However, looking at it from a linguistics perspective, I see why those topics are lumped together for study purposes. It's mostly convenience - get all the xenoglossia samples, glossa samples, and any other all-inclusive samples of people claiming similar things - to be speaking a different language. Then do analysis.

I'm going to suspend any issues I have with that term for the time being to see what we can learn from it.