Why do you feel you are wasting your time on this thread, Raf?
What exactly is it that you're trying to accomplish?
This is not a sarcastic or argumentative question. I really want to know. Thank you for a thoughtful response.
Love,
Steve
You missed the point of my question, WordWolf. When I asked Raf "what exactly are you trying to accomplish", I wasn't asking why he was talking about Numbers and getting stoned. If Raf feels like he is wasting his time on this thread, it seems to me that he is feeling frustrated because he wants his posts to accomplish something, and it isn't happening.
What is it that you are trying to do, Raf? I don't think you are trying to prove yourself right just for the sake of proving yourself right. Do you feel like Wierwille pulled the wool over our eyes, that you had the wool pulled off of yours, and you care enough about me to try to pull the wool off of my eyes also, but I'm just too stubborn and set in the ways I learned in PFAL to seriously consider that your argument might be right?
What is it that you want your posts to accomplish, Raf? And why?
"I learned in PFAL to seriously consider that your argument might be right"
You learned that in PFAL?? It would appear your experience was quite different than mine, especially session #5.
For corn's sake, that's not what he just said.
He posted a theoretical, asking what Raf believed,
with a separate issue being whether it was a CORRECT belief.
"..... Do you feel like Wierwille pulled the wool over our eyes, that you had the wool pulled off of yours, and you care enough about me to try to pull the wool off of my eyes also, but I'm just too stubborn and set in the ways I learned in PFAL to seriously consider that your argument might be right?"
I've been watching the comments here, and have seen some very interesting things! Before being first introduced to the "keys to Biblical research" (via PFAL) I used to be a "grammar nut"; so I do appreciate the comments on language, tense, and voice, etc, which (in my eyes) are all valid points here.
I especially enjoyed Steve's explanation of how "spiritual" (In 1Co 12:1) refers back to Paul's entire discourse on that when writing in 1Co 13. That's wonderful stuff, Steve!
I haven't been commenting much in this thread lately because I do admit it's been getting "rather deep" at times…and there are so many interesting nuances to all of this. But I do have a couple of comments about people getting "stoned" in the Scriptures. (Ha! Ha!)
Even Paul himself admitted (in 2Co 11:25) that he got stoned once. And I believe I've actually located the exact moment he was speaking of: "But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, 'Do thyself no harm: for we are all here'." (Act 16:28) It looks like he had some friends over for a good time. (And it sure was nice of him to warn them all not to smoke so much that it might cause some harm.) And then the party began:
"Then he[Paul]called for a light…"(Act 16:29a) So this does appear to me to be the point where he was getting ready to smoke a doobie, saying (in our vernacular) "Hey man...gimme a light! "
And it must have been some really good stuff because (from the rest of the verse) it appears he got quite a rush from that toke! (You know…shaking and even falling down). Maybe it was so good that he just "passed out" for a moment or so: "…and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down..."(Act 16:29b)
And Raf: The "rocks" they were stoned with in the OT just might have been some "early form of crack". (Just sayin'…)
You missed the point of my question, WordWolf. When I asked Raf "what exactly are you trying to accomplish", I wasn't asking why he was talking about Numbers and getting stoned. If Raf feels like he is wasting his time on this thread, it seems to me that he is feeling frustrated because he wants his posts to accomplish something, and it isn't happening.
What is it that you are trying to do, Raf? I don't think you are trying to prove yourself right just for the sake of proving yourself right. Do you feel like Wierwille pulled the wool over our eyes, that you had the wool pulled off of yours, and you care enough about me to try to pull the wool off of my eyes also, but I'm just too stubborn and set in the ways I learned in PFAL to seriously consider that your argument might be right?
What is it that you want your posts to accomplish, Raf? And why?
Love,
Steve
A good question. I'm doing two things. One: I'm making my case. Which I've done. Two, I'm waiting to read an adequate rebuttal, which in my opinion has not been presented.
It's not that I want my posts to accomplish something. I think that's already happened. I think I'm waiting for your proposed rebuttals to accomplish something, and in my opinion they have not. So I keep reading, thinking, aha! There's something I missed! Except that never happens.
Nothing more to answer. I'll keep waiting. I'd be thrilled to see if there's a different usage of glossa other than the physical organ of the tongue and languages. Normal human languages, as was the case in every other usage of glossa in the New Testament and the presumed usage in the chapters in question until it was recognized that normal human languages were not being produced. I have called it before, and will call it again, an ad hoc ret-con of the term that had a clear definition when it was used in the Bible but did not predict the actual results. You're just trying to change the definition of glossa to get it to fit what's being produced rather than rejecting the practice because it's not producing what was predicted. I've seen nothing to dissuade me from this position.
He posted a theoretical, asking what Raf believed,
with a separate issue being whether it was a CORRECT belief.
"..... Do you feel like Wierwille pulled the wool over our eyes, that you had the wool pulled off of yours, and you care enough about me to try to pull the wool off of my eyes also, but I'm just too stubborn and set in the ways I learned in PFAL to seriously consider that your argument might be right?"
My apologies. I read it too fast and took it out of context, completely changing the meaning.
I don't think anyone is too stubborn or set in their ways regarding PFAL, but I do think that adequately describes your loyalty to the practice of SIT. You can't be wrong, even if it means changing what the Bible teaches to conform to your practice instead of the other way around. Sorry I can't drum up a more polite way to say that.
Raf, your interpretion of your experience is that when you were speaking in tongues, you were faking it.
My interpretation of my experience is that when I speak in tongues I am genuinely speaking in tongues in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14.
You say that when I speak in tongues, it is not in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14 because I do not produce a language.
I gave the definition of a language, a system of verbal communication that exhibits double articulation and syntax. When I speak in tongues, I produce a system that exhibits double articulation and syntax.
Then you did a word study that shows Paul was writing about "language/s."
BUT, the test you propose for whether or not the thing we call tongues today is genuine or not is if the speaker produces a specific, identifiable language.
There is NOTHING in 1 Corinthians 12-14 that indicates a person speaking in tongues MUST produce a specific, identifiable language.
The only requirement 1 Corinthians 12-14 puts on speaking in tongues is that the speaker MUST NOT understand what she is saying.
When you NARROW the definition of glossa down to "a specific, identifiable language" you are doing the same kind of violence to the text that Wierwille used to do. You are changing the language of the text, the word glossa from multivocal, polysemic, multuivalent (tolerant of imperfection, capable of using ambiguity to communicate meaning)... to absolute (without imperfection), for the purposes of "proving" something that by its very nature CANNOT be proven OR disproven, "proving" that your interpretation is correct, and ALL OTHERS are wrong.
Is it accurate for you to say that a person speaking in tongues must produce a language to be in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14? Yes, it is!
Is it accurate for you to say that a person MUST produce a specific, identifiable language to be in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14? No, it is not!
And concerning whether or not speaking in tongues seems to be "supernatural"...
I Corinthians 14:22 says that tongues are a sign... Romans 4:11 says that Abraham received the sign of circumcision... How "supernatural" was THAT? He cut the end of his own member off! And that was a sign to him because it reminded him every time he used his member, that God had made a promise that had not yet come to pass, about what was going to come out of that member.
Philippians 3:3 says, "For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." Speaking in tongues served the same purpose in the lives of the first Christians that circumcision served in the lives of the Jews. Every time we decide to use our mouths to utter what seems to our flesh to be nonsense, in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14, we are reminding ourselves that God has made a promise that has not yet come to pass about what IS going to come out of our mouths.
So... what is your stake, Raf? Why do you keep coming back when you feel like you are just wasting your time? Too often, here at Greasespot, we take each others motivations for granted, and we make up all sorts of awful things about each other before we get into a terrible fight. That is not my way. I don't want to guess about your motivations, Raf. Why is my interpretation of my experiences important enough to you that you keep coming back in spite of my seeming intractability?
The Bible says nothing about double articulation and syntax. Can something have double articulation and syntax and still not be a language? I don't know. I haven't studied the issue that much. But I will say this. You have not demonstrated that you produce double articulation and syntax. You're merely making the claim.
I don't see how sticking with the biblical usage of a term narrows its definition. I do see how going outside the Bible to expand the definition of the term gives you an unbiblical definition of the term.
Your interpretation of your experiences is of no interest to me. What is of interest to me in this thread is what the Bible actually teaches. I don't see anything in the Bible about double articulation and syntax. If you want to use that as evidence that what you are producing is actually a language, be my guest. But now you have placed on yourself the burden of proving that you produce double articulation and syntax.
I just did a quick search on Google. Not only is double articulation and syntax an element of language, it is also an element of what's called pseudo language. In other words, you can expect it to be present when a language is faked.
So even if you were to demonstrate that you produce double articulation and syntax, you would still have gone no further in demonstrating that you have produced a language.
Items B and C are irrelevant to our discussion, since B begs the question and C is self-evident (of course the speaker thinks it's a language. That's the point. But A is completely relevant if we're going to talk about "double articulation and syntax," because those features are part of phonological structure.
Let's put this in plain English (a real language): When you fake speaking in tongues, you will produce something that bears a superficial resemblance to language. It will have "words." It will have "sentences." It will even have "commas" and "periods." And, yes, it will probably have "double articulation and syntax," but ony superficially so. To demonstrate actual double articulation and syntax, you'd probably have to know the language, which is the point in the first place.
In linguistics, the term double articulation, first introduced by the French linguist André Martinet, or duality of patterning[1] refers to the way in which the stream of speech can be divided into meaningful signs, which can be further subdivided into meaningless elements. So for example, the meaningful English word "cat" is composed of the sounds [k], [æ], and [t], which are meaningless as separate individual sounds (and which can also be combined to form the separate words "tack" and "act", with distinct meanings). These sounds, called phonemes, represent the lowest level in the hierarchy of the organization of speech. Source
So glossolalia has phonemes, meaning it has double articulation. We discussed this to DEATH in the original thread.
Appealing to double articulation and syntax as evidence that a "tongue" is genuine is as useless as appealing to the fact that the sound is coming from you moving your throat, your tongue, your lips. Yes, faking a language has all that in common with speaking a real language. But it's still faking a language.
So not only does the Bible not speak of double articulation and syntax, even if it did, the presence of double articulation and syntax would not demonstrate anything supernatural about the practice today. Only the production of an identifiable language unknown to the speaker would demonstrate that something took place that could not have taken place without God's involvement.
Injecting a modern definition of language into the Biblical usage of glossaignores the Biblical usage of glossa, and AGAIN, the only reason you would feel the need to do such a thing is if you're not producing what a plain reading of the Bible promises!
I am not trying to disprove your experience. And if you're not trying to prove it, then we're fine. But if you're trying to demonstrate that you're producing what the Bible promises, then we have to first agree on what the Bible promises.
The Bible promises a language. Until you produce one, I have no reason to believe your babbling is any more authentic than mine, your sincerity and integrity notwithstanding.
It has been demonstrated, many times over, that many people who have CLAIMED to have
produced the Biblical "speaking in languages" over time have had their alleged
"languages" recorded and studied by linguistic experts-people who spend their lives
studying languages, their properties, their characteristics, and so on. What was
found?
So far, in every single case, the supposed "tongues" producer was NOT producing a
language- they were not demonstrating any "system" nor any of the characteristics
we described. They were definitely SPEAKING, and producing sounds. Those sounds
often RESEMBLED the sounds of actual languages that DID demonstrate all the
aforementioned properties. So, anyone-especially someone who earnestly WANTS to
believe he can produce an "unknown tongue" can be convinced they heard
themself pronounce words in a real language with real language characteristics.
However, so far, all CLAIMS of such have produced well-intentioned people who
produced content-less, language-less examples of vocalization.
Is it possible that ALL of those people were producing the counterfeit, and you're
The Great Exception that can produce a real language? Well, there's only one way
to support that claim, and it's not by repeating it a lot or with more volume.
Simply let an expert linguist record a few hours of the supposed "speaking in languages"
you do, then review it. An EXPERT LINGUIST would have no difficulty in going over
such a large sample and determining with certainty whether or not this was a real
language (whether or not the linguist can recognize WHICH language), or yet another
example of content-less vocalization.
Have you done that already?
Of course you haven't- which is why you can fairly say that you BELIEVE you speak
in such a language, or you THINK you speak in such a language. However, since you're
not a linguistics expert, you're not qualified to judge the results. So, your bald claim
that you're producing ANY of the specific qualities is without merit because it proceeds
from conviction, not evidence.
============================================
"Then you did a word study that shows Paul was writing about "language/s.""
If you're not clear that "tongues" is the same word as "languages", both in Greek and
other languages (like modern Spanish and early modern English with some expressions
still in use today), then I don't know how you're going to participate in this
discussion. Raf went through the usages of the Greek word IN THE BIBLE.
IN THE BIBLE, it was demonstrated to be consistent with what we SHOULD expect if we've
studied language- that the usages of "glossa" in the Bible- just like "tongue" in
English or "lengua" in Spanish- refers to a LANGUAGE as well as the physical organ
that's used to articulate the language.
It was pretty straightforward. Everything was easy to follow, with the possible
exception of I Corinthians, which suggests that A) I Corinthians needs extra
attention B) I Corinthians' usages need to be understood in light of the
others, not the other way around.
And he covered I Corinthians also.
============================================
"BUT, the test you propose for whether or not the thing we call tongues today is genuine or not is if the speaker produces a specific, identifiable language."
You misunderstand, and that was made clearer in your next sentence.
"There is NOTHING in 1 Corinthians 12-14 that indicates a person speaking in tongues MUST produce a specific, identifiable language."
Based on your usage of "identifiable", you're using it to mean
"Ah-he's speaking Etruscan, she's speaking Guaranee, and he's speaking Romansch."
That is, a language that can be positively identified by name as a specific,
pre-existing language.
The challenge, which is easy to understand and was explained in exhaustive detail, is that expert
linguists can identify the elements of language in their sleep-
so if they're exposed to a lengthy sample of a supposed language,
they can identify which elements the sample actually demonstrates rather than RESEMBLING.
IF you produced a known language, but the linguist didn't recognize it
(like Guaranee or Romansch), the linguist could still recognize which elements of
speech that language demonstrated-whatever language it was.
IF you produces an actual language that NOBODY had ever heard, then the linguist
could still recognize which elements of speech that language demonstrated-
whatever language it was.
So, the challenge is, let an expert linguist collect an extensive sample of the supposed
language, then go off and examine it. IF it's a real language, the linguist would know
it was a real language-whether or not they recognized or understood it.
I saw a sample of this with a NON-EXPERT. Someone wrote a comic strip series, and in
the series, some characters spoke a Hungarian dialect with a few slang words added to it.
The writer gave NO indication this was so-it would have given away a later surprise.
The same editor proof-read all the episodes. At one point, he sent a note back about
one panel in the unknown language. He asked the writer if he used the wrong word,
and if a different word was used instead-and gave the word.
THE EDITOR WAS CORRECT.
Despite not knowing there WAS a consistent language for sure, not knowing WHICH language
it was, and having NO background in Hungarian nor linguistics,
after a SMALL sampling of the language, he was working out what some of the words meant
to the point he spotted a legitimate type.
Experts can do MUCH better than that when exposed to MUCH bigger examples.
============================================
"The only requirement 1 Corinthians 12-14 puts on speaking in tongues is that the speaker MUST NOT understand what she is saying."
Incorrect-it also includes that the speaker speaking in languages is actually
SPEAKING A LANGUAGE- AND that language must be one the speaker does not understand.
So, the person MIGHT be speaking in a tongue if they said the following and had no
understanding of what was said:
"Ọlọrun le ti wa ni gbẹkẹle ati ki o jẹ olóòótọ. Ti o ba ti rẹ eniyan ni o wa olóòótọ, wọn yoo ni anfaani."
The same person would rather obviously not be speaking in a tongue if they said the
following and had no understanding of what was said:
Mind you, any actor worthy of the name could read either aloud, and do so with
demonstrated conviction and deep emotions and gravitas.
However, in the first case, that's an actual language, and in the second case,
that's obviously NOT an actual language by any sane linguist's standards.
===================================
Here, you continue making the same mistake, but I'm pasting it to include the entire post.
"When you NARROW the definition of glossa down to "a specific, identifiable language" you are doing the same kind of violence to the text that Wierwille used to do. You are changing the language of the text, the word glossa from multivocal, polysemic, multuivalent (tolerant of imperfection, capable of using ambiguity to communicate meaning)... to absolute (without imperfection), for the purposes of "proving" something that by its very nature CANNOT be proven OR disproven, "proving" that your interpretation is correct, and ALL OTHERS are wrong.
Is it accurate for you to say that a person speaking in tongues must produce a language to be in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14? Yes, it is!
Is it accurate for you to say that a person MUST produce a specific, identifiable language to be in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14? No, it is not!"
I see no reason to repost everything I just said about it. This was all already
addressed-by me- in this reply.
======================================
"And concerning whether or not speaking in tongues seems to be "supernatural"..."
Actually, it's a secondary consideration to whether or not it's producing a LANGUAGE.
Nobody cares about the origin of a string of nonsense syllables 2 hours long that
RESEMBLE the sound of speech-because it is devoid of meaning.
First, is an actual LANGUAGE being produced?
Second, is that language one the speaker already knows?
If it's not an actual language, then anyone can do it.
If it's a language the speaker already knows, then anyone who knows that language can do it.
In neither case does a claim of the supernatural sound sensible.
IF an example is found where the speaking results in an actual language,
AND the language is one the speaker does not know,
THEN we've got something worth discussing.
Since the Bible, however, we haven't FOUND such an example.
Oh, we've found CLAIMS of such, but any attempt to CONFIRM the claims always
falls down, and we either end up with something proven NOT to be a language,
OR a language that was known to the speaker,
or simply a CLAIM and no way to test the claim.
If that level of evidence was enough to convince, we'd all believe in Bigfoot,
the Loch Ness Monster, Voodoo, UFO grey aliens, etc, etc.
====================================
"I Corinthians 14:22 says that tongues are a sign... "
Producing a real language that the speaker doesn't know but the hearer does,
I'm confident that would be a very convincing sign to many people,
who might want to hear more and become Christians.
In other words, real tongues are a sign-but for those that don't believe.
For example: Raf claims to no longer be a Christian.
Produce, demonstrably and beyond possibility of faking,
an extensive sample in an actual language that you yourself don't speak,
and I guarantee you will have his attention.
In fact, you might get him to reverse his convictions, declare himself
a Christian, and repudiate his current claims.
That's what happens when a sign for those that believe not is demonstrated
to those that believe not.
==============================
"Romans 4:11 says that Abraham received the sign of circumcision... How "supernatural" was THAT? He cut the end of his own member off! And that was a sign to him because it reminded him every time he used his member, that God had made a promise that had not yet come to pass, about what was going to come out of that member."
That was a sign specifically for Abraham-who believed. (Later, for others who believed as Abraham did.)
That was NOT a sign specifically for those who believed not.
===============================
"Philippians 3:3 says, "For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." Speaking in tongues served the same purpose in the lives of the first Christians that circumcision served in the lives of the Jews."
How the HECK did you get THAT from Philippians 3:3?
===============================
"Every time we decide to use our mouths to utter what seems to our flesh to be nonsense, in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14, we are reminding ourselves that God has made a promise that has not yet come to pass about what IS going to come out of our mouths."
Nice sentiment-but that "reminder" business is your opinion, which you're
reading into the text. I've seen similar readings-into based on
the significance of the shape of the cross-as a lowercase "t" shape,
and trying to get a camel through the eye of a needle and a supposed
gate to Jerusalem by that name. All sounded pious, but all added meanings
not directly supported by the text- and the examples I gave were
demonstrably false. (Is it possible that yours was also a
well-intentioned error like the others?)
=================================
Something I'm curious about, Steve.
In the interest of making the information easy to find-
because, IMHO, it's both relevant and important-
I took the data about "free vocalization" and separated
"There is NOTHING in 1 Corinthians 12-14 that indicates a person speaking in tongues MUST produce a specific, identifiable language."
This is both correct and incorrect. It is absolutely correct that a person speaking in tongues MUST produce a specific, identifiable language. That is the case in I Corinthians 12-14, Acts 2 and every other usage of the word "glossa" in the Bible. Your statement is simply wrong.
However, it is INCORRECT to assume that a failure to identify the language you produce disproves the authenticity of your SIT. I NEVER SAID THAT.
What I said, and I was repeatedly, abundantly clear, is that unless you CAN identify the language, you cannot demonstrate your SIT is authentic.
So you see the distinction, or do I need to make it clear?
I CANNOT DISPROVE YOUR SIT EXPERIENCE, even if I parade you in front of every linguist in the history of the field and every single one failed to identify your language, I would still not have succeeded in discrediting your SIT.
BUT YOU CAN PROVE IT! And you can do so by producing an identifiable language.
When you say there's nothing in I Corinthians that says a person must produce a specific, identifiable language, you are doing two things. One, you are playing strawman with my argument. Two, you are falsely implying that Corinthians predicts something other than a language.
We went through the Bible book by book. Corinthians predicts a language. That's what glossa means. You have produced not the slightest scintilla of evidence that it means anything else. The best you did was "double articulation and syntax," both of which are also elements of FAKING SIT. Took me a bit to catch up with that. I apologize for posting before I looked it up, but now that I did, it's pretty clear from the evidence.
Steve, I implore you: You are changing scripture to adhere to your doctrine and practice. It should be the other way around, shouldn't it? Your doctrine and practice is your business, but our agreed upon common ground in this thread is the scripture. Does it say what it says?
This whole business about what constitutes a sign and whether the sign is supernatural is beside the point. SIT is a supernatural claim. Reducing it to a natural one is biblically untenable. It's A MANIFESTATION OF SPIRIT. Not a token of a covenant like circumcision. Not a road message that must be obeyed like a red light. A manifestation of the spirit, SUPERNATURAL BY DEFINITION. Or am I now to believe SIT is unique among manifestations in having no supernatural element whatsoever?
I Corinthians 12-14 does not require that a person speaking in tongues needs to produce a specifically identifiable language, nor does the book of Acts. It happened on the day of Pentecost that some people present recognized what followers of Christ were saying. That does not require that the same thing would or should happen at any other time.
Acts was probably written around 85 CE, about 30 years after 1 Corinthians. Luke's intent was not to instruct people on how to speak in tongues decently and in order, his purpose was to illustrate the movement of the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome.
When you say that the defining characteristics of any language also apply to pseudo-languages, aren't you saying that it is impossible to distinguish between a "real" language and a pseudo-language from the outside?
You accuse me of changing the meaning of glossa in 1 Corinthians, but I have not done that at all. You have changed the meaning of glossa to "a specifically identifiable language."
When you did your word study of tongues, Raf, how did you handle Exodus 11:7a, "But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue..."
Especially considering Joshua 10:21b, "...none moved his tongue against any of the children of Israel."
The verb for "move" and the noun for "tongue" are identical in both places, charats and lashawn in the Hebrew, and gruzo and glossa in the Septuagint respectively. The passage in Joshua is referring to human language. The passage in Exodus is referring to dogs.
What are we to make of that? Do dogs speak specifically identifiable languages?
The way Wierwille taught us to obtain meaning from text in TWI was entirely bogus. The first use of a word does not establish its meaning, and it's very dangerous to interpret the few difficult verses an light of the many clear ones. The fact that a few difficult verses exist is an indication that you have a problem with your interpretation. The fact that the Bible seems so full of difficult verses tells us that NONE OF US can say what the Bible "means" with any degree of certainty.
The meaning of a specific word in a specific place can NEVER be divorced from its context. The context will ALWAYS affect the meanings of the words. You cannot lift the word glossa out of 1 Corinthians 12-14 and say "this is what it means." The context in which we find the uses of glossa in that passage is extremely complex. The example I gave of how the context of being a sign affects glossa in 14:22 is only one strand in a whole skein of nuances. I've been working on a translation of 1 Corinthian 12-14 for well over a year now, and I periodically submit it to my professors for critique. Up until recently, I thought I was about half-done, not in terms of the extent of my translation, but in terms of the depth. It has dawned on me relatively lately that I am really only about a third of the way done.
And Wierwille's whole reason for doing interpretation was bogus. He did it to "prove" that he was right and everybody else was wrong. In order to do that he had to reduce words to one-voice, one-significance, one-weight entities. Otherwise, he could not use them in syllogisms. SURPRISE! You can't use syllogisms to analyse poetry, and the bulk of the Bible is poetry.
In fact, Paul lifted 1 Corinthians 14:21... "With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord"... out of a poem, Isaiah 28:11-12. In 1 Corinthians this immediately precedes "Wherefore tongues are for a sign..." How does the word "wherefore" (hoste ai in the Greek, literally "consequently OH!") nuance Paul's immediate following use of glossa by linking it to the immediately previous poetic use of glossa? How does Paul's use of Isaiah 28:11-12 influence the meaning if we consider Isaiah 28:13, the part of the poem Paul left out? Why did he leave it out? Because it wasn't important to the point he was trying to make? Or because he thought the excerpt he included was sufficient allusion?
If you can answer these questions, fellows, then you've got a leg up on me!
Proof texting, what Wierwille did to "prove" he had the ONE AND ONLY TRUE meaning, is not scholarship. There IS NO one and only true meaning.
I Corinthians 12-14 can be interpreted to say that people who speak in tongues must produce a specifically identifiable language.
I Corinthians 12-14 can also be interpreted to say people who speak in tongues are not required to produce a specifically identifiable language.
Both interpretations are equally "right".
Which way a person decides to interpret it depends on what the person's motives are, and THAT depends on what the person's experiences have been, and how she has chosen to intrpret those experiences.
Why is it so important to you, Raf, to prove that my interpretation of my experience is wrong?
We disagree on what the Bible teaches, period. I don't see how one can honestly read Acts and Corinthians and walk away with the impression that you can produce meaningless prattle and meet the Biblical qualification for speaking in languages.
It frustrates me because we're supposed to be approaching the material honestly, and I don't think you're being honest with yourself in how you're handling the material.
Quite frankly, you would never let me get away with what you're trying to pull.
If you want to know why I'm heated up, go back to every single post where you've complimented me. Because the person you describe in those posts is being treated like a gullible simpleton.
Translation: how dumb do you think I am?
Several times I suggested it would be best for me to walk away from this thread. Each time you specifically asked me substantive questions to dissuade me from doing so.
I'm going to say this one last time, because it does not appear to be sinking in.
I have no bleeping interest in bleeping proving that your bleeping experience is bleeping wrong. In a billion bleeping years I could never bleeping prove that your bleeping SIT is a bleeping fake. The only possible bleeping outcome that would bleeping prove your bleeping SIT is bleeping real would be for you to bleeping produce an identifiable bleeping language. That would DISPROVE my position. I am not interested in proving my position because I bleeping can't. That applies to me "proving your interpretation of your experience is wrong." STOP BLEEPING ACCUSING ME OF A BLEEPING AGENDA I DON'T BLEEPING HAVE AND THEN BLEEPING WONDERING WHY I'M GETTING BLEEPING HEATED!!!
ARE.
WE.
CLEAR???
Good. So now, here's the way I see it. We have two competing hypotheses. Both make predictions.
My prediction: modern SIT will always produce meaningless prattle, never an identifiable language.
The Biblical prediction: SIT will always produce a human language in accordance with every usage of the,word glossa in the Bible.
The concession of my position is that failure to identify a language spoken in SIT does not invalidate it as a language. BUT!!! Success at identifying a language spoken in SIT would verify it as not being fake.
The way I see it, the other side of this discussion is doing its dead level best to make the prediction of the second hypothesis perfectly match the prediction of the first.
In other words: we should expect nothing but meaningless prattle with SIT.
That's not what The Word says! It's just not. And you would not be twisting definitions into Twizzler bits if you could get someone to ID the language you claim to be producing.
The test is already rigged so you can't fail. But you seem just as convinced as i am that you will never PASS it. Until you do, all you've demonstrated about your SIT is that you're sincere.
Or you can keep coming up with excuses for why a language will never be identified and call that a Biblical position.
You can call it that. But it's not, not in any language.
P.S. there's nothing about the verse in Isaiah that even remotely hints tongues will not be a normal language as opposed to meaningless prattle.
Either Paul translates it from the original or carries it over from the Septuagint, "heteroglossos." Another language. Nothing poetic about it that suddenly makes it not-language.
I'd be interested in seeing a word study of the Hebrew word for tongue, but we already know what it meant to Paul.
Which way a person decides to interpret it depends on what the person's motives are, and THAT depends on what the person's experiences have been, and how she has chosen to intrpret those experiences.
The issue at hand here is one of hermeneutics.
First mention here:
Given that we are in doctrinal, I'd like to make a comment or two about how "doctrinal" issues in general are approached. (And I'll no doubt step across several boundaries of the thread.)
Pointed to again here:
So, I back off and try to highlight something that I see as being a major issue, in this post:
And now in this post, for the third (and probably last) time.
But Raf & co. don't want to acknowledge this, as they are convinced that a certain interpretive meaning of the scriptures is beyond reproach.
Given that my previous effort evidently failed to make it clear, I'll defer to a more complicated, perhaps more intellectualized, restatement of it, before shaving it with Occam's razor.
If interpretation consists of deciphering the message of the text, then there is a certain interplay between the text and the interpreter that begins the study with certain questions and prejudices resulting from their own life experiences (a "preunderstanding," so to speak.) If the mind and life of the author can't be reconstructed or perceived, then the narrative of the text simply takes on a life of its own. The hermeneutical question that must be considered before the meaning is explained, is where the meaning is located. Does it reside behind the text, in the text, in some broad universal consciousness, in the reader of it, or somewhere in the interaction of all of these points? Previously held theological and philosophical positions determine how anyone approaches the text. Is God real? How does he speak or reveal Himself to man? Does the text "contain" revelation? How did He inspire the writer? Is the text itself revelation? Is the truth in the text, behind the text, or in front of the text? Does God inspire or work within the reader? And if so, is the meaning of the text somehow vested in the response of its reader?
How we choose to answer these sort of questions form the basis for one's method of hermeneutics. To suppose that such a basis shouldn't (or doesn't) exist, or that anyone doesn't have or use hermeneutics, is ridiculous. It does exist, and any failure to properly take this into consideration leads to a very myopic view of certain things (along with the mindset of having already seen and thought about it from any other pertinent or "relevant" point of view.)
I'm not quite sure how to best characterize the hermeneutical methods most often taught or employed by TWI (and many ex-TWI's), but it might be a subset of what it typically categorized as canonical, being that it was so intensely focused on etymology and languages (predominantly Greek.) Certain methods might overlap or be blended (maybe even homogenized beyond any sort of easy recognition), but I won't bother trying to articulate or speculate on what methods certain others might ascribe to (aside from what I had already stated in a previous post.)
People can be lead or taught to see and think of themselves as the interpreter of scripture. This and that is what it means. This and that is what I should do or be.
People can also be lead or taught to see and think of scripture as interpreting themselves and their life. This and that explains who I am and what my life is. This and that is what God and Jesus Christ did for me.
If the approach to understanding SIT is one that demands objectivity and objective proof, which appears to me to run contrary to its very design and divine intent, then any effort to interpret the scripture referencing it will inevitably lead one away from its truth. However, if God had reason and use for it [sIT] in the early first century, why would He not also have reason and use for it now? Unless, or until, someone can offer a sincere, sensible and honest answer to at least that one question, I think all of this "language" stuff is going to continue spinning in circles.
______________
for improved clarity in the last question, edit added: [sIT]
I think it would be best if you stopped addressing me entirely and referred only to the argument I'm making.
Describing this as a debate over hermeneutics is not exactly a shocking revelation. More like condescending. Likewise, referring back to points that are not in dispute and don't actually advance the discussion strikes me as an unnecessary exercise in reading comprehension.
At least Steve tried to make a Biblical case for languages as not-languages.
Why is my stand on what the Bible teaches stubborn, but an interpretation that contorts the scripture to say the opposite of what it plainly says with the explicit goal of getting the scripture to match a doctrine and practice instead of the other way around is perfectly acceptable?
I'm myopic for letting the Bible speak for itself.
You're open-minded for twisting it to say what you wish it said instead of what it actually does say.
Step outside the box for a moment and ask "What if?". What if this was some book other than the Bible, some ancient secular text. And, what if, instead of speaking in tongues, the matter being examined was a ritual requiring some sort of physical activity? How would that change your opinion on the matter?
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Steve Lortz
A Word About A Word Tolerance is necessary for articulation. A hinge is an articulated device. One plate attaches to the door, the other plate attaches to the doorjamb, the two plates are joined tog
geisha779
Is 1 Corinthians 14:4 an instruction, a passing comment, or a commendable endeavor? Or . . . . is it smack dab in the middle of correction and juxtaposed to the demeanor that Paul wanted the Corinthi
waysider
Ummmmm.......You know he wasn't really a "Dr.", don't you?
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Raf
A more succinct version is, if you think glossa in I Corinthians 12-14 means something other than language, you must be stoned.
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Steve Lortz
You missed the point of my question, WordWolf. When I asked Raf "what exactly are you trying to accomplish", I wasn't asking why he was talking about Numbers and getting stoned. If Raf feels like he is wasting his time on this thread, it seems to me that he is feeling frustrated because he wants his posts to accomplish something, and it isn't happening.
What is it that you are trying to do, Raf? I don't think you are trying to prove yourself right just for the sake of proving yourself right. Do you feel like Wierwille pulled the wool over our eyes, that you had the wool pulled off of yours, and you care enough about me to try to pull the wool off of my eyes also, but I'm just too stubborn and set in the ways I learned in PFAL to seriously consider that your argument might be right?
What is it that you want your posts to accomplish, Raf? And why?
Love,
Steve
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waysider
"I learned in PFAL to seriously consider that your argument might be right"
You learned that in PFAL?? It would appear your experience was quite different than mine, especially session #5.
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WordWolf
For corn's sake, that's not what he just said.
He posted a theoretical, asking what Raf believed,
with a separate issue being whether it was a CORRECT belief.
"..... Do you feel like Wierwille pulled the wool over our eyes, that you had the wool pulled off of yours, and you care enough about me to try to pull the wool off of my eyes also, but I'm just too stubborn and set in the ways I learned in PFAL to seriously consider that your argument might be right?"
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spectrum49
Greetings once again all!
I've been watching the comments here, and have seen some very interesting things! Before being first introduced to the "keys to Biblical research" (via PFAL) I used to be a "grammar nut"; so I do appreciate the comments on language, tense, and voice, etc, which (in my eyes) are all valid points here.
I especially enjoyed Steve's explanation of how "spiritual" (In 1Co 12:1) refers back to Paul's entire discourse on that when writing in 1Co 13. That's wonderful stuff, Steve!
I haven't been commenting much in this thread lately because I do admit it's been getting "rather deep" at times…and there are so many interesting nuances to all of this. But I do have a couple of comments about people getting "stoned" in the Scriptures. (Ha! Ha!)
Even Paul himself admitted (in 2Co 11:25) that he got stoned once. And I believe I've actually located the exact moment he was speaking of: "But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, 'Do thyself no harm: for we are all here'." (Act 16:28) It looks like he had some friends over for a good time. (And it sure was nice of him to warn them all not to smoke so much that it might cause some harm.) And then the party began:
"Then he [Paul] called for a light…" (Act 16:29a) So this does appear to me to be the point where he was getting ready to smoke a doobie, saying (in our vernacular) "Hey man...gimme a light! "
And it must have been some really good stuff because (from the rest of the verse) it appears he got quite a rush from that toke! (You know…shaking and even falling down). Maybe it was so good that he just "passed out" for a moment or so: "…and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down..." (Act 16:29b)
And Raf: The "rocks" they were stoned with in the OT just might have been some "early form of crack". (Just sayin'…)
SPEC
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Raf
A good question. I'm doing two things. One: I'm making my case. Which I've done. Two, I'm waiting to read an adequate rebuttal, which in my opinion has not been presented.
It's not that I want my posts to accomplish something. I think that's already happened. I think I'm waiting for your proposed rebuttals to accomplish something, and in my opinion they have not. So I keep reading, thinking, aha! There's something I missed! Except that never happens.
Nothing more to answer. I'll keep waiting. I'd be thrilled to see if there's a different usage of glossa other than the physical organ of the tongue and languages. Normal human languages, as was the case in every other usage of glossa in the New Testament and the presumed usage in the chapters in question until it was recognized that normal human languages were not being produced. I have called it before, and will call it again, an ad hoc ret-con of the term that had a clear definition when it was used in the Bible but did not predict the actual results. You're just trying to change the definition of glossa to get it to fit what's being produced rather than rejecting the practice because it's not producing what was predicted. I've seen nothing to dissuade me from this position.
And again I'll wait.
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spectrum49
What's this, Raf? No comment for the SPEC's "cute" remarks?
SPEC
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Raf
I was speechless in any tongue.
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waysider
My apologies. I read it too fast and took it out of context, completely changing the meaning.
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Raf
I don't think anyone is too stubborn or set in their ways regarding PFAL, but I do think that adequately describes your loyalty to the practice of SIT. You can't be wrong, even if it means changing what the Bible teaches to conform to your practice instead of the other way around. Sorry I can't drum up a more polite way to say that.
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Steve Lortz
Raf, your interpretion of your experience is that when you were speaking in tongues, you were faking it.
My interpretation of my experience is that when I speak in tongues I am genuinely speaking in tongues in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14.
You say that when I speak in tongues, it is not in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14 because I do not produce a language.
I gave the definition of a language, a system of verbal communication that exhibits double articulation and syntax. When I speak in tongues, I produce a system that exhibits double articulation and syntax.
Then you did a word study that shows Paul was writing about "language/s."
BUT, the test you propose for whether or not the thing we call tongues today is genuine or not is if the speaker produces a specific, identifiable language.
There is NOTHING in 1 Corinthians 12-14 that indicates a person speaking in tongues MUST produce a specific, identifiable language.
The only requirement 1 Corinthians 12-14 puts on speaking in tongues is that the speaker MUST NOT understand what she is saying.
When you NARROW the definition of glossa down to "a specific, identifiable language" you are doing the same kind of violence to the text that Wierwille used to do. You are changing the language of the text, the word glossa from multivocal, polysemic, multuivalent (tolerant of imperfection, capable of using ambiguity to communicate meaning)... to absolute (without imperfection), for the purposes of "proving" something that by its very nature CANNOT be proven OR disproven, "proving" that your interpretation is correct, and ALL OTHERS are wrong.
Is it accurate for you to say that a person speaking in tongues must produce a language to be in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14? Yes, it is!
Is it accurate for you to say that a person MUST produce a specific, identifiable language to be in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14? No, it is not!
And concerning whether or not speaking in tongues seems to be "supernatural"...
I Corinthians 14:22 says that tongues are a sign... Romans 4:11 says that Abraham received the sign of circumcision... How "supernatural" was THAT? He cut the end of his own member off! And that was a sign to him because it reminded him every time he used his member, that God had made a promise that had not yet come to pass, about what was going to come out of that member.
Philippians 3:3 says, "For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." Speaking in tongues served the same purpose in the lives of the first Christians that circumcision served in the lives of the Jews. Every time we decide to use our mouths to utter what seems to our flesh to be nonsense, in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14, we are reminding ourselves that God has made a promise that has not yet come to pass about what IS going to come out of our mouths.
So... what is your stake, Raf? Why do you keep coming back when you feel like you are just wasting your time? Too often, here at Greasespot, we take each others motivations for granted, and we make up all sorts of awful things about each other before we get into a terrible fight. That is not my way. I don't want to guess about your motivations, Raf. Why is my interpretation of my experiences important enough to you that you keep coming back in spite of my seeming intractability?
Love,
Steve
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Raf
The Bible says nothing about double articulation and syntax. Can something have double articulation and syntax and still not be a language? I don't know. I haven't studied the issue that much. But I will say this. You have not demonstrated that you produce double articulation and syntax. You're merely making the claim.
I don't see how sticking with the biblical usage of a term narrows its definition. I do see how going outside the Bible to expand the definition of the term gives you an unbiblical definition of the term.
Your interpretation of your experiences is of no interest to me. What is of interest to me in this thread is what the Bible actually teaches. I don't see anything in the Bible about double articulation and syntax. If you want to use that as evidence that what you are producing is actually a language, be my guest. But now you have placed on yourself the burden of proving that you produce double articulation and syntax.
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Raf
I just did a quick search on Google. Not only is double articulation and syntax an element of language, it is also an element of what's called pseudo language. In other words, you can expect it to be present when a language is faked.
So even if you were to demonstrate that you produce double articulation and syntax, you would still have gone no further in demonstrating that you have produced a language.
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Raf
So now I'm at the point of returning to Samarin (to demonstrate that we've been over this ground already).
Samarin writes:
Items B and C are irrelevant to our discussion, since B begs the question and C is self-evident (of course the speaker thinks it's a language. That's the point. But A is completely relevant if we're going to talk about "double articulation and syntax," because those features are part of phonological structure.
Let's put this in plain English (a real language): When you fake speaking in tongues, you will produce something that bears a superficial resemblance to language. It will have "words." It will have "sentences." It will even have "commas" and "periods." And, yes, it will probably have "double articulation and syntax," but ony superficially so. To demonstrate actual double articulation and syntax, you'd probably have to know the language, which is the point in the first place.
So glossolalia has phonemes, meaning it has double articulation. We discussed this to DEATH in the original thread.
Appealing to double articulation and syntax as evidence that a "tongue" is genuine is as useless as appealing to the fact that the sound is coming from you moving your throat, your tongue, your lips. Yes, faking a language has all that in common with speaking a real language. But it's still faking a language.
So not only does the Bible not speak of double articulation and syntax, even if it did, the presence of double articulation and syntax would not demonstrate anything supernatural about the practice today. Only the production of an identifiable language unknown to the speaker would demonstrate that something took place that could not have taken place without God's involvement.
Injecting a modern definition of language into the Biblical usage of glossa ignores the Biblical usage of glossa, and AGAIN, the only reason you would feel the need to do such a thing is if you're not producing what a plain reading of the Bible promises!
I am not trying to disprove your experience. And if you're not trying to prove it, then we're fine. But if you're trying to demonstrate that you're producing what the Bible promises, then we have to first agree on what the Bible promises.
The Bible promises a language. Until you produce one, I have no reason to believe your babbling is any more authentic than mine, your sincerity and integrity notwithstanding.
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WordWolf
Steve,
we went through this for MONTHS and really explored all sides of this.
You're repeating stuff that was already discussed to death.
But, I'll be nice and try to walk you through a brief, concise form of everything.
One thing: I started from a position similar to, or identical to, your own
before this all started.
A) I found one side made sense-and it wasn't the side I WANTED to agree with
B) I found this didn't challenge MY FAITH-just my faulty understanding
So, if you actually come off and claim I'm biased- I actually WANT your side
to be correct. I changed positions because it did not. I reserve the right
to change back-HAPPILY AND EAGERLY- if you SOMEHOW present something that was
overlooked and is unassailable.
========================================
"Raf, your interpretion of your experience is that when you were speaking in tongues, you were faking it."
His "interpretation of his experience" is that he produced "free vocalization", which he was TOLD
was "speaking in tongues", but it actually was not.
====================================================
"My interpretation of my experience is that when I speak in tongues I am genuinely speaking in tongues in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14."
You're completely disregarding ACTS when discussing Biblical "speaking in tongues."
You're focusing on I Corinthians- and where your understanding of I Corinthians contradicts
the rather straightforward reading of Acts, you're choosing to disregard Acts 2 rather than
re-examine your presuppositions to see how you ended up supposedly agreeing with one Scripture
and rather clearly and blatantly DISagreeing with another.
================================================
"You say that when I speak in tongues, it is not in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14 because I do not produce a language."
No, that's not what he said.
If you're supposedly "speaking in tongues", Acts said it should be in a language that CAN be understood-
it's a LANGUAGE. Languages are meant to do that- they're all made in order to communicate ideas and concepts.
If you're saying that the same act in Acts- that produced languages that bystanders were able to understand,
and often did- and that it's NEVER supposed to be understood by ANY bystander, EVER,
then you have an obvious problem. Either I Corinthians contradicts Acts, or your understanding of
both contradict. Acts is VERY straightforward about people understanding in more than one instance.
To insist your theology and understanding is correct and Acts is in error is to prioritize your understanding
and theology over Scripture. If that's what you MEAN to do, at least be honest that it's what you MEANT
to do. Me, I absolutely refuse to do that, no matter HOW much I like my theology.
So, he and I would say that you're not "speaking in LANGUAGES" as described in Acts 2 because that
produces a LANGUAGE every time. Addressing I Corinthians is separate, if only
because there needs to be discussion to explain why I Corinthians makes sense in light
of Acts 2, which was already very straightforward.
(Explain the few difficult in light of the many clear, not vice versa.)
==================================================
"I gave the definition of a language, a system of verbal communication that exhibits double articulation and syntax."
You posted that-and left no explanation for what that should mean, what a layman should
understand from that, or even any indication YOU understood it as opposed
to just a cut-and-paste you didn't understand when you pasted it.
You also didn't include a source.
(When I posted one, it was relatively clear of jargon AND included
a link back to a much longer article with explanations.)
"When I speak in tongues, I produce a system that exhibits double articulation and syntax."
No you don't.
Sounds like you DIDN'T understand what you posted.
First of all, you don't "produce a SYSTEM." The development of an entire language
is the production of a system. If you're developing a language on your own,
then you are definitely doing it and not God Almighty passing along words in an
already-existing language. If you read a speech aloud in a language you didn't
speak (but existed), you wouldn't "produce a system" then either-you would reproduce
words pre-existing in a previously-produced system.
Second of all, for you to speak in a real language, let's stipulate that it would
ACCURATELY demonstrate "double articulation" and "syntax", as well as fill the more
basic requirements of productivity, recursivity and displacement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language
It has been demonstrated, many times over, that many people who have CLAIMED to have
produced the Biblical "speaking in languages" over time have had their alleged
"languages" recorded and studied by linguistic experts-people who spend their lives
studying languages, their properties, their characteristics, and so on. What was
found?
So far, in every single case, the supposed "tongues" producer was NOT producing a
language- they were not demonstrating any "system" nor any of the characteristics
we described. They were definitely SPEAKING, and producing sounds. Those sounds
often RESEMBLED the sounds of actual languages that DID demonstrate all the
aforementioned properties. So, anyone-especially someone who earnestly WANTS to
believe he can produce an "unknown tongue" can be convinced they heard
themself pronounce words in a real language with real language characteristics.
However, so far, all CLAIMS of such have produced well-intentioned people who
produced content-less, language-less examples of vocalization.
Is it possible that ALL of those people were producing the counterfeit, and you're
The Great Exception that can produce a real language? Well, there's only one way
to support that claim, and it's not by repeating it a lot or with more volume.
Simply let an expert linguist record a few hours of the supposed "speaking in languages"
you do, then review it. An EXPERT LINGUIST would have no difficulty in going over
such a large sample and determining with certainty whether or not this was a real
language (whether or not the linguist can recognize WHICH language), or yet another
example of content-less vocalization.
Have you done that already?
Of course you haven't- which is why you can fairly say that you BELIEVE you speak
in such a language, or you THINK you speak in such a language. However, since you're
not a linguistics expert, you're not qualified to judge the results. So, your bald claim
that you're producing ANY of the specific qualities is without merit because it proceeds
from conviction, not evidence.
============================================
"Then you did a word study that shows Paul was writing about "language/s.""
If you're not clear that "tongues" is the same word as "languages", both in Greek and
other languages (like modern Spanish and early modern English with some expressions
still in use today), then I don't know how you're going to participate in this
discussion. Raf went through the usages of the Greek word IN THE BIBLE.
IN THE BIBLE, it was demonstrated to be consistent with what we SHOULD expect if we've
studied language- that the usages of "glossa" in the Bible- just like "tongue" in
English or "lengua" in Spanish- refers to a LANGUAGE as well as the physical organ
that's used to articulate the language.
It was pretty straightforward. Everything was easy to follow, with the possible
exception of I Corinthians, which suggests that A) I Corinthians needs extra
attention B) I Corinthians' usages need to be understood in light of the
others, not the other way around.
And he covered I Corinthians also.
============================================
"BUT, the test you propose for whether or not the thing we call tongues today is genuine or not is if the speaker produces a specific, identifiable language."
You misunderstand, and that was made clearer in your next sentence.
"There is NOTHING in 1 Corinthians 12-14 that indicates a person speaking in tongues MUST produce a specific, identifiable language."
Based on your usage of "identifiable", you're using it to mean
"Ah-he's speaking Etruscan, she's speaking Guaranee, and he's speaking Romansch."
That is, a language that can be positively identified by name as a specific,
pre-existing language.
The challenge, which is easy to understand and was explained in exhaustive detail, is that expert
linguists can identify the elements of language in their sleep-
so if they're exposed to a lengthy sample of a supposed language,
they can identify which elements the sample actually demonstrates rather than RESEMBLING.
IF you produced a known language, but the linguist didn't recognize it
(like Guaranee or Romansch), the linguist could still recognize which elements of
speech that language demonstrated-whatever language it was.
IF you produces an actual language that NOBODY had ever heard, then the linguist
could still recognize which elements of speech that language demonstrated-
whatever language it was.
So, the challenge is, let an expert linguist collect an extensive sample of the supposed
language, then go off and examine it. IF it's a real language, the linguist would know
it was a real language-whether or not they recognized or understood it.
I saw a sample of this with a NON-EXPERT. Someone wrote a comic strip series, and in
the series, some characters spoke a Hungarian dialect with a few slang words added to it.
The writer gave NO indication this was so-it would have given away a later surprise.
The same editor proof-read all the episodes. At one point, he sent a note back about
one panel in the unknown language. He asked the writer if he used the wrong word,
and if a different word was used instead-and gave the word.
THE EDITOR WAS CORRECT.
Despite not knowing there WAS a consistent language for sure, not knowing WHICH language
it was, and having NO background in Hungarian nor linguistics,
after a SMALL sampling of the language, he was working out what some of the words meant
to the point he spotted a legitimate type.
Experts can do MUCH better than that when exposed to MUCH bigger examples.
============================================
"The only requirement 1 Corinthians 12-14 puts on speaking in tongues is that the speaker MUST NOT understand what she is saying."
Incorrect-it also includes that the speaker speaking in languages is actually
SPEAKING A LANGUAGE- AND that language must be one the speaker does not understand.
So, the person MIGHT be speaking in a tongue if they said the following and had no
understanding of what was said:
"Ọlọrun le ti wa ni gbẹkẹle ati ki o jẹ olóòótọ. Ti o ba ti rẹ eniyan ni o wa olóòótọ, wọn yoo ni anfaani."
The same person would rather obviously not be speaking in a tongue if they said the
following and had no understanding of what was said:
"Moo, moo-moo-moo. Moo-moo, moo-MOO-moo-moo, moo-moo-Moo-MOO, Moo-moo-moo-MOO."
Mind you, any actor worthy of the name could read either aloud, and do so with
demonstrated conviction and deep emotions and gravitas.
However, in the first case, that's an actual language, and in the second case,
that's obviously NOT an actual language by any sane linguist's standards.
===================================
Here, you continue making the same mistake, but I'm pasting it to include the entire post.
"When you NARROW the definition of glossa down to "a specific, identifiable language" you are doing the same kind of violence to the text that Wierwille used to do. You are changing the language of the text, the word glossa from multivocal, polysemic, multuivalent (tolerant of imperfection, capable of using ambiguity to communicate meaning)... to absolute (without imperfection), for the purposes of "proving" something that by its very nature CANNOT be proven OR disproven, "proving" that your interpretation is correct, and ALL OTHERS are wrong.
Is it accurate for you to say that a person speaking in tongues must produce a language to be in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14? Yes, it is!
Is it accurate for you to say that a person MUST produce a specific, identifiable language to be in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14? No, it is not!"
I see no reason to repost everything I just said about it. This was all already
addressed-by me- in this reply.
======================================
"And concerning whether or not speaking in tongues seems to be "supernatural"..."
Actually, it's a secondary consideration to whether or not it's producing a LANGUAGE.
Nobody cares about the origin of a string of nonsense syllables 2 hours long that
RESEMBLE the sound of speech-because it is devoid of meaning.
First, is an actual LANGUAGE being produced?
Second, is that language one the speaker already knows?
If it's not an actual language, then anyone can do it.
If it's a language the speaker already knows, then anyone who knows that language can do it.
In neither case does a claim of the supernatural sound sensible.
IF an example is found where the speaking results in an actual language,
AND the language is one the speaker does not know,
THEN we've got something worth discussing.
Since the Bible, however, we haven't FOUND such an example.
Oh, we've found CLAIMS of such, but any attempt to CONFIRM the claims always
falls down, and we either end up with something proven NOT to be a language,
OR a language that was known to the speaker,
or simply a CLAIM and no way to test the claim.
If that level of evidence was enough to convince, we'd all believe in Bigfoot,
the Loch Ness Monster, Voodoo, UFO grey aliens, etc, etc.
====================================
"I Corinthians 14:22 says that tongues are a sign... "
Producing a real language that the speaker doesn't know but the hearer does,
I'm confident that would be a very convincing sign to many people,
who might want to hear more and become Christians.
In other words, real tongues are a sign-but for those that don't believe.
For example: Raf claims to no longer be a Christian.
Produce, demonstrably and beyond possibility of faking,
an extensive sample in an actual language that you yourself don't speak,
and I guarantee you will have his attention.
In fact, you might get him to reverse his convictions, declare himself
a Christian, and repudiate his current claims.
That's what happens when a sign for those that believe not is demonstrated
to those that believe not.
==============================
"Romans 4:11 says that Abraham received the sign of circumcision... How "supernatural" was THAT? He cut the end of his own member off! And that was a sign to him because it reminded him every time he used his member, that God had made a promise that had not yet come to pass, about what was going to come out of that member."
That was a sign specifically for Abraham-who believed. (Later, for others who believed as Abraham did.)
That was NOT a sign specifically for those who believed not.
===============================
"Philippians 3:3 says, "For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." Speaking in tongues served the same purpose in the lives of the first Christians that circumcision served in the lives of the Jews."
How the HECK did you get THAT from Philippians 3:3?
===============================
"Every time we decide to use our mouths to utter what seems to our flesh to be nonsense, in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12-14, we are reminding ourselves that God has made a promise that has not yet come to pass about what IS going to come out of our mouths."
Nice sentiment-but that "reminder" business is your opinion, which you're
reading into the text. I've seen similar readings-into based on
the significance of the shape of the cross-as a lowercase "t" shape,
and trying to get a camel through the eye of a needle and a supposed
gate to Jerusalem by that name. All sounded pious, but all added meanings
not directly supported by the text- and the examples I gave were
demonstrably false. (Is it possible that yours was also a
well-intentioned error like the others?)
=================================
Something I'm curious about, Steve.
In the interest of making the information easy to find-
because, IMHO, it's both relevant and important-
I took the data about "free vocalization" and separated
it out into a short thread all its own.
Any chance you read that little thing?
You should-it's got some important information...
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Raf
Let me be clear about something, please:
This is both correct and incorrect. It is absolutely correct that a person speaking in tongues MUST produce a specific, identifiable language. That is the case in I Corinthians 12-14, Acts 2 and every other usage of the word "glossa" in the Bible. Your statement is simply wrong.
However, it is INCORRECT to assume that a failure to identify the language you produce disproves the authenticity of your SIT. I NEVER SAID THAT.
What I said, and I was repeatedly, abundantly clear, is that unless you CAN identify the language, you cannot demonstrate your SIT is authentic.
So you see the distinction, or do I need to make it clear?
I CANNOT DISPROVE YOUR SIT EXPERIENCE, even if I parade you in front of every linguist in the history of the field and every single one failed to identify your language, I would still not have succeeded in discrediting your SIT.
BUT YOU CAN PROVE IT! And you can do so by producing an identifiable language.
When you say there's nothing in I Corinthians that says a person must produce a specific, identifiable language, you are doing two things. One, you are playing strawman with my argument. Two, you are falsely implying that Corinthians predicts something other than a language.
We went through the Bible book by book. Corinthians predicts a language. That's what glossa means. You have produced not the slightest scintilla of evidence that it means anything else. The best you did was "double articulation and syntax," both of which are also elements of FAKING SIT. Took me a bit to catch up with that. I apologize for posting before I looked it up, but now that I did, it's pretty clear from the evidence.
Steve, I implore you: You are changing scripture to adhere to your doctrine and practice. It should be the other way around, shouldn't it? Your doctrine and practice is your business, but our agreed upon common ground in this thread is the scripture. Does it say what it says?
Steve, it does. And it does not say what YOU say.
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Raf
This whole business about what constitutes a sign and whether the sign is supernatural is beside the point. SIT is a supernatural claim. Reducing it to a natural one is biblically untenable. It's A MANIFESTATION OF SPIRIT. Not a token of a covenant like circumcision. Not a road message that must be obeyed like a red light. A manifestation of the spirit, SUPERNATURAL BY DEFINITION. Or am I now to believe SIT is unique among manifestations in having no supernatural element whatsoever?
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Steve Lortz
Why are you guys so heated up about this?
I Corinthians 12-14 does not require that a person speaking in tongues needs to produce a specifically identifiable language, nor does the book of Acts. It happened on the day of Pentecost that some people present recognized what followers of Christ were saying. That does not require that the same thing would or should happen at any other time.
Acts was probably written around 85 CE, about 30 years after 1 Corinthians. Luke's intent was not to instruct people on how to speak in tongues decently and in order, his purpose was to illustrate the movement of the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome.
When you say that the defining characteristics of any language also apply to pseudo-languages, aren't you saying that it is impossible to distinguish between a "real" language and a pseudo-language from the outside?
You accuse me of changing the meaning of glossa in 1 Corinthians, but I have not done that at all. You have changed the meaning of glossa to "a specifically identifiable language."
When you did your word study of tongues, Raf, how did you handle Exodus 11:7a, "But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue..."
Especially considering Joshua 10:21b, "...none moved his tongue against any of the children of Israel."
The verb for "move" and the noun for "tongue" are identical in both places, charats and lashawn in the Hebrew, and gruzo and glossa in the Septuagint respectively. The passage in Joshua is referring to human language. The passage in Exodus is referring to dogs.
What are we to make of that? Do dogs speak specifically identifiable languages?
The way Wierwille taught us to obtain meaning from text in TWI was entirely bogus. The first use of a word does not establish its meaning, and it's very dangerous to interpret the few difficult verses an light of the many clear ones. The fact that a few difficult verses exist is an indication that you have a problem with your interpretation. The fact that the Bible seems so full of difficult verses tells us that NONE OF US can say what the Bible "means" with any degree of certainty.
The meaning of a specific word in a specific place can NEVER be divorced from its context. The context will ALWAYS affect the meanings of the words. You cannot lift the word glossa out of 1 Corinthians 12-14 and say "this is what it means." The context in which we find the uses of glossa in that passage is extremely complex. The example I gave of how the context of being a sign affects glossa in 14:22 is only one strand in a whole skein of nuances. I've been working on a translation of 1 Corinthian 12-14 for well over a year now, and I periodically submit it to my professors for critique. Up until recently, I thought I was about half-done, not in terms of the extent of my translation, but in terms of the depth. It has dawned on me relatively lately that I am really only about a third of the way done.
And Wierwille's whole reason for doing interpretation was bogus. He did it to "prove" that he was right and everybody else was wrong. In order to do that he had to reduce words to one-voice, one-significance, one-weight entities. Otherwise, he could not use them in syllogisms. SURPRISE! You can't use syllogisms to analyse poetry, and the bulk of the Bible is poetry.
In fact, Paul lifted 1 Corinthians 14:21... "With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord"... out of a poem, Isaiah 28:11-12. In 1 Corinthians this immediately precedes "Wherefore tongues are for a sign..." How does the word "wherefore" (hoste ai in the Greek, literally "consequently OH!") nuance Paul's immediate following use of glossa by linking it to the immediately previous poetic use of glossa? How does Paul's use of Isaiah 28:11-12 influence the meaning if we consider Isaiah 28:13, the part of the poem Paul left out? Why did he leave it out? Because it wasn't important to the point he was trying to make? Or because he thought the excerpt he included was sufficient allusion?
If you can answer these questions, fellows, then you've got a leg up on me!
Proof texting, what Wierwille did to "prove" he had the ONE AND ONLY TRUE meaning, is not scholarship. There IS NO one and only true meaning.
I Corinthians 12-14 can be interpreted to say that people who speak in tongues must produce a specifically identifiable language.
I Corinthians 12-14 can also be interpreted to say people who speak in tongues are not required to produce a specifically identifiable language.
Both interpretations are equally "right".
Which way a person decides to interpret it depends on what the person's motives are, and THAT depends on what the person's experiences have been, and how she has chosen to intrpret those experiences.
Why is it so important to you, Raf, to prove that my interpretation of my experience is wrong?
Love,
Steve
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waysider
None of this explains the contradiction between Acts and Corinthians. "No man understands" and yet they did.
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Raf
We're going in circles here.
We disagree on what the Bible teaches, period. I don't see how one can honestly read Acts and Corinthians and walk away with the impression that you can produce meaningless prattle and meet the Biblical qualification for speaking in languages.
It frustrates me because we're supposed to be approaching the material honestly, and I don't think you're being honest with yourself in how you're handling the material.
Quite frankly, you would never let me get away with what you're trying to pull.
If you want to know why I'm heated up, go back to every single post where you've complimented me. Because the person you describe in those posts is being treated like a gullible simpleton.
Translation: how dumb do you think I am?
Several times I suggested it would be best for me to walk away from this thread. Each time you specifically asked me substantive questions to dissuade me from doing so.
I'm going to say this one last time, because it does not appear to be sinking in.
I have no bleeping interest in bleeping proving that your bleeping experience is bleeping wrong. In a billion bleeping years I could never bleeping prove that your bleeping SIT is a bleeping fake. The only possible bleeping outcome that would bleeping prove your bleeping SIT is bleeping real would be for you to bleeping produce an identifiable bleeping language. That would DISPROVE my position. I am not interested in proving my position because I bleeping can't. That applies to me "proving your interpretation of your experience is wrong." STOP BLEEPING ACCUSING ME OF A BLEEPING AGENDA I DON'T BLEEPING HAVE AND THEN BLEEPING WONDERING WHY I'M GETTING BLEEPING HEATED!!!
ARE.
WE.
CLEAR???
Good. So now, here's the way I see it. We have two competing hypotheses. Both make predictions.
My prediction: modern SIT will always produce meaningless prattle, never an identifiable language.
The Biblical prediction: SIT will always produce a human language in accordance with every usage of the,word glossa in the Bible.
The concession of my position is that failure to identify a language spoken in SIT does not invalidate it as a language. BUT!!! Success at identifying a language spoken in SIT would verify it as not being fake.
The way I see it, the other side of this discussion is doing its dead level best to make the prediction of the second hypothesis perfectly match the prediction of the first.
In other words: we should expect nothing but meaningless prattle with SIT.
That's not what The Word says! It's just not. And you would not be twisting definitions into Twizzler bits if you could get someone to ID the language you claim to be producing.
The test is already rigged so you can't fail. But you seem just as convinced as i am that you will never PASS it. Until you do, all you've demonstrated about your SIT is that you're sincere.
Or you can keep coming up with excuses for why a language will never be identified and call that a Biblical position.
You can call it that. But it's not, not in any language.
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Raf
P.S. there's nothing about the verse in Isaiah that even remotely hints tongues will not be a normal language as opposed to meaningless prattle.
Either Paul translates it from the original or carries it over from the Septuagint, "heteroglossos." Another language. Nothing poetic about it that suddenly makes it not-language.
I'd be interested in seeing a word study of the Hebrew word for tongue, but we already know what it meant to Paul.
Another language.
Nothing more cryptic than that.
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TLC
The issue at hand here is one of hermeneutics.
First mention here:
Pointed to again here:
And now in this post, for the third (and probably last) time.
But Raf & co. don't want to acknowledge this, as they are convinced that a certain interpretive meaning of the scriptures is beyond reproach.
Given that my previous effort evidently failed to make it clear, I'll defer to a more complicated, perhaps more intellectualized, restatement of it, before shaving it with Occam's razor.
If interpretation consists of deciphering the message of the text, then there is a certain interplay between the text and the interpreter that begins the study with certain questions and prejudices resulting from their own life experiences (a "preunderstanding," so to speak.) If the mind and life of the author can't be reconstructed or perceived, then the narrative of the text simply takes on a life of its own. The hermeneutical question that must be considered before the meaning is explained, is where the meaning is located. Does it reside behind the text, in the text, in some broad universal consciousness, in the reader of it, or somewhere in the interaction of all of these points? Previously held theological and philosophical positions determine how anyone approaches the text. Is God real? How does he speak or reveal Himself to man? Does the text "contain" revelation? How did He inspire the writer? Is the text itself revelation? Is the truth in the text, behind the text, or in front of the text? Does God inspire or work within the reader? And if so, is the meaning of the text somehow vested in the response of its reader?
How we choose to answer these sort of questions form the basis for one's method of hermeneutics. To suppose that such a basis shouldn't (or doesn't) exist, or that anyone doesn't have or use hermeneutics, is ridiculous. It does exist, and any failure to properly take this into consideration leads to a very myopic view of certain things (along with the mindset of having already seen and thought about it from any other pertinent or "relevant" point of view.)
I'm not quite sure how to best characterize the hermeneutical methods most often taught or employed by TWI (and many ex-TWI's), but it might be a subset of what it typically categorized as canonical, being that it was so intensely focused on etymology and languages (predominantly Greek.) Certain methods might overlap or be blended (maybe even homogenized beyond any sort of easy recognition), but I won't bother trying to articulate or speculate on what methods certain others might ascribe to (aside from what I had already stated in a previous post.)
People can be lead or taught to see and think of themselves as the interpreter of scripture. This and that is what it means. This and that is what I should do or be.
People can also be lead or taught to see and think of scripture as interpreting themselves and their life. This and that explains who I am and what my life is. This and that is what God and Jesus Christ did for me.
If the approach to understanding SIT is one that demands objectivity and objective proof, which appears to me to run contrary to its very design and divine intent, then any effort to interpret the scripture referencing it will inevitably lead one away from its truth. However, if God had reason and use for it [sIT] in the early first century, why would He not also have reason and use for it now? Unless, or until, someone can offer a sincere, sensible and honest answer to at least that one question, I think all of this "language" stuff is going to continue spinning in circles.
______________
for improved clarity in the last question, edit added: [sIT]
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Raf
I think it would be best if you stopped addressing me entirely and referred only to the argument I'm making.
Describing this as a debate over hermeneutics is not exactly a shocking revelation. More like condescending. Likewise, referring back to points that are not in dispute and don't actually advance the discussion strikes me as an unnecessary exercise in reading comprehension.
At least Steve tried to make a Biblical case for languages as not-languages.
Why is my stand on what the Bible teaches stubborn, but an interpretation that contorts the scripture to say the opposite of what it plainly says with the explicit goal of getting the scripture to match a doctrine and practice instead of the other way around is perfectly acceptable?
I'm myopic for letting the Bible speak for itself.
You're open-minded for twisting it to say what you wish it said instead of what it actually does say.
I tell you, I am through the looking glass.
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waysider
Step outside the box for a moment and ask "What if?". What if this was some book other than the Bible, some ancient secular text. And, what if, instead of speaking in tongues, the matter being examined was a ritual requiring some sort of physical activity? How would that change your opinion on the matter?
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