The meaning of tongues-speaking in 1 Corinthians 14: A consideration of Epiphanius’ interpretation

Abstract

In the last 140 years, the 1 Corinthians 14 phrase "speaking in tongues" and the underlying Greek terms γλῶσσα (singular) or γλῶσσαι (plural) have been a subject of considerable debate. Some would understand those Greek terms to mean "language" or "languages" in the sense of miraculously endowed, earthly languages. Others hold that these terms mean ecstatic or nonecstatic languages in the non-normative, non-earthly sense, as particularly promoted by those of Pentecostal and Charismatic persuasion. The intriguing question for this thesis: which is the more appropriate intent of the Greek text in 1 Corinthians 14 or is there a viable third explanation of normally acquired languages? What can we glean from the Hebrew Older Testament and the Greek Old and New Testaments on the matter? Are there parallel synagogue customs that would shed some light on the subject? Is there relevant New Testament era culture that would aid in understanding of the pertinent terms? What were the uses and abuses of γλῶσσα/γλῶσσαι in the New Testament era and post-Apostolic history? What do exegetes of the pivotal 1 Corinthians 14 passage have to say? As a result, is there a present-day practice of "tongues" which finds support from this passage? Overall, this thesis concludes that there is considerable merit to the interpretation of early church father, the Jewish Bishop Epiphanius, who wrote that the γλώσσαι conflict in the first century AD assembly of believers at Corinth involved different dialects of Greek (Attic-Ionic, Aeolic and Doric Greek) with inconsiderate congregants using the Hebrew language and the aforementioned Greek dialects in their assemblies. This interpretation would mean that 1 Corinthians chapter 14 is not referring to a non-earthly (ecstatic or non-ecstatic) phenomena nor being miraculously given a previously unknown, earthly, foreign language. The Older Testament Scripture, which was originally in Hebrew, the inconsiderate use of minority Greek dialects, teaching the Law -- these components seem to have created a significant issue around the lack of translation and a resulting teaching problem within the multilingual Corinthian assembly. With diglossia existing among first-century Judeans, I concur that it was a key factor in understanding what was meant by "other tongues" in Acts 2:4. "Among first-century Judeans, the religious language, leshon ha-kodesh ["holy language"], Hebrew, was the language that both Palestinian and Diaspora Judeans expected to hear in the Temple liturgy, during the feast of Pentecost" (Zerhusen, 1995:126). "Instead of leshon ha-kodesh, the disciples of Jesus, inspired by the Holy Spirit, began speaking in 'other tongues' (i.e., languages other than Hebrew). The speakers spoke Aramaic and Greek, languages they knew, languages that were simultaneously the native languages of the crowd assembled in Acts 2" (Zerhusen, 1995:126). By the different sections and chapters in this thesis, this Epiphanius interpretation has been shown to be linguistically sound, culturally relevant, historically viable, contextually consistent, compatible with the intent of the earliest English translations, and therefore exegetically preferable.