I have no experience with speaking in tongues. First of all, though I can read a few languages for academic purposes, I speak only a single language. (I’m not going to tell you which one; you’ll just have to guess.) Secondly, the phenomenon known today as “speaking in tongues” and practiced—encouraged—among charismatic Christians is something completely foreign to me. I’ve never done it and I’ve never even seen it done. I have heard reports from people who have done it, and I have read a little bit about it. This post is not about that practice except tangentially.

Here, we’re talking about the first century, and specifically about the New Testament.

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There are a few passages in the New Testament that mention speaking in tongues.

* Acts 2:4–11

* Acts 10:46

* Acts 19:6

* 1 Corinthians 12–14

Is this really the entire list of New Testament passages on “speaking in tongues”? I would have thought it came up more, especially in Acts. Let’s survey the evidence.

Glōssa in the New Testament

The Greek word for tongue is glōssa (γλῶσσα), which forms in English the first part of the word glossolalia. (The second part, lalia, relates to the Greek word for “speaking,” so glossolalia basically means “tongue speaking,” but I’ll offer a more precise definition in the next section.) Glōssa appears 50x in the New Testament, and by far the most number of times is in 1 Corinthians (21x), all in chapters 12–14, mostly chapter 14. Other than that, it appears as follows:

* Gospels, 4x (twice in Mark, twice in Luke)

* Acts, 6x (4x in ch. 2, and then once each in ch. 10 and ch. 19)

* Epistles other than 1 Corinthians

* Paul, 3x (Rom 3:13; 14:11; Phil 2:11)

* Catholic Epistles, 7x (mostly James, also 1 Peter 3:10; 1 John 3:18)

* Revelation, 8x, always referring to the many nations and peoples and tongues (except for 16:10)

There are plenty of times when glōssa means simply “tongue,” as in the body-part, the organ inside the mouth. Jesus healed a guy’s tongue (Mark 7:32–37) and Zechariah’s tongue was loosened (Luke 1:64) and Dives wanted a drop of water to cool his tongue (Luke 16:24). Sometimes glōssa means “language,” as on Pentecost when the gathered Jews marveled that they heard the apostles “telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God” (Acts 2:11), and in most of its appearances in Revelation.

In the book of Acts, the word glōssa does not appear after Acts 2, except in the two verses already mentioned, 10:46 and 19:6.

So, yes, confirmed! The only passages in the New Testament that mention “speaking in tongues” are the ones listed earlier: three passages in Acts and the discussion in 1 Corinthians.

Except for one interesting verse in your Bible that has been judged—rightly—to be a later addition to the Gospel of Mark. Here’s the verse in the KJV:

And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues (γλώσσαις λαλήσουσιν καιναῖς). (Mark 16:17)

Hmm, “new” tongues. That’s interesting, and this passage—though inauthentic to Mark—should be considered as part of the reception history of the “tongues” phenomenon in the New Testament, and possibly as evidence of early Christian experience. This verse will come up again later in this post.

The Four “Tongues” Passages in the New Testament

A new article in the Journal of Biblical Literature by Joshua H. M. Chan considers the interpretation of these passages and argues against the view that any of them describe glossolalia, arguing instead that some of them describe xenolalia and others naturally acquired languages. I’ll explain what this means in a minute. Let me introduce Chan: he’s affiliated with Oxford University, and I would guess he’s a doctoral student there. The first footnote of this article says that the article itself is based on his masters thesis at Dallas Theological Seminary, under the supervision of Darrell Bock and Joseph Fantin. Here’s Chan’s LinkedIn page, where you can see a picture of him.

Now, to define terms.

glossolalia, i.e., “speaking in tongues,” means making utterances that are unintelligible to (most) other humans. This is the charismatic practice I mentioned earlier. The person who engages in glossolalia says that he or she is speaking an angelic or heavenly language, and this person is enabled to do this by the power of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes an interpreter, also empowered by the Holy Spirit, offers a translation of the heavenly language into a language that humans speak.

xenolalia, speaking in foreign languages, i.e., known human languages—but, here’s the catch: the speaker hasn’t ever studied the language before. Like if you’ve never studied Russian and then all the sudden you’re speaking Russian.

So, which one is the New Testament talking about? I grew up hearing—and this view was reinforced when I was a student at FHU—that all of the “speaking in tongues” passages in the New Testament were describing xenolalia and not glossolalia, and that this interpretation is most clear from Acts 2, which provides the lens for interpreting 1 Corinthians 12–14. And this interpretation would mean that the modern phenomenon of glossolalia is not reproducing anything known from the New Testament. This view still makes most sense to me, and this article by Chan argues similarly.

But apparently it’s not a very common view among biblical scholars.

Scholarship on New Testament “Tongues” Passages

Using Chan’s article for a survey of scholarship, here’s the lay of the land on the scholarly interpretation of those New Testament passages.

1 Corinthians 12–14

According to Chan (at the very beginning of his article), it is pretty rare for biblical scholars to interpret the phenomenon in Corinth as xenolalia. Rather, they interpret it as some sort of glossolalia.

Note these verses.

For those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God; for nobody understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the Spirit. (1 Corinthians 14:2)

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unproductive. (1 Corinthians 14:14)

(Chan, note 85, indicates a forthcoming article in ZNW under the title “The Unintelligible Intelligibility of Tongues: The Early Reception of Glossolalia as Human Languages in 1 Corinthians 14,2.14.”)

Chan divides the glossolalia interpretations into three categories and lists proponents of each.

* ecstatic speech: Johannes Behm (TDNT 1.719–27); Luke Timothy Johnson (ABD 6.596–600); Dunn; Hovenden; Mills; Hiu; Choi.

* angelic tongues: Poirier; Fee; Hays; Conzelmann; Martin; Quesnel.

* voces magicae: Stroud; Nasrallah.

But some people do interpret Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians about tongues as implying that the phenomenon involves known human languages.

* xenolalia. Tibbs; Forbes; Eurell; Tupamahu; Schottroff; Schreiner.

Acts 2

Here there is still a strong tradition in scholarship to interpret the “tongues” phenomenon as xenolalia, but this interpretation is not universal.

Note this verse:

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. (Acts 2:4)

* xenolalia. Keener is the only scholar named by Chan, but Chan no doubt intends for Keener to represent an entire tradition of scholarship and as a guide to that tradition.

* glossolalia. Scippa; Lüdemann; Horn.

* akolalia (i.e., a miracle of hearing rather than speaking). Hunter. Chan (pp. 139–40) argues (based on Hovenden) against this interpretation, though he can cite in its behalf Gregory of Nazianzus (Oration 41.15) and the Venerable Bede (Comm. Acts 2.6), not to mention more modern scholars besides Hunter: Everts; Dunn; Johnson.

Acts 10:46 and 19:6

Apparently the dominant view of these passages, concerning Cornelius and the twelve disciples in Ephesus that Paul baptized, is that they refer to glossolalia. See Johnson; Menzies; Witherington; Hiu.

Chan’s Argument

It’s the interpretation of the phenomenon in 1 Corinthians as xenolalia that Chan considers new and groundbreaking. To Tupamahu he attributes the insight that patristic interpreters universally regarded it as xenolalia that was happening in Corinth.

But he admits in the footnote (note 7) that the year before Tupamahu’s book was published, Minets published a monograph arguing the opposite, that the early patristic interpreters regarded the Corinthian phenomenon as glossolalia.

Chan pushes back on Minets a bit by citing Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 1.16.78.1) and Origen (Comm. Rom. 1.13.6) as supporting Tupamahu’s argument.

I quote here the statement from Origen, who is commenting on Romans 1:14, where Paul says that he is a debtor to Greeks and barbarians.

At this point is must be asked in what sense the Apostle is a debtor to Greeks and barbarians, to the wise and foolish. For what had he received from them which would cause him to be indebted to them? In my opinion he has become a debtor to the various nations because, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, he had received the ability to speak in the tongues of all the nations, as he himself says, “I speak in more tongues than all of you” (1 Corinthians 14:18). Accordingly, since a person receives the knowledge of tongues not for his own sake but for the sake of those to whom he is supposed to preach, he becomes a debtor to all those, the knowledge of whose language he has received from God. (trans. Scheck 1.85)

Building from Tupamahu’s analysis of 1 Corinthians, Chan argues that Acts 2 depicts xenolalia, whereas Acts 10 and 19 depict people speaking in foreign languages that they naturally know (maybe their native language as opposed to Greek). The new part of Chan’s argument is that last bit, where he’s saying that Acts 10 and 19 depict neither glossolalia nor xenolalia. (It seems, from Chan’s interaction with Tupamahu, that Tupamahu may argue this same thing for Corinthians, that the “speaking in tongues” there was non-miraculous in itself, just speaking in the speaker’s vernacular language. But I might be misreading Chan’s summary of Tupamahu.)

Acts 2

Chan first argues that Acts 2 describes xenolalia rather than glossolalia (pp. 136–42). The most interesting thing here is that he’s able to cite some patristic interpreters for the idea that Acts 2 reverses the curse of Babel, which is a pretty common modern idea. He cites (note 15) Augustine; John Chrysostom; and Jacob of Serugh.

Acts 10 and 19

Here are the relevant verses (NRSV).

The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, 46 for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, 47 “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (Acts 10:45–47)

When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. (Acts 19:6)

And here’s what Chan concludes (p. 150): “… the plausible context in 10:46 and 19:6 is that the new believers praised and prophesied in languages they already knew, that is, naturally acquired languages.”

Now, how does Chan get there?

First, Chan argues that it is not necessary to interpret these passages as involving unintelligible utterances, i.e., glossolalia (pp. 142–45). He wants to establish that these passages could be plausibly be read as involving known human languages rather than a heavenly language—indeed, Chan regards as more plausible the interpretation that Acts 10 and 19 involve known human languages, on analogy with Acts 2, which Chan thinks more clearly involves known human languages.

What Chan questions is how the speakers in Acts 10 and 19 (not Acts 2) acquired knowledge of these languages. These passages are sometimes interpreted as a “Gentile Pentecost,” but the element that makes the tongue-speaking in Acts 2 definitely Spirit-inspired—the explicit statement that it was enabled by the Spirit that had come upon the gathered community (Acts 2:4)—is missing from Acts 10 and 19 (pp. 145–46).

Next, Chan argues that these two Acts passages might be plausibly read as not involving Spirit-inspired knowledge of languages but merely Spirit-inspired praise in native languages of the speakers.

Acts 10

He points out that Cornelius the centurion belonged to an Italian cohort (Acts 10:1), so he could have spoken Latin or another language unknown to Palestinian Jews like Peter. In other words, if Cornelius started speaking Latin, it would be “speaking in a tongue” from Peter’s perspective. Chan also points out (pp. 147–48) that some manuscripts of Acts qualify the “tongues” spoken by Cornelius and his crew as “new” or “various” or “other” or “their.” This information is not signaled in the standard hand-editions of the Greek New Testament (I checked UBS4 and UBS5 and NA26 and NA28), but it is in Metzger’s older Textual Commentary (not the newer one by Houghton). Here’s what Metzger says about Acts 10:46.

Several Western witnesses qualify “tongues” with one or another adjective; thus itd (Dgr has an erasure at this point) reads praevaricatis linguis, which may presuppose an original Greek reading ποικίλαις (Hilgenfeld), or καιναῖς (Blass), or ἑτέραις (Ropes and A. C. Clark).

This manuscript that Metzger is talking about is Codex Bezae, from the fifth century, a bilingual manuscript with Greek and Latin on facing pages. The Latin text (= itd) has praevaricatis linguis, which looks like it ought to mean “with sinful tongues,” but apparently it means something like “with different tongues.” Unfortunately, as Metzger says, the Greek side of the manuscript (= Dgr) has a lacuna—or, rather, an erasure—here, but assuming it originally matched the Latin text, scholars have guessed at what the Greek originally said, maybe “various” or “new” or “other.”

But, and here’s an important point, we actually have no Greek manuscript evidence for this reading. Bezae would offer Greek manuscript evidence, but the reading is not extant there. And no other Greek manuscript of Acts has the reading “new” or “other” or whatever. Still, some manuscripts in other languages (as in the Latin of Bezae) do have some variation of this reading, suggesting how these scribes interpreted the phenomenon of tongues in the passage.

Chan (and Metzger) point to these other versions as having something like this “new languages” reading at Acts 10:46: Coptic, Syriac (the Peshitta), and another Latin manuscript (61 = CLA 270, the Book of Armagh, which has linguis variis, as you can see in the digital images of the manuscript here, fol. 178[ie 179]r, fourth line from the bottom of the left column—or in the transcription here).

I confirmed all of this evidence through the ECM of Acts, published nearly a decade ago. Moreover, Chan (and Metzger) cites the third-century Latin treatise De Rebaptismate §5 (formerly attributed to Cyprian), which you can see here (p. 50 line 7) that it says that Cornelius and company were speaking linguis suis, “in their languages.”

The modifier “new,” mentioned above in relation to Bezae, is reminiscent of the same term in Mark 16:17 (mentioned earlier). Chan has a little discussion of this term (p. 148), concluding: “Therefore, ‘new tongues’ refers to languages ‘new’ to the speakers/hearers relative to their existing knowledge, not a different ontological kind of ecstatic speech.”

Acts 19

As for Acts 19, Chan argues that Ephesus was a multilingual environment and that the early reception of the episode understood the scene as involving naturally acquired languages.

For the multilingualism of Ephesus, Chan points to the Greek and Latin inscriptions on this gate (see also Livius). He also refers to Herodotus.

Now these Ionians, who possessed the Panionion … use not all the same speech (glōssa) but four different dialects. Miletus lies farthest south among them, and next to it come Myus and Priene; these are settlements in Caria, and they use a common language; Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedos, Teos, Clazomenae, Phocaea, all of them being in Lydia, have a language in common which is wholly idfferent from teh speech of the three cities aforementioned. There are yet three Ionian cities, two of them situate on the islands of Samos and Chios, and one, Erythrae, on the mainland; the Chians and Erythraeans speak alike, but the Samians have a language which is their own and none other’s. It is thus seen that there are four fashions of speech (οὗτοι χαρακτῆρες γλώσσης τέσσερες γίνονται). (Herodotus 1.142; LCL)

Now, of course, Herodotus is describing a time about five centuries before Paul visited Ephesus, but still.

As for the reception of Acts 19:6 (p. 150), Chan cites a few Syriac manuscripts, a manuscript of the Vetus Latina, some Vulgate manuscripts, and Ephrem. He’s relying here on the textual commentary by Metzger. (This information is omitted by Houghton, and it is not found in the standard hand-editions.) The ECM of Acts cites only a marginal reading of the seventh-century Harklean Syriac translation. Neither Metzger nor Chan are specific about which Latin manuscripts (Vetus Latina or Vulgate) they have in mind, and the standard (Stuttgart) hand-edition of the Vulgate cites no variant reading, and the major edition of the Vulgate New Testament cites only a single manuscript, labeled p, a.k.a. Codex Perpinianensis (VL54, BNF lat. 321, 12th cent.; check it here at fol. 128v, top left)—which adds at the end of the verse ita ut ipsi sibi interpretarentur, “so that they could interpret for themselves.”

So I don’t know what Latin manuscripts we’re talking about (except for that 12th cent. Vulgate manuscript), though I do trust Metzger to have actually looked at the manuscript (or a facsimile) to make sure—at least as much as I trust any scholar, i.e., not very much; I always like to check for myself. Anyway, according to Metzger, the Western text of Acts has an addition after the word “tongues” in Acts 19:6, an addition attested in the sources already cited (Syriac, Latin, Ephrem). Metzger gives a translation for the addition: “other tongues, and they themselves knew them, which they also interpreted for themselves; and certain also prophesied.”

After exploring Luke’s theology of languages (pp. 150–55), Chan concludes:

The early church was full of cultural and linguistic differences, and the diversity of languages is certainly one major theme that Acts attempts to bring out. [See, e.g., the reference to the diverse languages at Acts 2:9–11; the Lycaonian language at Acts 14:11, and the difficulty that Paul and Barnabas had in communicating with them, Acts 14:18; and the role of languages at Acts 21:37–38; 21:40–22:2.] The fact that Cornelius’s household and the Ephesian twelve used their heart languages, which Peter and Paul did not understand, to magnify God (Acts 10:46) and prophesy (Acts 19:6), highlights the supremacy of the gospel over their language barriers.

So, that’s it, an interesting exploration of an interesting issue, with an interesting proposal, that Cornelius and the Ephesian twelve were not “speaking in tongues” as we think of it (glossolalia), and they were not speaking in real human languages that they did not previously know (xenolalia), but they were speaking in their native languages praise that was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Am I convinced? That’s a strong word. I am convinced that it is a possibility.

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