Third Tuesday of Advent

Today we return to our Ats Bible study. Please read again Acts 10:44-48.

 

There are two kinds of speaking in tongues (I'll use the word glossolalia from here on) in the Bible. One is speaking in another known language, like Latin, or Egyptian, or Celtic, but unknown to the speaker. The other is speaking in linguistic-like syllables that are not a known language. The former is the case in Acts 2:1-5. The latter is the case in 1 Corinthians 12-14. The two other Biblical instances are Acts 10:44-48 and Acts 19:1-6. It is not completely clear which category these two instances fall into. We'll deal with Acts 19:1-6 when we get to that point in our study. 

Acts 10:44-48 could be read either way. Christians who did read this text as early as the third century did read it either way; some, one way; others, the other. We know this because of a telling textual variation. The early manuscripts of the Alexandrian text family, around 300 manuscripts dating from third through ninth centuries, have verse 46 in Greek as you have it in English, "for they heard them speaking in tongues." Another text family, the Western text, has a variant. The Western text is so-called because it is the text of the Old Latin manuscripts, Latin being the language of the West (Italy and westward in Europe, Libya and westward in North Africa). Greek was the language of the East. The Old Latin manuscripts were based on a Greek text type different from the Alexandrian. There is only one Greek manuscript that displays the Western text throughout. That is the Codex Bezae (a.k.a  D), which dates to about 500 AD. Scholars do not consider the Western text to be nearly as reliable as the Alexandrian. But sometimes the Western text does appear to preserve earlier readings. Verse 46 is not one of those times. 

The Western text adds a word to verse 46. It reads, "for they heard them speaking in other tongues."(Italics mine). The Western text wants to make it clear that the glossolalia of Acts 10:46 is of the first type, what we find in Acts 2:1-5. That the Western text makes this clarification is evidence that some early Christian readers were reading the glossolalia of Acts 10:46 as being of the second type--linguistic like syllables that are not a known language. The Western text wanted to make sure that readers understood this verse correctly--or at least what the Western text's first scribe thought was correctly. The question for us is, was the Western text correct in making this addition?

 

If we understand the glossolalia of 10:46 as being of the first category, then Acts 10:44-48, functions as something of a second Pentecost. Whereas in Acts 2:1-5 it was Jews (Jews from many countries) who experienced the Holy Spirit inspired speaking in other languages; in Acts 10:44-48, it was gentiles having this experience. That does make for a nice parallel. 

Acts 2:1-5, however, makes it clear that the foreign Jews in Jerusalem heard the other foreign Jews speaking their (the hearers) languages. Acts 10:44-48 does not give any similar indication. 

How this text is interpreted has ramifications for the present, not for readers of this blog so much, but for the Pentecostal churches and the Charismatic movement. If we interpret Acts 10:44-48 as referring to the second category of glossolalia, then we have Biblical evidence for the glossolalia in large groups (like churches). If we interpret it in the first category, then Paul's words to the Corinthians in 1 Cor 14, that speaking in tongues should be done only in private, or if in a group, only by one person at a time, would seem to nullify Pentecostal worship, in which many people speak in tongues at the same time. 

 

It looks like I'm not finished with this text. Perhaps next Bible study I'll tell what happened on December 31, 1900. 

 

Faithfully,

Christian