[B-Greek] tongues - languages
George F Somsel
gfsomsel at juno.com
Wed May 25 10:00:23 EDT 2005
On Wed, 25 May 2005 06:14:56 -0700 (PDT) Eric Weiss
<papaweiss1 at yahoo.com> writes:
> Translations probably still use "tongues" for a few reasons (just my
> guesses here):
>
> 1. "Tradition" (as Tevye the milkman would say), even though I, too,
> find the phrase "speaking
> in tongues" as odd as a fiddler on the roof, as "languages" would be
> more common English.
>
> 2. Popular idiom. "Speaking in tongues" is the most common
> expression Charismatics and
> Pentecostals use to describe this activity, and since they're
> perhaps the fastest-growing group
> of Christians in the world, according to several surveys, I suppose
> Bible translators may
> choose to use the phraseology that the readers are familiar with and
> use themselves. Even
> non-Charismatics refer to glossolalia as "speaking in tongues"
> rather than "speaking in other
> languages." Thus, an otherwise antiquated term for "languages" has
> been kept alive and in use
> because of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, whose members
> took this term from
> the KJV and made it universal and contemporary religious
> terminology.
>
> 3. Being an unusual or rarely-used (these days) word for
> "languages," it perhaps subtly cues
> the reader/listener to the fact that the text is speaking about
> something other than normal
> human speech.
>
> FYI - When I talk to people about "speaking in tongues," I explain
> that it means
> "speaking in other languages." Some of the more recent translations
> - e.g., Holman Christian
> Standard Bible, New Living Translation - say "languages" instead of
> "tongues," but they're not
> always consistent (compare, e.g., Acts 2:4 and Acts 19:6 and I Cor.
> 12:10 in the New Living
> Translation), and other new ones like the NIV and the ESV still say
> "tongues" (but the NIV
> Reader's edition says "languages").
>
>
> Eric S. Weiss
__________________________________________________
True, but don't forget that there are certain expressions which are
"frozen" such as "his native tongue."
george
gfsomsel
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