[B-Greek] tongues - languages
Jeffrey T. Requadt
jeffreyrequadt_list at hotmail.com
Thu May 26 02:15:28 EDT 2005
I'd like to note that the LALEIN (EN) GLWSSHi (GLWSSAIS) which is mentioned
in 1 Cor. 12-14, Acts 10:46 and 19:6, seems contextually to differ from
normal speech such as English, French, and Koine Greek. TDNT has a good
article on this (Vol. 1, p. 722). The point of this is to say that since
GLWSSA in these contexts does not necessarily refer to a real "language"
normally spoken by human beings (I'm not making any theological or
exegetical conclusions here, just trying to point out what the word may very
well have meant to the original hearers), it would probably be misleading
and over-interpreting to translate it as "languages" versus the more
ambiguous/mysterious (albeit, as you say, archaic) "tongues." Unfortunately,
I don't have the 3rd ed. of BDAG available, but I do have the 2nd ed. (DBAG)
on my computer, and it gives 2 reasons why GLWSSA is a problem in the
Corinthian passages: It is always without the article, and the phenomenon
was actually known in ancient Greek religion, either as "antiquated,
foreign, unintelligible, mysterious utterances"; or as "speaking in
marvelous, heavenly languages."
The TDNT article is too long for me to reproduce here (the Greek fonts would
not go over well, either), but here is the gist: the idea of "speaking in
tongues" as some kind of "ecstatic utterance" or "heavenly language" was
known in ancient Greek religion; it was known to Judaism; it had by Paul's
time somewhat the status of a technical term; although it did still mean
"language", it also referred to "ecstatic utterances".
Again, I'm not trying to make any theological conclusions. The original
question was, "Any idea why modern translations still tend to use the
archaic expression "tongues" rather than "languages"? Is there any semantic
reason for translating this with "tongues" that "languages" would not
equally denote?" So I guess my answer would be, based on DBAG and TDNT, that
there may be a linguistic reason not to translate GLWSSA as "language" in 1
Corinthians, and it's probably more than mere tradition or appeasement to
any one theological group. Things like this are why I wish translating
committees would publish a handbook that explains why they translate certain
controversial passages the way they do; but that's getting into translation,
not necessarily Greek grammar.
Or have I missed the point of the entire discussion?
Jeffrey T. Requadt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Ben Crick
Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2005 2:01 PM
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] tongues - languages
On Wed 25 May 2005 (06:14:56), papaweiss1 at yahoo.com wrote:
> 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.
"Language" is an English word derived from the Latin /lingua/, the tongue.
"Tongues" and "Languages" (articulated with the help of the "tongue") are
therefore synonymous.
ERRWSQE
Ben
--
Revd Ben Crick, BA CF ZFC Hf
<ben.crick at NOSPAM.argonet.co.uk>
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