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Greek of Paul's day ¡t actually refers to a "foreign language"118 and is so to be understood here. The "other lips” and the "foreign tongues" are, ¡n the words of Wayne Grudem, "the lips and tongues of foreign (Assyrian) invaders,"119 whom the hearers will not understand. The Hebrew hearers do not know the "foreign languages" of these invading Assyrian forces .

This quotation makes some important points that cannot escape our attention. First of all, ¡t refers to "foreign languages" as a means of communication which hearers do not understand. This comparison is revealing, because ¡t seems to imply that what is happening in Corinth is the same. "Foreign languages" are brought in by means of the tongues- speakers, but they do not bring about the desired results since they cannot be understood by the hearers. Paul makes the point that in the past God used other languages with a purpose. He used the Assyrians to speak to the Israelites, who did not understand the languages spoken by them. They

needed a translator. Now God uses the gift of

tongues/languages to convince the unbelievers that the Gospel message bears the signet of Heaven.120

The second point is unusually important. Behm States that "tongues are a legitímate sign of overwhelming power (1 4 :2 2 )."121 To some who will be convinced and convicted among the "unbelievers" to whom this sign of speaking in tongues is directed, it will be a sign of salvation, but to others who refuse to listen, it will be a sign of judgment.122 This dual result on the part of unbelievers is after all dependent on their own reaction to the message which is to come to them through those speaking in tongues.123

In this case again it appears that there is a connection with tongues in Acts 2. Many were saved but others refused to listen and turned in derision against those who spoke in

tongues. The mission purpose of tongues is again

emphasized: Tongues are to be for a "sign" by which unbelievers are confronted w ith the Good News. They reveal themselves in the way they react to what they hear either by becoming believers or by rejecting the gospel invitation. It is the intention of the gift of tongues/languages that there will not be a false reaction (1 Cor 14:23). Therefore, there must

be certain requirements of order and so on which will make

this spiritual gift most effective. One of them is

interpretation. We shall turn our attention to this next.

11. TONGUES-SPEAKING AND INTERPRETATION How can tongues--wh¡ch are not readily understood by the members of the church and certainly not by unbelieving outsiders for whom they are primarily intended--be made to serve the church for their intended missionary purpose? Paul's consistent answer is that ¡f no one in the congregation understands what is said in tongues, then "let one interpret" (1 Cor 14:27). This counsel is specific. If speaking in tongues is to benefit the believing community, and especially the unbelieving outsider, that is, if tongues-speaking is used for its appointed purpose--which is the edification and the building up of the church (vss. 3, 5, 12, 26)~then the speaker "in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret" (vss. 13, 15),124 or some other member of the church is to "interpret" (vss. 27-28). As a matter of fact, "interpretation" is also a spiritual gift (1 Cor 12:10, 30).125

In our attempt to determine the nature of tongues- speaking in 1 Cor 12-14, and what Paul understood ¡t to be, we must also determine the exact meaning of the term "interpret" as used by Paul. In 1 Cor 12-14 Paul employsthe Greek verb diermeneuein, "interpret," four times (1 Cor 12:30; 14:5, 13, 27).

This same verb is employed outside of the New Testament in 2 Mace 1:36. In this text it has the meaning "to transíate" a Hebrew term into a Greek term .126 In the New Testament the same word is also used with the meaning "to transíate" in Acts 9 :3 6 .127 The meaning "to transíate" a normal language into another normal and known language is typical for the usage of this verb inside the New Testament and outside of it.128

Paul employs the Greek noun hermeneía, "interpretation," tw o times in 1 Cor 1 2-14 (1 2:10; 14:26). This noun is not

employed elsewhere in the New Testament. This term

142 SPEAKING IN TONGUES

usages ¡t means "translation" (Dan 5:1; Prologue to Sirach, 14),129 and once it means "satire" (Sirach 47:17).

Paul once uses the Greek noun diermeneutés (1 Cor 14:28) which is usually translated "¡nterpreter" in English Bibles. It is a word that is not known in the Greek language outside of the New Testament until it appears again centuries

later, in Byzantine writers. The standard Greek-English

dictionary by W. Bauer gives the meanings for 1 Cor 14:28 "¡nterpreter/ translator."130 In the Septuagint of Gen 42:23

the cognate term hermeneutés is rendered as

"tra n s la to r/'131

A study of the Greek verb hermeneueín and its cognates in the Septuagint and New Testament,132 apart from the seven usages in 1 Cor 12-14, reveáis that in nineteen of the twenty-one cases it refers to "translation."133 This evidence134 warrants the conclusión that the terms used by Paul for "interpreting" speaking in tongues carry with them, in the words of Professor J. G. Davies, "the strong suggestion of translatihg a foreign language."135

This conclusión of "interpretation," meaning "translating" speaking in tongues is further supported by Paul's quotation of Isa 28:1 1 in 1 Cor 14:21. As we have seen above, the Assyrians w ill speak to the Israelites in "foreign languages," because the latter rejected the plain and clear message of the prophets in their own Hebrew language.

To this ¡s to be added that 1 Cor 14:10, 11, in which one does not uhderstand a speaker of a foreign language, carries w ith it the emphasis that foreign languages are involved. Even a scholar such as Behm, who suggests that "in Corinth . . . glossolalia is an unintelligible ecstatic utterance,"136 is forced to note that "an impression is left of speaking in foreign languages (14:10 f 21 )."137 This is not only an impression, it is a very strong case that Paul made through the choice of the terms he employed.

We need to address the issue that the Book of Acts makes no mention of the "interpretation/translation" issue which is important in 1 Cor 12-14. In Acts 2 no translation is needed because there were hearers in the crowd for whom these tongues were native languages in which the tongues- speakers spoke the Good News to them. In 1 Cor 12-14 the

situation is different not because the Corinthian Christians speak in unintelligible glossolalia,138 but because there are no hearers who speak the languages spoken by those who are

engaged in tongues-speaking. The tongue-speaker who

speaks a language not understood by the hearers needs a translator. Although Luke in Acts does not refer to the cluster of words connected with hermeneia, "translation," in his reports of tongues-speaking, he nevertheless uses one word from this cluster for the idea of translation from one language to another. In Acts 9:36 it is stated that "a certain disciple [is] named Tabitha, which istranslated [diermeneuo] Dorcas" (NKJV). Thus Acts supports the idea that the cluster of words based on hermeneia means to "¡nterpret" in the sense of "transíate."

On the basis of our investigation of alleged parallels of tongues-speaking w ith phenomena in Greekreligions, we have come to recognize that there are no true parallels for the New

Testament phenomenon. On the one hand, there is no

glossolalia of unintelligible speech known in these religions which any scholar has been able to document and, on the other hand, there is no miraculous speaking of normal foreign languages known in them either. Our investigation of the terminology for "interpretation" in the New Testament and outside of the New Testament favors the conclusión that tongues-speaking in Corinth is the miraculous speaking of unlearned foreign languages.

It is appropriate at this time to return to the diviner or mantic (called mantis139 in Greek enthusiastic religions) who utters obscure and dark sayings w ithout seemingly being capable of assessing what he sees and says. He is joined by a person called sophron,140 a self-controlled man who stands at his side, prays,141 and then proceeds to give the "exegesis" (Greek exegetai) of the pronouncements and visions.142 There is a decisive difference in the language used by Paul in his choice of words for "translating" or "interpreting," which is not duplicated in Hellenistic enthusiastic religions. For his emphasis on "translating" or "interpreting", Paul does not use the language of the phenomena in these religions where the term "exegesis" appears. Does the difference between the terminology of