SIT, TIP, Prophecy and Confession

[chockfull]

I doubt this is helpful, .but, awhile ago I found a partial unpublished thesis online. It was written by someone named Larry Holton and posted on a site. I have never heard of him and am not endorsing him or the site. Make what you will of it......but, what caught my eye were the resources cited. Unfortunately, I can't link to it....it doesn't work. There are some quotes from linguists addressing a few of Chockfull's concerns. It is a poorly written paper but, what is of value IMO are the sources. If you want the sources or to read the entire article you will have to Google Larry Holton and SIT. I will cut and paste a bit. Apparently, these objections of Chockfulls are not unique and are heard from other people who SIT.

OK, so this is a poorly written paper, similar to the one by the college student I mentioned. I brought up the same point you did about the sources of the paper being more reliable than the writing itself. Raf completely rejected that as a source, continuing to point out the guy was writing a college thesis.

This paper, the first entry in the SIT Online Reading room, basically is almost exactly the same thing. A guy has 3 references to Samarin, two from a book that we haven't read, and the third from the article we are dissecting.

The questions raised by me are raised in that paper. Why? Because there is an OBVIOUS contradiction between what linguists are concluding and what the Bible says about the topic. I'll comment on some of them.

Objection: Since there are nearly three thousand languages in the world linguists could not have heard every language in the world, therefore if they studied a tape-recording of glossolalia they might not know what language it was in.

Answer: A statement from William Welmers, Ph.D., in linguistics from U.C.L.A. answers this objection nicely: "That is not an entirely valid argument. Among us, we have heard many hundreds of languages. Furthermore, we have heard representative languages in virtually every group of related languages in the world. At worst we may have missed a few small groups in the interior of South America or in New Guinea. I would estimate that the chances are at least even that if a glossolalic utterance is in a known language, one of us would either recognize the language or recognize that it is similar to some language we are acquainted with." Dr. Welmers makes this challenge: "Get two recordings, one of a glossolalic utterance and the other in a real language remote from anything I have ever heard - any West Coast American Indian language would fill the bill. I'm confident that in just a few moments I could tell which is which and why I am sure of it."

So here, the premise I'm measuring this against is I Cor. 14:2 when someone speaks in a tongue others don't understand.

Here, a linguist with a PhD answers this question by saying "that is not ENTIRELY a valid argument". Note the use of language here. He is not saying "that argument is complete BS, bunk, malarkey". He is saying it is not entirely valid. So his conclusion is that argument is PARTIALLY valid.

He brings up a valid point that part of linguistics involves "family trees" of language. The Romance languages, for example, have common Latin roots. The Russian languages have similarities. The Indian dialects have similarities. Most of the "trees" of language develop in similar geographic locations. Many linguists have familiarity with a certain tree of languages, so would be able to identify if they thought a glossa sample had words in that "family tree" of language. His opinion on the matter is if you ran a glossa sample by ALL of these people you could get coverage on MOST of the world's languages.

Does this prove modern SIT doesn't produce a language? Not by any means.

Objection: The language I speak in is a dead language and there is no way a language expert could detect it.

Answer: In a letter from Herbert Stahike of Georgia State University, he states, "The problem of whether a glossolalic utterance involves the speaking of a foreign language depends heavily on your definition of a foreign language. If you mean a modern spoken language or a dead language of which we have some written record, then the claim is testable, otherwise the claim is meaningless." Bill Siemens says, "I have heard glossolalia a number of times, but in no case did it ever vaguely resemble any of the modem or ancient languages with which I am familiar in some degree."

Another common objection and one I also brought up. By the definition in the Bible of SIT, you can include extinct languages. Stahike states here that in his OPINION you COULD test whether a language was a valid sample of an extinct language. What he leaves out there is this is just speaking in the terms of possibilities. He has never done this. And a SIT speaker WOULD NOT be able to tell Stahike WHICH EXTINCT LANGUAGE they were speaking in. So to actually prove this is a lot harder than Stahike is saying here, specifically if it is not known what extinct language to look for.

Siemens basically states his experience. He is not offering this comment in ANY WAY as a refutation that he can prove SIT doesn't produce an extinct language.

Eugene A. Nida, Secretary of Translations for the American Bible Society and world renowned expert in linguistics, concluded from his studies that the phonemic strata indicates that the phonomes of glossolalic utterances are closely associated with the language background of the speaker's native language.

This is interesting, both for terminology and this argument. MOSTLY, NONE of the linguists quoted here stating their OPINION on the matter have done ANY WORK AT ALL ON THIS. This is where my "shoddy research" comments come in. Read the Newberg paper for what constitutes "reliable research". The extent of the work I see is opinion - "I can't recognize this, and I'm a linguist, so it must not be a language". That doesn't cut it.

Samarin is the one exception here. In the article we are referencing, on p. 56 on he writes up SOME of the detail of what this means. He took glossa samples and mapped them to a consonant map. The words "phonemic strata", and "phonomes" - what do these mean? This is speaking of a breakdown of sounds. Samarin gives insight into this. The "sound breakdown" of analyzing a glossa basically involves mapping a breakdown of sounds into their component parts - consonants and vowels.

The work Samarin records in his paper on this is that the English language contains 16 consonant sounds. I'm not sure of how they classify this, as the English language has 5 vowels and 20 consonants. Which, by the way, is exactly the same number and letters and consonants that the Latin language has. So Samarin maps the consonant sounds he hears in a glossa sample, and reaches the results that the sample covered 12 of the 16 major consonants in English. He notes that is a higher number of sounds he's hearing that would correspond with English than would correspond to another language. He then draws the conclusion that the samples more match the consonant patterns for English than other known languages. The sentence right after that, he notes that this consonant map would not only apply to English, but "about 5 other languages". Having read about language relationships, it's easy to point out that English consonants share the same sound and letters as the root language Latin does. Also, all of the Romance languages - Latin, or Neo-Latin derived (Spanish, Portugese, French, Italian) ALL share the same consonant maps.

I'm going to drill into this a little more because Raf seems to think this is some huge revelation of why linguists don't look harder to identify languages. He wants to draw the conclusion that it's because they aren't languages, rather than the explanation that proving a negative is hard, and the linguists really don't have the time or effort to put into proving this absolutely, so they remain satisfied with just stating their educated opinion on the topic and writing about unproven conclusions.

So back to the "phonemic strata" and the analysis of "phonomes". Let's drill into this a little more. Let's take a short phrase that everyone has heard ole VP speak on tape thousands of times - "lo shanta ka malakacita". How would we go about proving this is not a language? Break down the "phonomes" and look at a consonant map. We have the following consonants - "l, sh, nt, k, m, c, t". There are 7 consonant patterns there. We compare those against English and see they have the same pattern. Then we have a choice. We can notice that those consonant patterns ALSO would apply to Spanish, French, Portugese, Italian, or any of their language ancestor roots and dialects that they descended from (I'll submit to you that 16th century English would largely not be understood to this audience). So now all of a sudden I can't "prove" that Nida making the big fat claim that the glossa is English "phonomes" only. Because it equally could be Spanish, French, Portugese, or Italian by the methods you are using to investigate.

(I'm not saying the glossa IS these languages, I would think if someone produced a glossa in perfect modern Italian that would be easily recognized. But say a predecessor to Italian, like 16th century Italian - or earlier. That may not be detected. You just CANNOT rule out those possibilities from a proof perspective).

So this is the type of detail that I'm getting to when I drill into it. And the deeper I look the less I see these guys "conclusions" and "opinions" as matching the facts coming out of the work they are doing.

But here's a challenge for linguists. Take that phrase above and prove it isn't a language. We have a PFAL tape where you can see VP speaking it.

Felicitas D. Goodman made phonetic analysis of glossolalia from recordings she taped for her Master's Degree in Mexico and different sections of the United States. She concludes that the glossolalia she analyzed was not productive and noncommunicative.

SIT "IS" non communicative from a human to human perspective. God already says the other won't understand unless it's interpreted. What does this add? NOTHING!!!

James Jaquith from Washington University in his research among English speaking tongue-speakers concludes that "There is no evidence that these glossolalic utterances have been generated by constituent sub-codes of any natural language other than English."

Or the "constituent sub-codes" (love the geek speak) of ALL THE OTHER ROMANCE LANGUAGES AND THEIR ANCESTOR LANGUAGES. He's just not stating that. But Samarin did.

Ernest Bryant and Daniel O'Connell of St. Louis University studied nine tapes of glossolalia taken from among their respondents. The results of their studies proved that "all glossolalic phonemes are within the normal phonemic repertoire of the native speaker of English." He says, "If a foreign language system were used a much greater divergence of phonemes would be expected, but the opposite is the case."

Besides the same argument which also applies here to the other Romance languages, there's another rub to this. God never claims he is re-engineering a person's vocal chords to energize SIT. So the person is still doing the speaking. It's a known fact that foreign language speakers have trouble pronouncing some "phonomes". Like native Chinese speakers can't form "l"s and "r"s correctly. In fact, you can hear fluent English speakers with this problem, due to their native language background.

There is no way that you can rule out a person is SIT in a real language with a bad foreign accent and issues pronouncing some of the "phonomes" they are not familiar with making the sounds for.

Dr. Donald Larson of Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota, began analyzing glossolalic samples in Toronto, Canada, in 1957. Since then he has analyzed many samples and observed glossolalic behavior in different parts of the world. His research also concludes that the phonological features of the native speaker's language carried over into his glossolalia experience.

Interesting but non-conclusive. See above.

In a letter to Dr, William Welmers of U.C.L.A., I asked him, "In your studies of modern glossolalia have you detected any known language?" His reply was, "In short, absolutely not." He goes on to say that "Glossolalic utterances are consistently in important respects unlike human languages. They are characterized by a great deal of recurrences of closely similar sequences of syllables and usually employ a restricted number of different sounds." Dr. Welmers said that the same thing is true of hundreds of other utterances studied by Christian linguistics of his acquaintance.

So let me see SIT people speak with an accent and repeat short phrases over and over. Oh, yes, this ABSOLUTELY PROVES THEY ARE NOT SPEAKING A REAL LANGUAGE.

It couldn't be that they are apeaking a foreign language with an accent, and the message God is energizing are short repetitive phrases of praise in that language.

Dr. Samarin, by far the most thorough, says, "There is no mystery about glossolalia. Tape recorded samples are easy to obtain and to analyze. They always turn out to be the same things: strings of syllables made up of sounds taken from among all those that the speaker knows, put together more or less haphazardly but which nevertheless emerge as word-like or sentence-like units

He has an opinion there. And he's done some work. But that sentence is about as far from being proven as you can get. And that's from the evidence he presented in the same paper of the work he did on the topic. That's the paper where he talks about consonant maps.

You know, papers like this Holton guy wrote are tedious to deal with. All they are is an amalgamation of opinion statements with no detail behind them. You know, even if it was the most popular opinion of linguists that modern SIT doesn't produce a language, is that still enough to discard scripture's teaching and accept them?

Here's another field - creationism vs. evolution. Largely the vast majority of history experts (with PhD's, titles, books, etc.) all support the evolution theory and reject the creationist theory. They present evidence, like Darwin's "Voyage of the Beagle" where he got funding for a ship and a science experiment, sailed around the world, and noted that animals on the Galapagos Island chain exhibited characteristics of adaptation to their environment.

So that's a great reason I should reject Creationism and the story in Genesis, and just accept their vastly superior intellect to mine and say I was lying about Creation and now I'm admitting that man got here evolving from an ape? Or should I retain my mental facilities and ask Darwin further questions surrounding adaptation between species and families?

Edited November 3, 2012 by chockfull

[chockfull]

That brings me to a simple suggestion for Chockfull, given sincerely. . . . pick up the phone and call a good college and speak to a linguist who can help you to understand how they can be confident in determining language. It is a huge field but not all language is unique. There are language families with common ancestry which may include now dead languages. Amherst College is a place I think might be helpful if you want to speak with an actual linguist. It is also a place where you can have some confidence.

geisha, your suggestion is appropriately condescending, simultaneously conveying a veiled concern while at the same time conveying that I am completely ignorant on the topic of linguistics to the point where simply a phone call to a linguist would clear all this up.

What makes you think that #1 they would talk to me about the topic? and #2 that a casual conversation would somehow magically produce more substance in the methods they are using more than the peer reviewed journal articles that they are writing on the topic to maintain their tenure and advance their careers?

Why don't you go to Amherst College, print up some of my objections to the general "research" on the topic and obtain comments and quotes on it from the linguists there? After all, it's your idea. The whole "God told me to tell you to do something" didn't work even when I was still in the Way ministry to have people dump off the work they didn't want to do themselves onto me.

Edited November 3, 2012 by chockfull

[Raf]

I thought it was a pretty reasonable suggestion

[chockfull]

I thought it was a pretty reasonable suggestion

Guys, this conversation is getting to the point where it's not doing much for me anymore. I mean, basically we have me on one side of an argument, and then Raf, WordWolf, and geisha all jumping in with their viewpoints which oppose me. It's way too much work for me to have to refute a team of 3 all looking to poke holes in what I believe and am seeing in the research. I am neglecting other needful areas of my life all in exchange for a stupid argument on whether or not you can pray in tongues and not be a liar or a faker.

My position and belief is that Corinthians is an epistle that applies to me. This is a mainstream Christian viewpoint. I've never heard except for the most extreme dispensationalists that Paul's letters are not for the modern Christian to study, apply and live life with. Thus Corinthians applies to me. Not to first century Christians, but somehow over 2000 years it all changed and none of it applies anymore. Corinthians is written to the church of the New Testament by extension from being addressed to a specific new Christian church in a given area. In Corinthians, I am instructed on gifts and manifestations of spirit. The instruction is pretty clear. It is clear enough that the questions I raise in linguistics research are similar to the ones that Charismatic Christians ask everywhere. There are no clear-cut proven answers in response to them, but it does seem that the majority of linguists who express an opinion on SIT are against it.

So I may read this thread and read some of the research but at this point I am going to severely limit the amount of time I put into any aspect of it and am not going to post much here anymore.

I am going to believe I Cor. 14, Corinthians, and my Bible as my standard for faith and practice. And I will evaluate man's facts and writings against that, and if there is a conflict, I'm going with scripture and my relationship with my Heavenly Father.

I'll leave all the arguments about how many language phonomes you can fit on the head of a glossa sample to you guys. Have fun. Peace out.

[Raf]

Seeya

[Raf]

Let me just add a couple of things before going over Chockfull's last substantive post and deciding which pieces require a response (ie, which pieces haven't already been discussed to death).

First off, when I say it's not an unreasonable request for Chockfull to reach out to a linguist to get answers to his questions, I'm not just blowing smoke. The results of one researcher's work seems to be in conflict with those of every other researcher reviewing the same phenomenon, and linguists who've gone over that researcher's work disagree with his analysis. But he stands by it. But he does agree with the other researchers on the conclusion that it's not an actual, human language. I've tracked this researcher down and e-mailed him for clarification. So what if he never answers me? I tried. Best I could do. I say, give it a shot. For wall we know, Chockfull may find a linguist who agrees that everyone we've been discussing is a hack, disrespected in the linguistic community at large, and we'd never know it because we're a bunch of amateurs dissecting 40-year-old studies.

Or maybe Chockfull will get the same answers Larry Holton got. I don't know.

Second, after I posted Holton's article on the SIT Reading Room thread (it's in doctrinal, if anyone's interested), I wrote the following: "Although the article I posted agrees with my conclusion, I would not have cited it in the original thread. I probably would have gone to his sources and posted them. If Vern is somewhat biased, he at least provided useful info. This guy seems to have been on a mission. My bet is we would have spent too much time discussing why he shouldn't be ignored just because of his conclusion."

Today's response from Chockfull proves my prediction 100 percent correct. Holton hears an agenda. Chockfull's right: the chief value he brings to this discussion is a broadening of available sources. But even I noted above that Holton lists answers that don't always seem to follow the questions that he asked (the "dead languages" question stands out in this regard: the answer he posts does not seem to adequately address the question, in my opinion). And this criticism is coming from someone (me) who agrees with Holton! His article, as a primary source, is useless. But it does point us to better primary sources.

I also want to make something clear about Landry: I knew this was a college paper the first time I read it. It practically screamed it. If you ever spent any time grading college papers, you know what they look like. Landry was poorly argued, poorly organized and poorly cited, at least when it comes to Samarin. Based on what I've been reading, I'm inclined to believe he wrote everything off Malony and Lovekin and did not review a single research work outside it. There was nothing in Landry's paper that wasn't in the first 10 pages of Malony and Lovekin, and what he did quote from it was misleading. The exception was Landry's conclusion, a quote from a tongues speaking friend lamenting the controversy over the issue. That should have been a sign to anyone that we were not dealing with a work of unbiased research.

I do not recall seeing a bibliography in Landry's paper, but if he did include one, I'd bet good money he just copied it from Malony and Lovekin's bibliography.

Third point: I need to go back over Chockfull's earlier post, but I thought I saw at a casual first glance an allegation that Nida had not conducted his own research into glossolalia. This assertion, if it was indeed made, is certainly inaccurate. Nida published in 1964 "A Case of Pseudo-Linguistic Structure," in which he concluded there was no scientific evidence that glossolalia produces known languages (cited in Malony & Lovekin, p. 8). When the director of translations of the American Bible Society, who is also a respected linguist, comes to such a conclusion, at the very least it warrants a close look. But it would be so very wrong to dismiss him as someone who has not examined glossolalia on his own. The opposite appears to be the case. I'd love to see his work.

In a casual Google search, I see evidence that every single linguist cited by Holton has actually studied glossolalia to some degree. Most were done ages ago and are not available online. Nida's supposedly is, but damned if I can find it.

Finally, in his farewell address, Chockfull states that he is going to believe God rather than linguists (I'm paraphrasing. I'm sure he'll come back to correct me if I've misrepresented him). I submit this is a false choice. This is not an either-or proposition. If the linguists are right, it doesn't mean the Bible is wrong. It means our understanding of it is wrong. Getting to a right understanding would take an enormous amount of humility, starting with the admission to yourself that in your hunger to manifest the power of God, you took a step without him.

Or you could just disagree with me and we're all happy. I have a belief. You don't share it. This bothers you? Doesn't bother me one whit.

Christians disagree with each other about far more substantial things than this.

Edited November 3, 2012 by Raf

[waysider]

"By the definition in the Bible of SIT, you can include extinct languages."

......................................................................

That's quite a stretch from the record in Acts where the listeners understood the speakers. How did they understand if the languages being spoken were extinct?

[waysider]

This whole conversation reminds me of the old song,

.

You can twist the logic thirteen ways till Thursday but when the dust settles, you're still not your own Grandpaw.

[Raf]

"By the definition in the Bible of SIT, you can include extinct languages."

......................................................................

That's quite a stretch from the record in Acts where the listeners understood the speakers. How did they understand if the languages being spoken were extinct?

Gonna have to side with Chockfull here. He said includes, not includes ONLY. It could be extinct languages. It could be current languages. A convenient stretch would be that it includes future languages. Woohoo! No one can prove or disprove THAT.

Am I the only one who's noticed that the general expectation of those who practice SIT is that a language will NOT be found, followed by a list of excuses as to why? I mean, right away, it's just assumed the linguists will be unable, or God will not participate, or the language will be obscure, or extinct, or heavenly. Or the dragon's fire is non thermal, so measuring the temperature won't reveal its presence. And throwing water or paint on it won't work because it's not corporeal. It won't leave footprints. Always an excuse as to why the promised result won't be found. Never a hint of expectation that it will be.

Edited November 3, 2012 by Raf

[waysider]

"Always an excuse as to why the promised result won't be found. Never a hint of expectation that it will be."

Like an Elusive Butterfly.

[geisha779]

geisha, your suggestion is appropriately condescending, simultaneously conveying a veiled concern while at the same time conveying that I am completely ignorant on the topic of linguistics to the point where simply a phone call to a linguist would clear all this up.

What makes you think that #1 they would talk to me about the topic? and #2 that a casual conversation would somehow magically produce more substance in the methods they are using more than the peer reviewed journal articles that they are writing on the topic to maintain their tenure and advance their careers?

Why don't you go to Amherst College, print up some of my objections to the general "research" on the topic and obtain comments and quotes on it from the linguists there? After all, it's your idea. The whole "God told me to tell you to do something" didn't work even when I was still in the Way ministry to have people dump off the work they didn't want to do themselves onto me.

Wow! I am sorry. It wasn't meant to be condescending at all. I call experts when I have questions....it never occurred to me you would take offense at that. What makes me think someone would speak to you? Why wouldn't they? People love to talk about their area of expertise. Educators love to educate. It is more likely you wouldn't be able to get off the phone. I just thought maybe there was more to understand about the methods of research in such a vast field like linguistics. I stand corrected.....I am sure you have it under control. I simply picked Amherst because I know it well and there are some very respected people there. . . . . if you wanted to ask some questions I simply thought that might be a place where you could have some confidence. That's all. I apologize if this offended you it was not my intention.

Edited November 4, 2012 by geisha779

[WordWolf]

(snip)

I am going to believe I Cor. 14, Corinthians, and my Bible as my standard for faith and practice. And I will evaluate man's facts and writings against that, and if there is a conflict, I'm going with scripture and my relationship with my Heavenly Father.

(snip)

The False Dilemma hidden here is one made by a number of Christians, which is a shame.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

A false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, the either-or fallacy, fallacy of false choice, black-and/or-white thinking, or the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses) is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option. The options may be a position that is between the two extremes (such as when there are shades of grey) or may be a completely different alternative.

False dilemma can arise intentionally, when fallacy is used in an attempt to force a choice (such as, in some contexts, the assertion that "if you are not with us, you are against us"). But the fallacy can also arise simply by accidental omission of additional options rather than by deliberate deception.

One of the legitimate things that was said in twi was

"We don't even trust in our understanding of God's Word."

(Would have been nice if this had been MEANT instead of only SAID, but that's another topic.)

When there's 2 pieces of information which contradict, the answer is often that something

is being overlooked- it's not always that one is completely right and one is completely wrong.

Sometimes both are right-but in part and are overlooking facts that show the other is right in part.

(The blind men describing the elephant is the easiest example, where one observes the trunk,

another the leg, and describe different attributes.)

So, when I find that there's a contradiction between science and Scripture, I CONSIDER ALL OPTIONS.

It's possible the facts are not being observed correctly, and later will be.

It's possible the facts are correct but preconceived notions are causing them to be misinterpreted.

And so on.

It's said that science is self-correcting, but sometimes it takes a while for corrections to

be made, and I'm aware of that. Generally, it's not a problem and I'm not afraid of science.

Also to be considered, however, is the other side of the problem.

It's possible the verses were doctored-something was added or majorly changed.

It's possible the verses were mangled in translation.

It's possible the verses are translated correctly, but I'm bringing preconceived notions that

mean I misunderstand what I'm reading.

The Bible was not written as a science textbook, and attempting to make it so, to try to make

the verses speak, say, with "a mathematical exactness" or "a scientific precision" is

wishful thinking and leads to misunderstanding of what's actually being said.

I'm well aware that coming to Scripture, I bring ideas and notions. Sometimes I need to change

those because they're wrong and holding me back from really understanding the verses.

Science VERSUS the Bible? No thanks, I'm in favor of BOTH.

My faith isn't challenged by trying to keep up with the latest scientific developments.

(My Evolution teacher was pleased at how well I understood the material we covered,

and quite complimentary about it. Not being afraid of the subject meant I was able to

read and find things like flaws in preconceived notions and factual errors when I

came across them-both of which came later.)

I'm humble enough to acknowledge I don't know it all and need to be ready to discard

my thinking periodically-and often- to come to a fuller understanding.

Even if I don't LIKE where the truth is leading me.

In the case of this thread, it seems it's leading me in such a direction.

I'd LIKE to think that we were practicing things that pleased God with our modern SIT,

but my likes and dislikes can't change reality. The evidence all points in one

direction.

I trust in my Heavenly Father but I don't trust in my understanding of Him and think

that's the final word on things. I sleep better with the idea that tomorrow I may

learn something that brings me closer to Him in some way. I pursue that in a sort-of

Zeno's Paradox kind of way, knowing I won't arrive while I walk the Earth.

[Raf]

As far as doctored verses go, the easiest place to start is the conclusion of Mark. The evidence for its authenticity is flimsy as all get out, and the "snake handling" verse is a lot easier to explain when you realize it's got as much right to be in the Bible as the story of Agamemnon's revenge against Perseus.

[geisha779]

"By the definition in the Bible of SIT, you can include extinct languages."

......................................................................

That's quite a stretch from the record in Acts where the listeners understood the speakers. How did they understand if the languages being spoken were extinct?

I am not sure why either? The word unknown was added later to 1 Corinthians, but why? Just because something is added doesn't automatically make it wrong, but it can change the meaning significantly. I am unsure how extinct languages make it into the mix and it seems random to me. It is worth examining if we are interested.

[Raf]

For the sake of argument, I am compelled to concede that anything not excluded by scripture is permissible as a possibility. Poythress accepts the possibility of a kind of code that might be undetectable by linguistics but could still count as language. I reject that, and Chockfull has been kind enough not to argue the point. The very least I can do is not argue the point that extinct languages are a possibility, especially considering the Bible does not exclude the possibility.

[WordWolf]

As far as doctored verses go, the easiest place to start is the conclusion of Mark. The evidence for its authenticity is flimsy as all get out, and the "snake handling" verse is a lot easier to explain when you realize it's got as much right to be in the Bible as the story of Agamemnon's revenge against Perseus.

You'd kick out That Hope Business???

;)

===============================

For those of you playing along at home, I'll explain that one.

Long ago, when I was a new twi'er, I would take notes at all meetings, especially verse references.

I put the date, topic, announcements, verses, and critical notes for any teaching.

So, if the speaker (for a home meeting) didn't give any indication of the topic name, I'd raise my

hand and ask "Topic?" and I'd prepare a name for each I ever taught.

Naturally, knowing I was going to ask, sometimes this tempted people to make up topic titles that

had little or nothing to do with the actual topic.

One time, I'd invited a friend along who elected to attend. One of the other people (not the usual

person) had a teaching prepped. As always, I asked the topic. He answered, matter of factly,

"Agammemnon's Revenge Against Perseus", which I wrote down. Raf, on the other hand, was sitting

next to me and wrote down "This Hope Business." It was really what the thing was about, and the

guy began with something like "I wanted to go into some of this hope business."

Edited November 4, 2012 by WordWolf

[Raf]

And that was my first twig meeting. I was the friend he invited along.

[Raf]

Just going to say a couple of things about accents.

The term, as used by Samarin, is not the same as it is used by Chockfull in extrapolating yet another excuse as to why the people on earth best suited to detect human languages in glossolalia have failed to do so. It's not because of accents botching the sounds. Samarin defines "accent" (he puts the term in quotes, which should be a signal to us that he's using a definition that's not the common one) specifically in terms of the failure of the glossolalist to produce foreign phonemes. He cited this as the giveaway that the English speaking glossolalist produces phonemes that are "entirely typical" of the English language.

It should be noted that in the anecdotes that I am supposed to accept uncritically, with no corroborating evidence and no objective determination that the participants did what was claimed and the observers really heard what they claimed to, those anecdotes typically (though not always) feature a level of amazement at the perfection of the glossa. The speaker always sounds like a native, like someone with a college-level grasp of the language. This high quality of glossa appears to vanish whenever a linguist is looking at it. Suddenly, we're supposed to believe the quality is so lousy that even though a language is there, it's undetectable. Nonsense. Either the spirit gives the utterance or he/it doesn't. A SITter producing an obscure Chinese dialect isn't going to do it without producing foreign phonemes, no matter how bad his "accent" is. It's a red herring and an excuse, and it doesn't wash.

It just amazes me that the shoddiness of his research is so heavily criticized, yet the incredible level of detail he goes into is cut up, yanked from its context, picked apart to the point that amateurs who have no idea what we're talking about think we can make better observations and analyses than those who've studied this field for more than a couple of hours reading an Internet thread.

Phonemic inventory reveals glossolalia to be highly dependent on the native language of the speaker. There are exceptions, and those exceptions are easily traceable to the speaker's limited exposure to other languages.

Everything I have to add has already been said.

Edited November 5, 2012 by Raf

[waysider]

Something that has puzzled me about anecdotes:

People hear the tongue speakers use a language that is native to them and they are amazed. Why? Would you, as a new attendee, be amazed if you heard someone speak in English? I'm just sayin'.

[Raf]

Always an excuse as to why a language won't be found or hasn't been found. Never an expectation that it will be. That's not faith. That's wishful thinking.

[chockfull]

Always an excuse as to why a language won't be found or hasn't been found. Never an expectation that it will be. That's not faith. That's wishful thinking.

Or some people just trust that what I Cor. 14:2 says is accurate - that when you speak in tongues you don't speak to man, but to God, and no man understands. That is simple and clear in just about any Bible translation you care to look up. There is no accusation of anything around that verse not being genuine, like those that attack Mark 15 and say its a forgery. It is a simple, clear verse and that chapter has simple clear instruction. The only way the critics and haters try to get rid of this verse is by saying it applied then, but not today. I'll obviate the other hater logic which says that somehow we just aren't UNDERSTANDING this very clear verse properly. You're right. All I'm doing is reading it, noting that it's an epistle to the born-again believers after Christ's death thus it is to me, and believing it.

I know that doesn't bode well for formulating huge strawman arguments to attack that verse, like linguists not finding languages and that supposedly being some kind of proof that tongues are fake, but that's all this whole thing is - man's ego, all setting something up to prove they are smarter than God.

I've already explained this for those who are interested in trusting scripture and employing logic at the same time. Those who aren't interested in that, please feel free to ignore this post and continue on picking at logic and trying to prop up your linguists over scripture.

By definition, if God says about tongues "no man understands", and if God is energizing the tongues to make them something special and spiritual outside of the ability of a human to make mouth noises, then God is well able to fulfill what He says in scripture to ensure a linguist will NOT find a language. Haters will call this an "excuse", but for my life, I choose to act as a "believer" who trusts scripture, not a "hater" who tries to break it.

You see, God at His very nature will not overstep freedom of will, and God requires believing or faith out of His followers. As such, He doesn't really play the games of proving He exists or not, or proving scripture is reliable or not. For those who want to believe, there is that option. For those who want to argue about it, debate about it, try and break it, there is that option too. God isn't really interested in obtaining converts by the support of scientific proof of the spiritual.

I'm sure this post will give the haters plenty of material to attack, so have at it

[waysider]

Haters? I don't think of myself as a hater. What is it about asking questions and seeking logical explanations that makes one a hater?

[Raf]

mmh hmm. We're critics and haters now.

The verse in I Corinthians indicates that the speaker will not understand himself. It still asserts that what is spoken is a glossa, a language. Only one side in this argument is expecting the practice to hold up to the Biblical promise, and it's not the side that's still embracing the phony, counterfeit practice.

I guess we're now going to point to the inability of linguists to detect a language as proof that the Biblical promise IS being kept. A dramatic turnabout from the clear promise of scripture to excuses for the failure of the counterfeit to deliver on that promise.

Edited November 5, 2012 by Raf

[chockfull]

The verse in I Corinthians indicates that the speaker will not understand himself.

If you can twist up "no man understands him" into "the speaker will not understand himself" then perhaps reading comprehension is the root of your problem.

It still asserts that what is spoken is a glossa, a language. Only one side in this argument is expecting the practice to hold up to the Biblical promise, and it's not the side that's still embracing the phony, counterfeit practice.

If you take a step back and look at what that verse is trying to communicate, the primary idea of it is not making the point that tongues is a language. It's making the point giving instruction for SIT. Part of the instruction is that you are talking to God, the other part is that other people won't understand you while doing this.

So I Cor. 14:2 is saying that when you SIT, you are communicating with God, and people won't understand.

It is not making the point just because it uses the word "glossa" in it that the important part of the verse indicates that it is producing a real language spoken by someone living today. All of the argument over that verse is focusing on one word in the verse - "tongues", extracting it from its context, blowing it up out of proportion, and making the whole argument about that.

I guess we're now going to point to the inability of linguists to detect a language as proof that the Biblical promise IS being kept. A dramatic turnabout from the clear promise of scripture to excuses for the failure of the counterfeit to deliver on that promise.

No now we're going to the same point as we were previously. Trusting scripture, and using logic. I don't need "proof" to believe the Bible. If you do, then that's not my problem.

[Raf]

I don't need proof to believe the Bible. I need proof to believe that the counterfeit we were taught to produce is Biblical.

If you think this is a challenge to the Bible, you are making a false assumption. This is not a challenge to the Bible. This is a challenge to a FRAUD, one I refuse to be a party to any longer.

It is not "faith" to take the promise of God and expect it NOT to be fulfilled at every turn.

So far, you have accused me of hate and questioned my reading comprehension. What else do you have in store for me today?

Edited November 5, 2012 by Raf