language

The Language of Instruction in the Corinthian Church

A look at the ancient Jewish rite of instruction in Hebrew with an immediate translation into Aramaic or local vernacular. How it potentially impacted the earliest Corinthian assembly and how this rite evolved in the church.

The tradition of Jewish instructors speaking in Hebrew lasted for centuries. It is no longer practiced in synagogues today but was an important function in Judaism around the first-century. This little-known practice had an important part to play in the Jewish identity, and as will be shown, was a factor in the tongues conflict in Corinth.

In order to better explain this practice and make an association with the Corinthian gathering, we must go into ancient Jewish literature and examine citations from a number of prominent Jewish authorities. For those not familiar with Jewish writings outside the Bible, their observations are obscure on the first read and takes some contemplation.

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Lightfoot on the Problem Tongues of Corinth

John Lightfoot

A digitization of John Lightfoot’s Commentary on the tongues of Corinth.

John Lightfoot was a seventeenth-century English Churchman and Rabbinic scholar whose exegetical system was significantly advanced for that time period.

A small but brief window had opened in England during the Reformation for Hebrew studies, but the roadblocks to full public acceptance were great. England had long banished Jews from living in England1 during Lightfoot’s era. Later novels like Ivanhoe by Walter Scott, and Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens indicate negative perceptions concerning the Jewish race was strong. In light of these obstacles, Lightfoot began a very scholarly journey into the connection between Judaism and Christianity. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time doing a great job. He was a time anomaly. He should not have succeeded in this field of studies, but he did, and his work, though with some defects, has withstood the test of time.

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A New Kind of Tongues

How the pentecostal definition of tongues changed in the early 1900s

Hebrew and the First Language of Mankind

The Feast of the Rejoicing of the Law at the Synagogue in Leghorn, by Solomon Hart. Italy. 1850.
The Feast of the Rejoicing of the Law at the Synagogue in Leghorn, by Solomon Hart. Italy. 1850.

The history of Hebrew as the first language is a fascinating story that travels through the Patristic, Rabbinic, and Greek worlds. The sacredness of this language has cycled through over 2,000 years of Jewish and Christian literature.

The perception of the Hebrew language in Western literature, especially by the ecclesiastical writers, is an interesting theological exploration that is seldom talked about or written. Since it is the language of the Old Testament Bible, it obviously has some kind of reverent status among Judaism and Christianity. How this sacred language is viewed and applied varies. One of them forwards Hebrew as the first language of mankind, another promotes Hebrew as the language which God personally used, and there is an allusion by some to the use of Hebrew with the first Pentecostal tongues outburst recorded in the Book of Acts. It then begs the question, was Hebrew the first language of mankind?

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Nazianzus' Tongues of Pentecost Paradox

Nazianzus’ two choices on understanding the tongues of Pentecost, and how this debate continued for almost a millennium.