A few weeks after agreeing to write this review, I attended the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, where Ekaputra Tupamahu was a plenary speaker. After his fascinating address, in which he reframed the Acts narrative as one of migration rather than evangelism, I spoke with a friend who approvingly remarked, “he’s going to be causing Pentecostals problems for years.” If the content of his new book Contesting Languages: Heteroglossia and the Politics of Language in the Early Church is any indication, then the problems that Tupamahu creates will be good ones to have.
In this volume, Tupamahu argues for a total reevaluation of the traditional readings of Paul’s discourse on “speaking in tongues” in 1 Corinthians 14. According to his summary of the passage’s interpretive history, the virtual consensus before the 19th century was that this phenomenon was a miraculous speaking of foreign languages not previously learned. Tupamahu terms this the “missionary-expansionist” interpretation. Since the 19th century, in large part due to Johann Gottfried Herder’s nationalistic philosophy of language, speaking in tongues has come to be understood as ecstatic speech with no discernable linguistic content. He terms this the “romantic-nationalist” interpretation. In his adjudication of these perspectives, Tupamahu rejects both prior theories in favor of what he calls a “heteroglossic-immigrant” mode of reading, a perspective conditioned by the historical reality of 1st century Corinth’s linguistic plurality and Tupamahu’s experience as an Indonesian immigrant living in the United States whose first language is not the dominant language of his context.
Anchored in the philosophy of Mikhail Bakhtin, the chief implication of the heteroglossic-immigrant reading is that the “tongues” Paul admonishes in 1 Corinthians are not the supernatural phenomena of glossolalia or xenolalia but natural heteroglossia, the usage of multiple languages spoken among the Corinthian community. Paul, therefore, is advising that non-dominant languages spoken within the assembly be translated into Greek, the dominant language, and he justifies this process theologically. This is the substance of Paul’s differentiation between “tongues” and “prophecy,” the former being fruitful only for the individual and the latter being fruitful for the whole body by virtue of its intelligibility. Thus, Paul creates a homogenizing framework that curbs the linguistic plurality of the congregation. This interpretive move requires Tupamahu to insist that πνεύματι in 14:2 be translated as “with . . . breath.” Speech that cannot be commonly understood is as useless as breath for the upbuilding of the body, which requires comprehension. Paul subjugates tongues and their speakers to the hegemony of the dominant language and its speakers.
Paul, by disallowing untranslated minority languages from being spoken in the assembly, effectively forbids them. He goes so far as to call a speaker of such tongues “βάρβαρος” in verse 11, which most English translations generously render as “foreigner.” Tupamahu reinvests the term with the power of racial subjugation that it would have wielded in the 1st century. With this connection between silence and subjugation established, Tupamahu turns his attention to 14:34-5. Paul’s silencing of women is an analogous illustration of the subjugation of minority language speakers; their speech is feminized and thus devalued. Paul’s hegemonic prioritization of order, however, is not uniform in the New Testament. Tupamahu points to Acts’ Pentecost narrative and the long ending of Mark as post-Pauline texts that push back against his marginalizing rhetoric by promoting heteroglossia.
Contesting Languages advances a complicated argument that draws on reception history, sociology, philosophy, historical criticism, and grammar to make its points. Tupamahu’s erudition is impressive, and his Paul emerges as a cautionary tale for modern readers, an example of a man for whom zeal for the message overran all other concerns, resulting in violence and subjugation. On that count, for all its scholarly heft, the text is subtly pastoral, inviting readers to think more carefully about the exclusion of minority language speakers from the public life of faith in the Western world.
Tupamahu’s project is a success insofar as he has created a plausible and novel reading of 1 Corinthians 14 and scholars wishing to engage in legitimate interpretations of this pericope will have to engage his arguments. Nevertheless, the long-term viability of Tupamahu’s non-charismatic, linguistic interpretation of tongues in 1 Corinthians needs some additional proving. Particularly, this reading and its characterization of Paul might benefit from a more thorough comparison with the rest of the Corinthian correspondence and indeed the undisputed letters as a whole. That work might help lend additional plausibility to some of Tupamahu’s more audacious claims, such as his rendering of πνεύμα as “breath” in 14:2. Additionally, engagement with Ashon Crawley’s interdisciplinary atheological work on tongues as a “Blackpentecostal” practice might be mutually enriching, as Crawley provides an interpretation of glossolalia as ecstatic speech that is anti-colonialist and at odds with Tupamahu’s argument that ecstatic speech necessarily tends toward the romantic-nationalist paradigm. As far as the argument’s persuasive power, it fights a difficult battle by breaking with two paradigmatic interpretive traditions. It marshals considerable evidence to reframe the passage, but nevertheless lacks the “silver bullet” that might finally lay other interpretations to rest. Ultimately, it seems that Tupamahu hopes that the old way of reading 1 Corinthians 14 will die a death by a thousand cuts, but only time will tell if it bleeds out.
Michael Austin Kamenicky is an independent scholar and adjunct instructor at Lee University.
Michael Austin Kamenicky
Date Of Review:
May 31, 2023
