The Ultimate Evidence

Rethinking the Evidence Issues for Spirit-baptism

Newman

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781498274241
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

It is quite an assertion to claim that one is filled with the Spirit of God. What does a person offer as proof that this is actually true? Pentecostals at the turn of the twentieth century read the Bible, debated the issue, and then proposed an evidence they thought the scriptures indicated was the primary verification of Spirit-baptism. It was determined that the evidence to prove one had been baptized with the Holy Spirit was that the person had spoken in an unknown language as prompted by the Holy Spirit. The primary evidence of Spirit-baptism, it was concluded, was the expression of a charism. It was charismatic.In The Ultimate Evidence, Larry Newman argues that the initial evidence doctrine, as it stands, is inadequate and needs to be revisited and adjusted. Without discrediting or devaluing speaking in tongues, Newman points the reader to the ultimate evidence of Spirit-baptism: the more excellent way. Gathering from historical, cultural, and biblical sources, Dr. Newman argues that the biblical evidential paradigm is ethical and issues forth from the agape of the Cross. It is the ethical dimension of the Christian life that is primary. In 1 Cor 13:1 Paul wrote: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

Part One

Antecedents of Glossolalia

1

Glossolalia in the Hellenistic Religions

This writer was baptized with the Holy Spirit at the age of thirteen and spoke in tongues, and I still speak in tongues. It is my desire to affirm here my personal belief in the validity and value of speaking in tongues. This spiritual gift supplies the believer with a medium of communication with God that no other charism of the Spirit provides. With the Apostle Paul, I too desire that all speak in tongues (1 Cor 14:5). Glossolalia, manifested by the Holy Spirit, is a gift of God that must not be denigrated or suppressed.

However, having made that affirmation, I wish to state that it is imperative that we who believe in this phenomenon and have experienced it in our day deal forthrightly with the facts of history. It may come as a surprise for some to discover that the glossolalic phenomenon has a pre-Pentecost history. The experience of the emerging church on the day of Pentecost was not the introduction of speaking in tongues into the realm of human experience.

During the research phase of this project I had occasion to review many books written on the subject of glossolalia. Some were written by Pentecostals, others by Charismatics, and some by non-Pentecostals. Very few of these reviewed works mentioned the glossolalic phenomena associated with the Hellenistic religions of the ancient Greco/Roman period.1

Pre-Pentecost Glossolalia

There is ample material available to deal with the basic historical facts of the Hellenistic religions. The fact that some were secret orders does abridge our knowledge to a great degree. However, thanks to ancient authors such as Plato, Homer, and many others (and to the modern scholars who have made these ancient writers accessible), we do have some valid information that archaeological discoveries have affirmed to be reliable. Since my concern here is with the historical references to glossolalia, I will not burden the reader with unnecessary historical data that does not bear upon the matter before us.

Joseph Fontenrose informs us that the Delphic Oracle, associated with the religion of Apollo, was well known for its emphasis on glossolalic phenomena2 and was active for more than one thousand years. Parke and Wormell confirm Fontenrose when they observe, “The foundation of Delphi and its oracle took place before the times of recorded history.”3 Frederick Conybeare has informed us: the gift of tongues and of their interpretation was not peculiar to the Christian church but was a repetition in it of a phenomenon common in ancient religions. The very phrase glossais lalein, “to speak with tongues,” was not invented by the New Testament writers but borrowed from ordinary speech.4 Frederick Poulsen, in his discussion of the Delphic Oracle comments:

Before the inspiration there were great preparations; the priestess fasted, bathed in Castalia, chewed laurel-leaves or inhaled the vapors of burnt laurel and myrrh. For her sooth-saying was “artless, unlearned,” not like augury, or the investigation of entrails, an art and science practiced for generations. It was pure possession by the god, like that of Cassandra in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus or of the disciples in the Acts of the Apostles.5

While we Christians hold that there is a vast difference between the Delphic Oracle and the apostolic experience, it seems apparent that the oracles not only spoke in tongues but that their utterances were also interpreted, much like the practice recorded in the New Testament scriptures. The oracle was a woman who was referred to as the Pythia. According to Greek thought it was through her that the god spoke to the people. She was the direct connection to the god; the spirit of the god possessed her on these occasions. It was while she was in the state of ecstasy or enthusiasm that the god uttered his glossolalic communication. (Ecstasy or enthusiasm, as used in these religions, meant that state of religious experience where the person was possessed by the god.) Following this message in tongues, “The Pythia’s (priestess) utterance was interpreted by the prophets, i.e. the priests of Apollo.”6

W. D. Davies apprises us that the pneumatikos in the Hellenistic religions is one who has had the vision of God that “gives an intimate personal insight into ultimate reality.” This person possessed the highly prized knosis and was contrasted with the natural man, who did not possess knosis—the psychikos.7

The cult of Dionysus, also known for ecstatic phenomena, was another element of the Hellenistic religions. The mystery rites of this cult go back to the pre-Hellenic period. The cult, though an entity in itself, was loosely related to the religion of Apollo. According to Greek mythology, Zeus was the greatest of the Olympian gods. Apollo was the son of Zeus, and Dionysus was Apollo’s younger brother. Of these gods, Dionysus was considered to be the mystic, ecstatic god. Ecstasy was an expected phenomena of this cult.8 The priestess of Dionysus carried the title Thyia, which means, the ecstatically raging. This ecstasy included vocal expressions not understood by onlookers

Marcus Bach informs us that it was not just the priestess who spoke in tongues in this cult but that it appeared to be a common event during the festivals of the Eleusinian and Dionysian mysteries:

When the exuberance of the worshipers reached rapturous heights, the incredible, sometimes musical utterances, began. They were like sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. The speakers became the center of attraction. Initiates listened enthralled and often they, too, became overpowered and burst into a babble of sounds. These Greek festivals flourished during the Golden Age, the prehistoric period ruled over by Cromus, god of the harvest. In these extravaganzas, held in spring and fall at planting and reaping time, devotees not only spoke in tongues but were also baptized in the rivers.9

Bach further observes that the glossolalic sounds were frequently made by the tongue alone. There was no voice, no speech, simply tongue talk—nonverbal sounds made with the tongue.

John McClintock and James Strong attest that the priestesses of these Hellenistic religions were as if possessed by a power they could not resist. “The wild unearthly sounds (nec mortale sonans), often hardly coherent, burst from their lips. It remained for the interpreter to collect the scattered utterances and give them meaning.”10

The Mysteries at Corinth

There is strong support for the idea that the church at Corinth was composed of believers who had come to Christ predominantly from the Hellenistic religions. H. Wayne House cites three possible sources for this: the Cybele-Attis cult, the Dionysian cult, and the religion of Apollo. Of these possibilities the Dionysian cult and the religion of Apollo appear to be the probable sources.

With the ecstacism of Dionysianism and the emphasis on tongues-speaking and oracles in the religion of Apollo, it is not surprising that some of the Corinthians carried these pagan ideas into the church at Corinth, especially the practice of glossolalia for which both of these religions are known (though the Dionysian cult did not include interpretation of the glossolalia as did that of Apollo).11

House points to ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Abbreviations
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part One: Antecedents of Glossolalia
• Part Two: The Arguments of Three Traditions
• Part Three: The Normative Argument
• Part Four: The Ultimate Evidence
• Appendix
• Bibliography