Book Review: Speaking in Tongues: A Critical Historical Examination by Philip Blosser

Blosser, Philip E., and Charles A. Sullivan. Speaking in Tongues: A Critical Historical Examination: Volume 1: The Modern Redefinition of Tongues. With Dale M. Coulter and James Likoudis. Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2022.

Framing the thesis

Blosser’s central claim is concise: before the nineteenth century, the church’s settled understanding of “tongues” was xenolalia; the contemporary equation of tongues with private, non‑cognitive vocalisation is historically unprecedented. This is not simply a semantic debate. If true, the claim reframes how we read Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 12–14 and how we tell the story of modern Pentecostalism and its global legacy.

The volume’s scope is likewise clear. This is Volume 1: an historical excavation of the modern redefinition. The constructive theological implications are left largely implicit; the agenda here is evidential and historiographical—what was believed, when, and why it changed.

How the argument is structured

Blosser’s case unfolds in four arcs, with a concluding alternative hypothesis for Corinth:

1. Central dichotomy: xenolalia vs glossolalia. He sets two definitions side‑by‑side. The traditional view: tongues are intelligible, unlearned human languages; given primarily for communication, evangelism, and as a sign to unbelievers (as at Pentecost). The modern view: tongues are unintelligible, non‑linguistic utterances—“a language of the Spirit” for prayer and praise; edifying to the speaker and to the congregation only when a separate gift of interpretation is present.
2. Contemporary culture of glossolalia. He surveys the current charismatic scene—its description of tongues as a “private language,” the linguistic verdicts of researchers like William J. Samarin (“a façade of language”) and psychological work by John P. Kildahl (learned behaviour correlated with suggestibility), and the revivalist theatre of the 1990s Toronto Blessing, as well as the Catholic Charismatic Renewal’s practical normalisation of tongues.
3. Trajectories that produced the redefinition. He narrates a sequence: the Edward Irving revivals of the 1830s (initial claims of xenolalia collapsing into unintelligible utterances, subsequently reinterpreted); the Pentecostal missionary crisis (1906–08) when missionaries discovered their “gift” did not enable them to preach in foreign languages and definitions quietly shifted; and the nineteenth‑century invention of “glossolalia” by German higher critics, who drew analogies to Delphic oracles and Montanists.
4. Reformation‑era preconditions. Two developments tilled the soil for the modern reading: the interpolation of “unknown” into English translations of 1 Cor 14 (a polemical device against Latin liturgy later repurposed to mean a heavenly language), and cessationism, whose insistence that miraculous xenolalia had ceased paradoxically invited reclassification of any modern phenomenon as something different.

Alternative proposal (Corinth). Blosser contends that the Corinthians’ problem was not mystical gibberish but a liturgical language barrier: prayers and readings in Hebrew/Aramaic (as sacred language) used before a mixed congregation of Greek‑speaking Jews and Gentiles, which demanded a designated interpreter (meturgeman) to render the sense for the laity. He cites later Fathers—Epiphanius, Ambrosiaster, Chrysostom—as evidence that such practices and debates about which Greek dialect to use were known in the church.

Evidence and case studies

The missionary crisis and its aftershocks

The Azusa Street generation initially equated Spirit‑baptism tongues with missionary xenolalia. Figures like Charles Parham and William J. Seymour taught that foreign study would be unnecessary for Spirit‑filled missionaries. The collision with reality was sharp. Alfred and Lillian Garr sailed to India and China expecting to preach in Bengali and other tongues; they, like many others, soon found themselves unable to communicate. The Bible Missionary Society’s S. C. Todd recorded that “in no single instance” did the claimed xenolalia prove functional abroad. The movement’s rhetoric shifted: tongues became “heavenly language,” “singing in tongues,” and a Corinthian‑style prayer language addressed to God, not men.

Irving’s pivot and the language of Corinth

Decades earlier, Edward Irving’s London revivals had provided an antecedent. Initial ecstasies were declared foreign languages, but public demonstrations failed to convince sceptics (Thomas Carlyle famously mocked the “Lah lall lall”). Irving responded with a dual theory: apostolic xenolalia belonged to Pentecost and mission; the modern phenomenon was the unintelligible tongue of 1 Corinthians—spiritual communion “not by means of intelligence, but by means of the Holy Ghost.”

The nineteenth‑century “glossolalia” construct

Blosser traces the intellectual scaffolding for a non‑xenolalic reading to nineteenth‑century German Higher Criticism (Neander, Baur, Bleek). Seeking naturalistic explanation, these scholars bypassed eighteen centuries of Christian commentary and compared biblical tongues with Delphic oracles and Montanist prophecy. On Blosser’s reading, both analogies fail: classical sources describe Delphic utterances as intelligible hexameter, and patristic witnesses to Montanism (e.g., Eusebius) neither use glōssa nor furnish evidence of glossolalia. The English term “glossolalia” itself enters via F. W. Farrar (1879), then spreads through anglophone theology.

“Unknown tongues” and cessationist polemics

Two Reformation‑era moves fed later developments. First, beginning with Tyndale (1534), English translators inserted “unknown” before “tongue(s)” in 1 Cor 14—originally a polemical swipe at Latin liturgy’s lack of edification for the laity. In the twentieth century that gloss was repurposed to support a heavenly‑language reading. Second, cessationism (especially in Puritan and Calvinist streams) argued that miraculous signs ceased with the apostles. Paradoxically, by insisting that genuine tongues were xenolalia and had ceased, cessationism created a conceptual niche in which any modern phenomenon labelled “tongues” had to be something else, thereby reinforcing the glossolalia category.

Contemporary culture and the experience economy

Blosser surveys modern charismatic practice to show how glossolalia is described, learned, and expected. For many practitioners it functions as a private language for prayer and praise; linguistic analysis (Samarin) suggests it is a language‑like patterning of known syllables; psychological research (Kildahl) correlates the behaviour with suggestibility and group dynamics in seasons of personal crisis; and recent revival movements (for example, the Toronto Blessing) foreground dramatic bodily manifestations and the instruction to passively “receive,” while the Catholic Charismatic Renewal has in practice normalised tongues as a routine consequence of “baptism in the Spirit.”

The Corinthian alternative revisited

Blosser’s alternative hypothesis reframes 1 Cor 14 as a liturgical and linguistic dispute. The earliest assemblies retained Jewish patterns—Scripture and prayer in a sacred tongue (Hebrew/Aramaic)—before congregations populated by Hellenised Jews and Greek converts across multiple dialects. Paul’s insistence on interpretation (diermēneutēs) and on intelligibility for the layperson who needs to know when to answer “Amen” fits comfortably within known Jewish practice since Ezra, with its designated meturgeman who renders the sense into the vernacular. Later patristic witnesses corroborate the basic shape of such practice and even debate which Greek dialect is fitting for public rendering.

Method and use of sources

This volume is primarily documentary. Blosser works with classical texts (Herodotus, Plato, Plutarch), patristic sources (Epiphanius, Eusebius, Ambrosiaster, Chrysostom), Reformation translation history (Tyndale onward), and early Pentecostal reportage and correspondence (for example, S. C. Todd’s survey). He also sifts modern linguistics (Samarin) and psychology (Kildahl) as descriptive frameworks for contemporary practice. The result is an evidential thread that runs from antiquity to the present, highlighting how and why the meaning of “tongues” migrated.

Assessment

Major strengths

• Thesis clarity and macro‑narrative. The book states a falsifiable claim and prosecutes it with a clear evidential arc. The sequence—Irving → missionary crisis → higher‑critical “glossolalia” → Reformation preconditions—offers a coherent genealogy of the modern view.
• Documentary traction. The discussion is anchored in primary sources, and the use of well‑chosen case studies (for example, the Garrs; Todd’s report) gives the argument bite.
• Conceptual hygiene. The xenolalia/glossolalia dichotomy, together with careful definition of terms and functions (sign to unbelievers vs private prayer), keeps live questions distinct rather than blurred together.
• Liturgical hypothesis. The Corinthian‑as‑sacred‑language proposal is historically textured, drawing on Jewish practice and patristic commentary to defuse the assumption that unintelligibility must mean non‑human language.

Pressure points and open questions

• Strength of the “unanimous tradition” claim. The book asserts a near‑unanimous pre‑modern xenolalic consensus. Many will ask for a fuller census of early and medieval sources and for engagement with specialists who read 1 Cor 14 differently.
• Alternative exegesis of Corinth. Significant scholarship defends a non‑xenolalic reading of Corinthian tongues (for example, as Spirit‑prompted utterance not corresponding to any ordinary human language), and some argue Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians may not be describing identical phenomena. A future volume would benefit from direct, granular engagement here.
• Sociolinguistics and ritual studies. The descriptive use of Samarin and Kildahl is helpful, but broader work in the sociolinguistics of religion and ritual performance could nuance the account of why and how glossolalia persists and how communities police its meaning.
• Global Pentecostalism. The missionary crisis narrative is compelling in early Anglo‑American contexts; a fuller global mapping (Latin America, Africa, Asia) would test whether the same genealogy holds everywhere, given local histories and languages.
• Rhetorical cautions. Anecdotal appeals to exorcists or lists of extreme manifestations (for example, animal noises) may persuade some readers but risk being dismissed as polemical by others. The core historical argument is strong enough to stand without them; a cooler register would widen the book’s audience among scholars.

Why this matters for the debate

If Blosser is right, two significant implications follow.

1. Historical catechesis. The widespread assumption that “tongues = heavenly language” is not a neutral default but a recent construct. Recalibrating expectations will require patient historical teaching in churches, seminaries, and movements shaped by a very different story.
2. Exegetical re‑evaluation. The Corinthian material may be less about private ecstasies than about public intelligibility and the reform of inherited liturgical habits. That foregrounds translation, catechesis, and congregational understanding in Paul’s argument. It also invites fresh work on how Acts and 1 Corinthians relate—both where they align and where they differ.

Verdict

Speaking in Tongues: A Critical Historical Examination (Vol. 1) is a bracing, clarity‑loving contribution to a heated debate. Even readers deeply committed to a glossolalic reading should reckon with the documentation and the genealogy on offer here. The book rightly demands attention and will, for some, trigger a thorough re‑evaluation of the gift.