Episode #151 - Contesting Languages: Tongues vs. Multilingualism with Dr. Ekaputra Tupamahu

In this episode we discuss whether "tongues" in 1 Corinthians refer to ecstatic and unintelligible speech, or whether they refer to multilingualism. For this conversation we’re joined by Dr. Ekaputra Tupamahu, who is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Portland Seminary and George Fox University, and the author of the new book that we’re discussing on this episode, Contesting Languages: Heteroglossia and the Politics of Language in the Early Church (published by Oxford University Press). In our conversation, Dr. Tupamahu explains to us how he approaches this topic as someone with a Pentecostal background, and as an immigrant to the United States who formerly pastored a multilingual church in southern California. Essentially, Dr. Tupamahu argues that Paul’s rhetorical strategy for navigating a multilingual context is to defer to the majority language, unless a translation in the majority language can be provided to the whole community, which creates some difficulty as we approach 1 Corinthians in the light of multilingualism today. Team Members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Jennifer Guo, Rev. Daniel Parham, Dr. Logan Williams, and introducing for the first time, Dr. Sydney Tooth.

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