UPDV Updated Bible Version

Ask About This or Go to a Verse

Speaking in Tongues: What Changes Without Acts?

🔗The Traditional View

If you grew up in church, especially a Pentecostal or charismatic one, you know how the story of tongues goes. It starts with a dramatic scene in Jerusalem:

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. – Acts 2:4 (ASV)

A gathered community in a house. Tongues of fire. Speaking in languages they had never learned. Devout Jews from across the Roman world — Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Egyptians, Romans — hearing Galilean speakers praising God in their native languages.

It happens again with Cornelius (Acts 10:44-46) and again with disciples of John in Ephesus (Acts 19:1-7). Some classical Pentecostal interpreters read Pentecost as a pattern for these later Spirit-reception scenes. In that reading, tongues is the audible sign that the Holy Spirit has arrived, the initial evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit.17

And in the longer ending of Mark, Jesus himself promises it: "they shall speak with new tongues" (Mark 16:17).

🔗Were All "Tongues" the Same?

Before examining what changes in the UPDV, there's a question most readers never encounter: were the tongues at Pentecost the same phenomenon Paul discusses in 1 Corinthians?

Some interpreters distinguish the two phenomena.

At Pentecost, the tongues were recognizable foreign languages: the crowd heard Galileans speaking in their native tongues. The Cambridge Greek Testament describes the miracle with marked simplicity of statement, recording that the disciples spoke in languages previously unknown to them.1 Calvin argues that "the disciples spake indeed with strange tongues; otherwise the miracle had not been wrought in them, but in the hearers."2

At Corinth, Paul describes speech that is unintelligible without interpretation: "He who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men, but to God; for no man understands" (1 Cor 14:2). Leon Morris distinguishes it from Pentecost, noting that "this gift differs from that in Acts 2, where everyone understood."3

The conventional terms are xenolalia (speaking known foreign languages, as at Pentecost) and glossolalia (unintelligible speech requiring interpretation, as at Corinth). Morris represents the distinction. Other interpreters see one gift in different contexts and caution that the New Testament does not maintain a clear-cut division.14 If the distinction holds, it matters enormously for what happens when Acts is removed.

🔗What the UPDV Changes

The UPDV Updated Bible Version excludes Acts entirely and ends Mark at 16:8.

Acts is excluded because the UPDV concludes that, although its outline is generally based on historical people and events, its narrative cannot be treated as reliable testimony. The case rests on computational stylometry separating Acts from the Core Gospel, the second-century chain behind the traditional authorship, conflicts with Paul's firsthand account, Acts' internal contradictions, its anonymous and omniscient "we" passages, and conventionally composed speeches and other Greco-Roman literary patterns. See the Acts article for more details.

Mark's longer ending (verses 9-20) is excluded because the earliest Greek manuscripts, Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, end Mark at 16:8. The ICC commentary identifies numerous words and phrases in verses 9-20 found nowhere else in Mark.4 The UBS Handbook concludes: "The conclusion is irresistible: the Longer Ending is not by Mark."5

Here is where Mark ends in the UPDV:

And they went out, and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them. And they said nothing to anyone; for they were afraid. – Mark 16:8 (UPDV)

🔗What Survives

Paul's entire discussion of tongues in 1 Corinthians 12-14 — the longest and most detailed teaching on tongues anywhere in the Bible — is fully intact. Every verse. Nothing missing.

Here's the picture a UPDV reader gets:

  • Tongues is a genuine gift of the Spirit, listed among many (1 Cor 12:7-11)
  • It's listed last: the UBS Handbook confirms this ordering "probably suggests an order of importance"6
  • Not everyone has it: "Do all speak with tongues?" expects "no" (1 Cor 12:30)
  • Prophecy is consistently ranked higher (1 Cor 14:1-5)
  • Two or three speakers maximum, take turns, must have an interpreter, or stay silent (1 Cor 14:27-28)
  • Uninterpreted tongues are a negative sign of judgment for unbelievers (1 Cor 14:21-23)16
  • But don't forbid it (1 Cor 14:39)

But the picture is not only restrictive. "I thank God, I speak with tongues more than all of you" (1 Cor 14:18), and Paul wishes all believers had the gift (1 Cor 14:5). He describes the speaker as addressing God: "he who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men, but to God; for no man understands; but in the spirit he speaks mysteries" (1 Cor 14:2). Morris calls this "a good gift" and notes that Paul "consistently refuses to speak disparagingly" of it.7 Commentators differ over Paul's tone in verse 4: Morris and Fee read self-edification as a genuine private benefit, while Conzelmann hears criticism of Corinthian priorities.15

What Paul restricts is public worship. "In the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I might instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue" (1 Cor 14:19). The two-or-three rule, the requirement for interpretation, the command to stay silent without an interpreter: all of these apply to the assembled church. When Paul says "let him speak to himself, and to God" (1 Cor 14:28), the Pulpit Commentary notes that the speaker "may still commune silently with himself and with God."8

This is not a man trying to stamp out tongues. Paul thanks God for the gift, but insists that in public worship, intelligibility and edification take priority.

In 1 Corinthians 14:21, Paul quotes Isaiah 28:11-12: "By men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers I will speak to this people." Isaiah's foreign speech is a judgment on people who refused intelligible instruction. Paul uses it to warn that uninterpreted tongues leave outsiders hearing madness rather than revelation.16

Paul also mentions "the tongues of men and of angels" in 1 Corinthians 13:1, a verse some Charismatic scholars read as evidence for a heavenly prayer language. Morris notes that Paul "begins with some hypothetical possibilities" to illustrate the supremacy of love, not to establish a doctrine of angelic speech.9

One other surviving text deserves brief mention. In Romans 8:26, Paul writes that "the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can't be uttered." Some scholars connect these groanings to the phenomenon of tongues, or at least to non-rational Spirit-led prayer, giving Charismatic theology a possible anchor for private prayer language outside 1 Corinthians.10 Others reject the connection, arguing that the groanings in Romans 8 are the Spirit's own intercession, not audible human speech.11

🔗How the Understanding Shifts

The doctrine of tongues isn't removed in the UPDV. But the shape of the understanding changes.

The only narrative record of intelligible tongues disappears. If the scholarly distinction holds — Pentecost as known languages, Corinth as unintelligible utterance — then removing Acts removes the only biblical account of tongues as recognizable human speech. What survives is exclusively Paul's description of the form that "no man understands." This doesn't mean Paul's text rules out intelligible tongues, he mentions "tongues of men" alongside "tongues of angels" (1 Cor 13:1), but there is no surviving narrative showing it happened, and the textual support for it from Paul alone is not strong.

The origin story and the pattern disappear. No Pentecost. No tongues of fire. No gathered community speaking languages they had never learned. No repetition at Cornelius and Ephesus that classical Pentecostal theology relies upon to establish tongues as the normative sign of the Spirit's arrival.

Jesus's promise disappears. Mark 16:17 is the only place Jesus directly connects belief with tongues-speaking. Without the longer ending, there is no command or promise from Jesus linking tongues to the believer's experience.

Paul's teaching, both affirming and regulating, becomes the entire picture. Without the Acts backdrop, a reader encounters tongues for the first time in 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul is addressing a church that's overemphasizing it in public worship. But that same reader also finds Paul thanking God for the gift, wishing all believers shared it, and allowing speech to oneself and God when no interpreter is present. The UBS Handbook frames the section as Paul addressing "the Corinthians' tendency to put too high a value on the more exotic gifts of the Spirit, especially speaking with tongues"12, but the Handbook also notes that Paul "would like all believers to speak in tongues."13

The classical Pentecostal initial-evidence doctrine, formulated at the beginning of the twentieth century, depends heavily on Acts 2, 10, and 19.17 Without those accounts, the framework shifts from "tongues is the evidence that the Spirit has arrived" to "tongues is one of several gifts the Spirit distributes as he wills, and not the most important one."

This does not make the classical Pentecostal reading impossible from the UPDV text. But it asks whether a reader encountering these texts without Acts would construct the twentieth-century initial-evidence framework from Paul's letters alone.

This is part of a series examining how the UPDV's textual decisions affect the understanding of specific doctrines.

Data source: Thompson Chain Reference topic analysis cross-referenced against UPDV excluded passages. Of 7 Thompson Chain references for "Tongues," 4 (57%) are in excluded passages.

🔗Notes

1 Lumby, J. Rawson. The Acts of the Apostles. Cambridge Greek Testament. On Acts 2:4.

2 Calvin, John. Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles. Trans. Henry Beveridge. On Acts 2:4.

3 Morris, Leon. 1 Corinthians: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. On 1 Corinthians 14:2.

4 Gould, Ezra P. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Mark. International Critical Commentary. On Mark 16:9-20.

5 Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. UBS Handbook Series. On Mark 16:9-20.

6 Ellingworth, Paul and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians. UBS Handbook Series. On 1 Corinthians 12:28.

7 Morris, Leon. 1 Corinthians. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. On 1 Corinthians 14:5, 14:18.

8 Spence, H. D. M., ed. 1 Corinthians. The Pulpit Commentary. On 1 Corinthians 14:28.

9 Morris, 1 Corinthians. On 1 Corinthians 13:1.

10 Theissen, Gerd. Cited in Thiselton, Anthony C. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. NIGTC. On 1 Corinthians 14.

11 C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, ICC, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975), on Romans 8:26.

12 Ellingworth and Hatton, Handbook on 1 Corinthians. On 1 Corinthians 14:1-25 (introductory section).

13 Ellingworth and Hatton, Handbook on 1 Corinthians. On 1 Corinthians 14:5.

14 New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, s.v. "The Gift of Tongues/Languages in the NT"; Fr. Eugen J. Pentiuc, "'Retranslating' the Pentecost," in The Book of Acts: Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical Readings, ed. Charles Raith II, section "Heterolalia/Xenolalia versus Glossolalia."

15 Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT, on 1 Corinthians 14:1–5; Hans Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, Hermeneia, on 1 Corinthians 14:1–5.

16 New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, s.v. "The Gift of Tongues/Languages in the NT"; Fee, First Corinthians, on 1 Corinthians 14:20–25.

17 Robert Owens, "The Azusa Street Revival: The Pentecostal Movement Begins in America," in The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901–2001, ed. Vinson Synan, esp. "Charles Fox Parham"; Phillip H. Wiebe, "The Pentecostal Initial Evidence Doctrine," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 27 (1984).