Sumerian Language, Tower of Babel, and Speaking in Tongues

[PropheticZero]

Sumerian Language, Tower of Babel, and Speaking in Tongues:

I recently read a science-fiction book that made the connection between the fall of the Sumerian language and the Tower of Babel language confusion. The writer made the connection between this one-world language and the tongues spoken in the new testament. People seem to estimate this fall to around 3000 BC. From what I’ve read on the Sumerian culture the lived on a flood plain in between Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The scripture mentions that the people who where gathered and then had their language confused found a plain in the land of Shinar and they dwelt there.

I have also read that the Sumerian language is unlike any other language as far as its structure and rules. Do you think Sumerian was the language that these people all spoke and understood? Do you think there is anything to the idea that this language is the same thing that was spoken when Jesus’s followers spoke in tongues? Or do you believe that speaking in tongues is an entirely spiritual (God given gift) process.

Thanks for any thoughts

 

[Captain_Jack_Sparrow]

Personally I think speaking in tongues is either delusion or lying.

I was married into a family where some members spoke in tongues and my brother-in-law left the Pentecostal church and afterwards admitted he made it up so as to fit in.

 

[PropheticZero]

When I say speaking in tongues I'm referring to the actual biblical accounts of Jesus's followers speaking to a group of people and each group of people hearing the message in their own language.

Not so much, some denominations present day interpertation of the spiritual gift.

If anything I'm more willing to believe that Sumerian might be the language spoken by Adam up through Noah and until the Tower of Babel language confusion. The fact that the language is different than anything else makes me thing of it as a possibility.

However I tend more to believe that the speaking of tongues of Jesus's followers was a spiritual gift. I'd have to read the passages again, but one person I brought the idea up to said that they say that the spoke their own languages and the others heard the message in their own languages.

Don't know how you'd separate hearing some "Universal God Given Language" and 'perceiving' it as English, from simply hearing a message in English.

I guess I really wonder if Sumerian (being so different) might work differently in our heads than our languages. Making it possible for universal understanding somehow.

 

[Philip]

I have also read that the Sumerian language is unlike any other language as far as its structure and rules.

Where did you read this? I believe Sumerian is part of the Ural-Altaic family. I could be wrong.

 

[Bushido216]

When I say speaking in tongues I'm referring to the actual biblical accounts of Jesus's followers speaking to a group of people and each group of people hearing the message in their own language.

You'd probably need a deity to do that sort of thing. Any other experiment with an actual person speaking many languages at once would need LOTS of controls, including tape recorders and stuff like that, and random test individuals who could only understand one language.