Did Peter Preach in Tongues at Pentecost?

[KMK]

Calvin on Acts 2:4...

I suppose that it doth manifestly appear hereby that the apostles had the variety and understanding of tongues given them, that they might speak unto the Greeks in Greek, unto the Italians in the Italian tongue, 82 and that they might have true communication (and conference) with their hearers. Notwithstanding, I leave it indifference whether there was any second miracle wrought or no, so that the Egyptians and Elamites did understand Peter speaking in the Chaldean tongue, as if he did utter divers voices. For there be some conjectures which persuade me thus to think, and yet not so firm but that they may be refuted. For it may be that they spoke with divers tongues, as they light upon this man or that, and as occasion was offered, and as their languages were diverse. Therefore, it was a manifest miracle, when they saw them ready to speak divers languages. As touching Peter’s sermon, it might be understood of the greater part of men wheresoever they were born; for it is to be thought that many of those which came to Jerusalem were skillful in the Chaldean tongue. Again, it shall be nothing inconvenient if we say that he spoke also in other tongues. Although I will not much stand about this matter; so that this be out of doubt, that the apostles changed their speech.

Some seem to be fully convinced that Peter was preaching in tongues. Is that a good and necessary inference?

 

[timmopussycat]

Peter was a Galilean businessman. As such, Aramaic would have been his mother tongue and he would have known at least some Greek. He must have known some Hebrew if only to reply to the various Pharisaic charges of the early chapters of Acts. Yet while it may be that Peter preached in more than one language to the crowds on Pentecost, it is impossible to say with certainty a) whether he did so or b) whether his preaching in other languages used languages he did not naturally learn.

 

[heymike]

There shouldn't be a question of whether the disciples spoke miraculously in other languages, but Peter's sermon that followed seems to be spoken in a common tongue.

"'And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.' And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, 'What does this mean?' But others mocking said, 'They are filled with new wine.' But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them." Acts 2:8-14

 

[kvanlaan]

As I have always understood it, he preached in his native tongue and was heard in several different languages. That is miraculous. But he was not preaching gibberish and having an acolyte 'translate' it into Aramaic and other tongues.

 

[Zach]

As I have always understood it, he preached in his native tongue and was heard in several different languages. That is miraculous. But he was not preaching gibberish and having an acolyte 'translate' it into Aramaic and other tongues.

This is how I have always interpreted it too. I don't see how people read it that Peter was speaking in what modern Pentecostals would call tongues.