The social function of glossolalia in acts with special attention to the Ephesian disciples pericope (Acts 18:24-19:7)

Abstract

This study analyses the social function of glossolalia in the narrative world of the book of Acts. In so doing, it addresses the lack of scholarship related to treating glossolalic references from social scientific perspectives. Particularly noted is the absence in the literature of adequate treatments of the Ephesian disciples pericope in Acts 18:24–19:7, which this study seeks to correct. Through application of Berger and Luckmann’s sociology of knowledge models, this study argues that reading Luke-Acts as the author’s legitimation of the Jesus movement’s social world is a valid, even preferred reading of the literature. Tracing the development of Luke’s legitimation conceptual machinery reveals the social conflict background that to a large degree motivated its writing and organized its content. The purity-related conflicts between circumcision loyalists and Jesus followers from the Gentile world that dominate the second half of Acts is of particular interest to this research. This study demonstrates how Luke uses glossolalia as a divinely initiated marker of Gentile purity status to legitimate new social boundaries that supersede circumcision. These new social boundaries, marked by glossolalia, represent an integral component of the Jesus movement’s revised purity map, relative to temple-centred Yahwism. The legitimation reading, including Luke’s construction and validation of the Jesus group’s symbolic universe and its conclusions regarding the social function of glossolalia, is applied to the Ephesian disciples pericope. This study argues that the events narrated in this passage represent a continuing social conflict between circumcision loyalists and Gentile converts. Luke narrates the events in Acts 18:24–19:7 in order to correct a deviant baptism teaching (John’s baptism) that was propagated with the intent, based on purity concerns and prejudice, to marginalize Gentiles from full social integration into the Jesus community. Demonstrating that glossolalia functions as a social boundary marker that supersedes circumcision and that this best informs our interpretation of the Ephesian disciples pericope fully integrates this narrative event into Luke’s literary programme.