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I've made the same arguments you make here for many years on modern "tongues". But mine are poor by comparison to your thorough treatment.

As far as vmatt's notion that the evangelists of Pentecost spoke and were heard in the various languages, then it wouldn't really be the gift of "tongues" in the speaker but the gift of "ears" in the hearers. However, there are actual physical implications here.

Since sound is no more than air vibrations emitted by the speaker and perceived by the hearer, then for vmatt's notions to be true, it would seem that God would have to be simply creating a miracle in midair and altering sound waves in the air after leaving the speaker's mouth and before they reached the hearer's ears which makes nonsense of the idea that God's gift of tongues to evangelists was meaningful. Either that, or He would be creating a miracle in the hearer's ears or brains for them to perceive the sound waves in their own tongue which would again make nonsense of "tongues" having any role in Pentecost. And yet the "tongues" folk are essentially saying that their strongest scriptural justification for tongues and the event best described in scripture has nothing to do with the speaker's tongue at all!

I'm not an engineering type so maybe Woody would like to comment on this stuff. My own limited knowledge of sound transmission tells me that the idea that they spoke in their native tongue and were heard in other tongues is ludicrous. There are issues of secondary sound transmission in human speech and hearing that would apply as well.

And this is before vmatt solves the problem of the "foreign movie effect" of his explanation of Pentecost. As anyone who is familiar with foreign films has observed, no matter how closely they try to match words spoken in one language into another language, there are inevitable problems. This happens even between languages that are related like English and the Romance languages. So if an evangelist at Pentecost spoke a word in his own language that had five lip movements but the corresponding language in which he was heard had that word as three lip movements, then apparently the crowd at Pentecost were the first ones to ever see a really bad lip-syncing job! Like what we see in some cheap foreign film.

No matter how you slice it, the gift of tongues at Pentecost can only make sense if God's Spirit was working in the speaker, not in the hearers.

The question I've always had about Pentecost is how the crowd was grouped and how the evangelists were distributed among them. (I assume that there wasn't a podium at which each of the 120 spoke in turn as we might in modern times.) How was the crowd grouped? Was the crowd already mostly sorted into compatible language groups and 3-5 evangelists went to each and started preaching to the group each speaker in turn and with the amazed listeners then calling their friends of the same language but not immediately present to come hear the local hick speak in their language? This last one is how I've pictured it. And I think that what amazed the listeners was that they spoke those languages with current venacular, not a trace of foreign accent, not an indication that the fishermen were anything other but another guy from their own hometown. In short, their "tongues" were those of native speakers.

I wonder also if the conversion of the foreigners was God's only intent in the use of tongues at Pentecost. I also think that He used it to prove to those early key disciples His power and glory, to give them one of many experiences of His power through them to work His will, to make them fishers of men, the kind of courage required for most of them to ultimately lay down their own lives as martyrs in testimony of Christ and to build His church. If you were one of the 120, perhaps your faith was flagging a bit, perhaps you hadn't seen the Ascension personally, perhaps you were a relatively new convert when Jesus was crucified. What effect would it have to speak and have the words understood in a foreign language and then to see three thousand foreigners fall to their knees, claim Christ and be baptized in His name? I can only think of doc's comment on the Criswell thread the other day, where he talked about the passion Criswell had when he echoed Spurgeon: "THERE'S NO STOPPING THIS GOD!"

But we can't really know that from the Gospel's account. We won't know it in this life at least. But it was possibly even more amazing than the simple and direct Gospel account. It must have been, I think.

You know, sometimes it's strange how educational FR really is about what some groups actually believe. It's astonishing when you look at a description of some event in the Gospel and see how some group will explain it. This reminds me of the "crystal ball" that the Arminians think God used to create Bible prophecy but then threw away so that His foreknowledge would not hamper man's free will. It's almost like some weird fetishism. And like any fetishism, the explanations offered to justify it are essentially irrationl to anyone else.

He would be creating a miracle in the hearer's ears or brains for them to perceive the sound waves in their own tongue which would again make nonsense of "tongues" having any role in Pentecost. And yet the "tongues" folk are essentially saying that their strongest scriptural justification for tongues and the event best described in scripture has nothing to do with the speaker's tongue at all!

Yeah, I'd alluded to that ("tongues" vs. "ears"), but not so specifically.

...So if an evangelist at Pentecost spoke a word in his own language that had five lip movements but the corresponding language in which he was heard had that word as three lip movements, then apparently the crowd at Pentecost were the first ones to ever see a really bad lip-syncing job! Like what we see in some cheap foreign film.

(ROTFL)... hoo, boy. Funny stuff. And I agree.

But that said...

I think that what amazed the listeners was that they spoke those languages with current venacular, not a trace of foreign accent, not an indication that the fishermen were anything other but another guy from their own hometown. In short, their "tongues" were those of native speakers.

I agree with this statement even more strongly. As I said above, I don't endorse the idea of an "ears miracle" when Luke is plainly talking about a "tongues miracle", but to me, the main point is that Tongues is a Miracle of real communication, not unintelligible gibbering.

Once we have discounted the idea of sanctified gibbering as being simply UnScriptural, we're just arguing about the operational mechanics of the Miraculous Communication.

I wonder also if the conversion of the foreigners was God's only intent in the use of tongues at Pentecost. I also think that He used it to prove to those early key disciples His power and glory, to give them one of many experiences of His power through them to work His will, to make them fishers of men, the kind of courage required for most of them to ultimately lay down their own lives as martyrs in testimony of Christ and to build His church.

Actually, as long as it is recognized as just a sensible inference and not explicit Scripture, I agree with this as well. Matter of fact, while Tongues is used in Acts 2 primarily to advance the Gospel, it is used primarily to confirm the Gospel in Acts 10.

Anyway, nuff said.

So if an evangelist at Pentecost spoke a word in his own language that had five lip movements but the corresponding language in which he was heard had that word as three lip movements, then apparently the crowd at Pentecost were the first ones to ever see a really bad lip-syncing job! Like what we see in some cheap foreign film.

You make some reasonable points, particularly that about their native tongue. This is exactly what was happening hence the "in which we were born" caveat. The 120 were speaking in an angelic language, the crowd "heard" each in his own native tongue because they were unknowingly and by the power of the Holy Ghost interpreting the tongues in their native language. Your lip syncing comment is exactly correct hence the intoxicated references. To suppose that so great an impression was made simply by demonstrating language skills is IMHO totally erroneous an utterly without logic or reason. I would mark anyone who is that easily convinced by so illogical and devoid of common sense an argument.

No matter how you slice it, the gift of tongues at Pentecost can only make sense if God's Spirit was working in the speaker, not in the hearers.

Not so.