Texts in Conversation
The Apocalypse of Abraham describes heavenly beings praising God in language Abraham cannot understand. 1 Corinthians 13 echoes the idea of an angelic language but places it below love, making heavenly speech itself no guarantee of spiritual worth.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
1 Corinthians 13:1
New Testament
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away everything I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I receive no benefit. 4 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious. Love does not brag, it is not puffed up. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful.
Apocalypse of Abraham 15:7
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
2 And the Angel took me with the right hand and set me on the right wing of the pigeon, and set himself on the left wing of the turtle dove, which (birds) had neither been slaughtered nor divided. 3 And he bore me to the borders of the flaming fire 4 [and we ascended as with many winds to the heaven which was fixed upon the surface. 5 And I saw on the air] on the height, to which we ascended a strong light, which it was impossible to describe, 6 and behold! in this light a fiercely burning fire for people, many people of male appearance, 7 all (constantly) changing in aspect and form, running and being transformed, and worshipping and crying with a sound of words which I did not know.
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Notes and References
“... This reconstruction leads him to translate 15.7 as "They
[= the angels] were shouting in the language the words of which I did not
know," listing the Testament
of Job and 1 Corinthians, as conceptual
parallels.
1 9 3 Himmelfarb's translation (presented above in brackets) essen
tially agrees with the view of Kulik. ...”
Poirier, John C.
The Tongues of Angels: The Concept of Angelic Languages in Classical Jewish and Christian Texts
(p. 88) Mohr Siebeck, 2010
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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