Ekaputra Tupamahu - Böcker

How did the Apostle Paul navigate the language differences in Corinth? In Contesting Languages: Heteroglossia and the Politics of Language in the Early Church, Ekaputra Tupamahu investigates Corinthian tongue-speech as a site of political struggle. Tupamahu demonstrates that conceptualizing speaking in tongues as ecstatic, unintelligible expressions is an interpretive invention of German romantic-nationalist scholarship. Instead, drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of language, Tupamahu finds two forces of language at work in the New Testament: a centripetalizing force of monolingualism, which attempts to force heterogeneous languages into a singular linguistic form, and a countervailing centrifugal force that diverse languages unleash. The city of Corinth in the Roman period was a multilingual city-a sociolinguistic context that Tupamahu argues should be taken seriously when reading Paul's directives concerning Corinthians "speaking in tongues". Grounding his reading of the texts in the experiences of immigrants who speak minority languages, Tupamahu reads Paul's prohibition against the use of tongues in public gathering as a form of cultural domination. This book offers a competing social imagination, in which tongues as a heteroglossic phenomenon promises a radically hospitable space and a new socio-linguistic vision marked by unending difference.

1 Corinthians: A Community in Dissent approaches Paul’s letter not simply as a monologue from an authoritative apostle but as part of an ongoing, dynamic conversation within a diverse and complex early Christian community. Rather than assuming that Paul’s voice is the only word, this study pays close attention to the voices of the Corinthians, which often emerge through rhetorical clues, reported speech, and implied dialogue. By shifting the focus toward the community’s concerns and responses, the book encourages readers to see 1 Corinthians as a text shaped by negotiation, disagreement, and mutual engagement.Ekaputra Tupamahu offers a reading that resists portraying the Corinthians as passive recipients of correction or moral failure. Instead, he explores how their resistance and questions reflect meaningful engagement with issues of authority, identity, and communal life in the Roman imperial world. Without romanticizing either Paul or the Corinthians, the book opens space to consider the complexities of early Christian formation within settings of cultural hybridity and social inequality. In doing so, A Community in Dissent invites readers, especially students and scholars of the New Testament, to engage 1 Corinthians with historical sensitivity and interpretive humility.