that, in Paul’s opinion, the congregation in fact attached too much importance
to this practice. In a great part of his treatment of the subject, he tries to
deprive glossolalia of its central importance by arguing (1) that the presence of
the Holy Spirit can be manifested in a range of other“gifts,”all of which are
equally important (especially in chapter 12); and (2) that there are even greater
gifts than speaking in tongues (especially love, in chapter 13). Other details of
Paul’s advice to the Corinthians can be seen as parts of his attempt to change
the nature of religious experience in the congregation. For example, only two
or three individuals are allowed to speak in tongues at one occasion, and only
one after another (14:26–32). In this way he probably hopes to eliminate the
driving force of synchrony in collective rituals (see section 5.3). Similar rules
apply to prophecy. Anyone who claims to be a prophet or to have spiritual
powers, Paul writes,“must acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a
command of the Lord”(14:37).
Before concluding our discussion of the Corinthian situation, let us consider
how the application of the Lobes Theory helped us move beyond our previous
analysis of the text in terms of Whitehouse’s Modes Theory (section 5.4).
(1) First, according to the Modes Theory, the doctrinal mode leads to a tedium
effect, which gives rise to imagistic practices. There is no indication, however,
that imagistic religious practices (such as glossolalia) in the Corinthians
emerged as a response to a doctrinal religion. Members of the community
had a background in either Jewish or Greco-Roman religious practices, pos-
sibly including outright arousing rituals in mystery cults. According to the
Lobes Theory, resonant practices could arise from individual preferences,
which, in turn, shaped the institutional and theological aspects of the move-
ments. (2) Second, how frequently rituals are repeated is of central importance
for the Modes Theory. In Corinth, whereas many rituals were certainly
emotionally laden, there is no reason to think that these rituals (such as
glossolalia, prophecy, or healings) would have been performed infrequently.
We can note that contemporary charismatic movements also practice such
rituals as a routine. The Lobes Theory does not require that rituals be
performed more or less frequently in either type of movements. The focus
on differences in experience (and the consequences of a certain type of
experience) rather than the frequency of performance makes more sense in
interpreting the Corinthian correspondence. (3) Third, the Modes Theory
heavily relies on the effect of emotions on the storage of memories in rituals
of the imagistic and doctrinal modes, respectively. We have seen above in
section 5.4, however, that highly arousing and stressful rituals fail to generate
the effects predicted by the Modes Theory. The Lobes Theory, in contrast,
does not make predictions about the storage of memories in the two types
of religious movements. The difference between the theological views in the
Corinthian community, on the one hand, and Paul’s theology, on the other hand,
canbeaddressedintermsofdivergentChristological and Penumatological
154 Cognitive Science and the New Testament