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→Definitions of Christian fundamentalism
:::My careful statement was that Jesus and the apostles certain fit the description of Christians who hold to the evangelical fundamentals, and are manifestly committed to them. If this suffices as defining a fundamentalist then it should be able to be used for them. Certainly Jesus believed in the virgin birth, and the infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture, His blood atonement and resurrection, and salvation by grace, and took such stories as Jonah and the fish as literally true, and was committed to heart and doctrinal purity. Whether He intended musical instruments for the church i know not, and am certain the time of the rapture is not an essential. But i do believe He upheld and appealed to the reality of eternal torment, and upheld the moral laws of the O.T, except to intensify them even more. But His spirit was not that which Fred Phelps so often has displayed, much less than men like the liberal Catholic priest Daniel Helminiak, who disallows fundamentalists from being Christians, due to their opposition to homosexuality. [[User:Daniel1212|Daniel1212]] 20:14, 15 July 2009 (EDT)
:::My careful statement was that Jesus and the apostles certain fit the description of Christians who hold to the evangelical fundamentals, and are manifestly committed to them. If this suffices as defining a fundamentalist then it should be able to be used for them. Certainly Jesus believed in the virgin birth, and the infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture, His blood atonement and resurrection, and salvation by grace, and took such stories as Jonah and the fish as literally true, and was committed to heart and doctrinal purity. Whether He intended musical instruments for the church i know not, and am certain the time of the rapture is not an essential. But i do believe He upheld and appealed to the reality of eternal torment, and upheld the moral laws of the O.T, except to intensify them even more. But His spirit was not that which Fred Phelps so often has displayed, much less than men like the liberal Catholic priest Daniel Helminiak, who disallows fundamentalists from being Christians, due to their opposition to homosexuality. [[User:Daniel1212|Daniel1212]] 20:14, 15 July 2009 (EDT)
::belief #1 of Fundamentalists = Bible = literally true & inerrant. Jesus never said that. Indeed, the Bible never says that. Jesus did not say anything about the Virgin Birth either. Nor did Jesus mention the material in Revelation. Lots of Christian theology emerged after his death (from Paul, for example) [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 23:35, 15 July 2009 (EDT)
::belief #1 of Fundamentalists = Bible = literally true & inerrant. Jesus never said that. Indeed, the Bible never says that. Jesus did not say anything about the Virgin Birth either. Nor did Jesus mention the material in Revelation. Lots of Christian theology emerged after his death (from Paul, for example) [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 23:35, 15 July 2009 (EDT)
:::A worthy subject, and one i am still thinking through. As i stated, Jesus and Paul did not say a lot of things outright, but which their words and actions reveals they believed. First, does fundamentalism incontestably or predominantly mean that holding the Bible as "literally true" requires ignoring ignoring different literary forms, so that hyperbole is taken literally (Acts 7:54)? And that holding to plenary Divine inspiration mean that text such Eccl. 2:24 are moral directives, rather than (contextually) being revealed truth revealing to the natural man?. I think not, and i think self-professed fundamentalists such as J. Vernon McGeee (whom i do not always gree with) would either. But whether fundamentalism allows inerrancy to apply only to the original mss (and perhaps early copies) is another question).
:::Did Jesus believe the Jewish Scriptures were literally true and inerrant is manifest by His frequent appeal (directly or indirectly) to them. Unlike liberals and even the commentators of the New American Bible, O.T. accounts such as Cain and Able (Gn. 4:16; cf. Heb. 1:4; 1Jn. 3:12; Jude. 1:11) the flood of Noah (Gn. 6-8; cf. Heb. 11:7; 1Pt. 3:20; 2Pt. 2:5) the tower of Babel (Gn. 11); the story of Balaam and his donkey (Numbers 22 cf. 1Pet. 2:16; Jude 1:11; Rev. 2:14) etc., which consider such to be allegorical "folk tales to teach a lesson", and events such as Exo. 19 (cf. Heb. 12:18,19) to be figures of speech, they treated these as literal events. Jesus also quoted the Scriptures as God's authoritative word to the devil, the disciples, and the Pharisees and unbelieving Jews alike. The apostles did much the same, though Paul used natural revelation in witnessing to pagans who were Scripturally ignorant. (Acts 14; 17) "The fourth edition of the United Bible Societies' Greek Testament (1993) lists 343 Old Testament quotations in the New Testament, as well as no fewer than 2,309 allusions and verbal parallels. The books most used are Psalms (79 quotations, 333 allusions), and Isaiah (66 quotations, 348 allusions). In the Book of Revelation, there are no formal quotations at all, but no fewer than 620 allusions." Furthermore, "the OT is quoted or alluded to in every NT writing except Philemon and 2 and 3 John." (http://www.theopedia.com/New_Testament_use_of_the_Old_Testament also http://www.gospeloutreach.net/bible2.html)
:::As it was Jesus' Spirit who inspired Paul (whose words Peter attests are Scripture: 2Pet. 3:16)) to confirm that "all Scripture is inspired by God" (2Tim. 3:16) then how can we cast doubt on whether it was inerrant? The questions are, does "all" mean fully inclusive, and does plenary inspiration translate into inerrancy? Did the proposed copyist errors of today exist in the 1st century? Can all that we call Scripture today refer to it overall as a body, yet allow for doctrinally inconsequential copyist errors? I do not think God inspired errors, and so "all" means all, and the Scripture referenced to were all accurate. Today, while truly problematic texts constitute a minute percentage*, those would not qualify as Scripture according to the strictest sense of the word, yet by way of duplicate accounts (where most appear, primarily with numbers) God may be seen as revealing such, and which do not seriously impugn the reliability of the Bible, as such apparent discrepancies do not alter doctrine, except the doctrine of inerrancy as some hold it as applying to surviving mss today.
:::What is problematic here is that Jesus and the apostles sometimes quoted from the [[Septuagint]] (LXX), a more interpretive work than the Masoretic, and which (the LXX) fell out of favor with Jerome and others, partly due to and variations of it. If that is not fully trustworthy, then we can say that at least the portions the N.T. writers quoted from were inerrant. In addition, often the O.T. quotes in the N.T. are somewhat different than what O.T. texts precisely say, but that is answered by allowing the Holy Spirit can recast some of what He inspired without true contradiction (cf. Is. 6:9,10; cf. Mat. 13:15; Jn. 12:20). Another issue is that it is doubtful that not all the words which Jesus or others spoke were their exact verbatim words, rather than descriptive, as is seen in duplicate accounts. (Mat 26:63,64a; Mk. 14:61,62a; Lk. 22:69,70). But the same Holy Spirit by which Jesus spoke is the same which expanded or condensed, without contradiction, what the original speakers stated, in order to provide a more comprehensive as well as fitting revelation to the hearers of it. To God be the glory.
:::But as to whether Jesus and the apostles referred to Scripture as true and inerrant, i believe the evidence is that they did. And that explicit declarations are not needed for doctrines for which abundant evidence is provided for their derivation.
:::While it is true that God can preserve His word inerrant, and in fact the mss evidence for the Bible far surpasses that of all others works of like antiquity (and i think its comprehensive and often redundant nature is also rather unique among such, and which would be conducive to producing far more problematic texts than exist), it can well be that God, having supernaturally provided a perfect product, as in creation, placed man in stewardship of it, and Gods overall superintendence does not mean He will override all our negligence, but He also enables making such evident.
:::*[Geisler and Nix said that seven out of eight variants between manuscripts of the New Testament are simply variations in spelling or other mechanical matters. Only one variant in sixty is of any significance. "Mathematically this would compute to a text that is 98.33 percent pure" (A General Introduction to the Bible [Chicago: Moody, 1968], p. 365). Sir Fredric Kenyon, another New Testament textual scholar, adds that not one disputed reading affects an essential doctrine of the Christian faith (Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941], p. 23) Good day.[[User:Daniel1212|Daniel1212]] 11:47, 16 July 2009 (EDT)