How much of Scripture is inspired?

[Kevin H]

No, I do not believe Mrs. White to be a fundamentalist. Otherwise she would not have had the discussions she had with Stephen Haskell over how inspration works (Haskell was a fundamentalist and he was frustrated that he could not show Mrs. White how her visions work, then had on going friction with Willie over fundamentalism). Haskell learned fundamentalism from W. W. Prescott who brought Fundamentalism into the church, when Mrs. White learned that Prescott was teaching Fundamentalism she asked him to stop teaching and to help her with her writings. He was terrrified at his job, but by the end he was no longer a fundamentalist and by 1919 was labled (with A. G. Daniels, and Willie White, and other General Conference leaders and the religion faculty at Washington Missionary College) a liberal unbelieving modernist. (Now it is a little unclear here as there were a number of these non-fundamentalists who actually came to believe that there were two different types of inspiration: That the Bible was inspired in a fundamentalist perspective, and that Mrs. White had a different inspiration that did not meet the fundamentalist perspective. I believe that the Bible writers and Mrs. White were equally inspired, in the exact same way, and that it is the perspective that we see in Mrs. White, the perspective that made people so upset at her as she was older, and upset with Daniels, Prescott, Willie White and the religion department of Washington Missionary College). Now interestingly, in 1923 Elder Daniels was replaced by someone seen as just as big a heretic as he was, Elder Spicer. (Now Elder Spicer was one of those who believed in 2 different kids of inspiration discribed above, a fundamentalist when it came to the Bible and non-fundamentalist with Mrs. White.) However Elder Daniels believed that fundamentalism needed to be opposed because if it was accepted by the church it would eventually lead to disaster, while Elder Spicer felt that if people wanted to be fundamentalists to let them and not interfere.

Words are not inspired, it is certan people who have the direct inspiration. They see issues like snapshots and they discribe what they see, they often restearch the history of the points they were shown. It is the framework that comes from vision.

What happens is that Fundamenatlism makes inspired writers God's pen not his penmen. And they are in danger of taking passages here and there and edit them to fit their ideas and use the inspired writer's words as a way to put teeth into their ideas. "You have to do as I say as here is an inspired quote from God telling you to follow my ideas." And there are issues in the Bible that are thorns in the side of both modernists and fundamentalists, that applying Mrs. White's expirence to those passages make them non-issues. A consistant herminutic requiers less tapdancing over the texts. There are some differences in the deniels of Peter, and some fundamentalists have changed from 3 denials to 5 denials so that all of them can be fully correct and not cause problems with their understanding of inspiration. Whether there were 1 or 2 demoniacs when the pigs ran into the sea, fundamentalists have to say things like "One was just more memorial than the other" etc.

I also do not believe Mrs. White to be a fundamentalist by her responses to the reform dress, testomy # 11, the issue of the daily, and her turning to a famous anti-fundamentalist sermon series, teaching a healthy in faith way of useing higher criticicism (which cost the pastor who wrote the series his career) with changing the pastor's view of inspiration being a subjective expirence to it being an objective expirence, but otherwise while Mrs. White disagreed with Haskells discription of how inspiration worked, she agreed with this discrased (non-Adventist) minister's view.

I do not believe Mrs. White to be a fundamentalist in the way she used sourses, sometimes looking for words that she thought could say things better than she could (which was a mistake on her part because even in using their words she would change them and improve them. I believe that had she tried she could have done just as well with out this part of her use of sources) then she also used sources as a running narative between the points that she saw as important and wanted to dwell on and expand. It is interesting; people like Walter Rea and our other criticis have a whole buch of quotes taken out of context that sound like she is denying copying. The problem with their key quotes is that these so called copying denial texts were told to people who were helping her with the research and copying. Her audience knew that she was copying. She knew that they knew she was copying. Therefore these so called "denial" quotes need to be interpeted in the context of knowlege of copying. The real issue was that these people who she was adressing tended to lean towards fundamentalism and was starting to wonder if her messages came from the reading and copying instead of from God, and she reasured them that her messages were coming from God, not from the reading and copying.

I do not believe that Mrs. White was a fundamentalists because of how conservative members in the late 1800s and early 1900s began calling Mrs. White an apostate and accused her of having become not only joined the wrong side in 1888, and became a trinitarian but also unbelieving liberal modernist who no longer believed in her own insiration (you can come across these documents in the White Estate vault) and that we needed to turn to her early writings which came from God instead of her later writings after she apostisised and that her current writings were not from God but from Prescott and Willie.

I do not believe that Mrs. White was a fundamentalist because of what we see in the story of Elder Butler; Now I have not verified this paragraph, but came across this information in reading some studies relating to the 1919 Bible conference; Apprently Elder Butler wrote of series of anti-fundamentalists articles in the Review. As we know he was in the opposiition to Jones and Wagner in 1888 and had a hard time afterwards. It appears that he realized that he was more of a fundamentalist than he thought he was (by the way, I'm probably more of a fundamentalist than I think I am) and his issues with Mrs. White were for fundamentalist type of questions and his consious decision not to be a fundamentalist appears to what helped him come to terms with what happened in 1888.

Mrs. White told what inspiration did and did not do for her. She gives a very ballanced view which allows for both higher criticizism (seeing the sources) and lower criticisism (seeing the final product) can work together as useful tools to make the Bible come alive and to dig deeper into the Bible and thus know the Bible's God better. However in 1923 her view was rejected for Haskells view. Since then the tradition has become that Mrs. White was not infalable, it's just that she never made a mistake. And conservative Adventists have done what the Catholics did with St. Patrick. St. Patrick was not a Catholic and when Catholisism came to Irland they were at odds with St. Patricks teachings, so they would sanatize Patrick to make him appear a good Catholic and made him a saint and persecuted those who kept his teachings. So our conservatives have come to give lip service to the later writings of Ellen White and work to make Daniels, Prescott and Willie White as good conservatives who was in line with their view instead of the friction that existed between them in their life time.

Fundamentalism has made us careless about context. Once I even heard a pastor trying to oppose our understanding that the dead are sleeping in the grave and he gave the proof text "Ye shall not surely die" yet we can be in danger of the same thing contextually. I find it intersting that I have never found Mrs. White using Ecclesiastes 9:5 when she builds her argument for the state of the dead (I won't say that she never did, but I looked up all her references to Ecc 9:5 that I could find on an early computer program) but she would build her argument from other texts and use the language of Ecc. 9:5 as a summery statement, not as a proof text. Ecclesiastes has a very interesting poem in the end, written in a chiastic structure, and the middle point is that all these will come under the judgment of God. What the writer of Ecclesiastes is saying is that he is showing us ideas that he collected from pagan philosophies that he is warning us about. Ecc. 9:5 is not teaching that the dead sleep like we believe, but some pagan views that this life is all there is and then it's all over. The words make a good summery statement for what we believe but like Mrs. White we should build it from other scriptures and not use Ecc. 9:5 for proof. The book is a book of heresies that the writer is inspired to warn us against. But by the proof text method we can miss what the author was trying to say, and it's especially dangerous when the writer is warning us of dangers that we are to avoid.

[Guest]

These decisions were made by committees.

The books written by the prophets were accepted by the churches, (God's people) long before any committee ever voted on what to include.

For instance: Jeremiah was a prophet, and the people knew it. So when God gave him a message and told him to write it, the people knew the message was from God and accepted it right then. Immediately. It didn't take years and years until some committee came along, for it to be believed and accepted for what it was. The same is true for Isaiah, Moses, and all the rest of them.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

Originally Posted By: oldsailor

These decisions were made by committees.

The books written by the prophets were accepted by the churches, (God's people) long before any committee ever voted on what to include.

For instance: Jeremiah was a prophet, and the people knew it. So when God gave him a message and told him to write it, the people knew the message was from God and accepted it right then. Immediately. It didn't take years and years until some committee came along, for it to be believed and accepted for what it was. The same is true for Isaiah, Moses, and all the rest of them.

Actually, the people tried to kill Jeremiah and Jeremiah's scroll was burned. Baruch, the scribe, rewrote it, though, as Jeremiah dictated. See Jeremia 37, 38.

And wasn't Isaiah killed for his prophecy too?

[Guest]

Not by the ones who believed he was God's prophet.

[Guest]

No, I do not believe Mrs. White to be a fundamentalist.

Lets make sure we are talking about the same thing.

Fundamentalism

[fuhn-duh-men-tl-iz-uhm]

noun

1. (sometimes initial capital letter) a movement in American Protestantism that arose in the early part of the 20th century in reaction to modernism and that stresses the infallibility of the Bible not only in matters of faith and morals but also as a literal historical record, holding as essential to Christian faith belief in such doctrines as the creation of the world, the virgin birth, physical resurrection, atonement by the sacrificial death of Christ, and the Second Coming.

2. the beliefs held by those in this movement.

3. strict adherence to any set of basic ideas or principles:

fundamentalism

A conservative movement in theology among nineteenth- and twentieth-century Christians. Fundamentalists believe that the statements in the Bible are literally true.

fun·da·men·tal·ism

1. A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.

2. A- often Fundamentalism An organized, militant Evangelical movement originating in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century in opposition to Protestant Liberalism and secularism, insisting on the inerrancy of Scripture.

B- Adherence to the theology of this movement.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

No, they asked Jeremiah what God said, and they tried to kill him by putting him in a cistern to starve to death. But yes, then he was freed.

The children of Israel always seemed to be at odds with the prophets of God. They didn't like what they told them.

[Guest]

Yes but there were always those who believed the prophets, and obeyed what God said.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

That's true. There were some who would always believe. :smile:

[oldsailor29]

Jeremiah was a prophet, and the people knew it. So when God gave him a message and told him to write it, the people knew the message was from God and accepted it right then. Immediately. It didn't take years and years until some committee came along, for it to be believed and accepted for what it was. The same is true for Isaiah, Moses, and all the rest of them.

What I said was, "A valid hermeneutic is the discovery of what the Bible meant to the writers and their intended audiences, beginning with the earliest Yahwhist and Elohist and continuing through the Priestly and the Deuteronomists editors and writers..."

Yes, the early men of God had their audiences who benefited from their counsels. They were also read and quoted by later men of God, and their counsels were edited together with new writings. The writings of prophets of the Northern kingdom were brought to Jerusalem before the exile to Assyria, and later edited together by the priests of Judah. And the righteous always heeded the prophets of God.

This Palestinian text was taken from Jerusalem to Egypt during the assault on Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. There it was translated into Greek, and this was the Bible which was used by Jesus. And we can buy an English translation of it. It is known as the LXX, or Septuagint. The Masoretic Text, upon which our authorized version is based, was not available until much later. There are several differences between the content of these two versions, and the Septuagint is correct in most instances. It is the only source from which we can correctly identify the date of the beginning of the 2300 day prophecy. That William Miller got the correct date was a miracle, and a demonstration of how the Holy Spirit works in the minds of those who prayerfully study the scriptures. And this is why I don't get into arguments over which translation is the least flawed. But that's beside the point.

My point is that holy men of God were inspired, but that did not make them error free. We say that we do not believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, and we do believe in its infallibility. But I think if our belief in the infallibility of the Bible makes us think it is error free, then we are just substituting an acceptable word for an unacceptable word, and we are only fooling ourselves when we do that.

[Kevin H]

Originally Posted By: Kevin H

No, I do not believe Mrs. White to be a fundamentalist.

Lets make sure we are talking about the same thing.

Fundamentalism

[fuhn-duh-men-tl-iz-uhm]

noun

1. (sometimes initial capital letter) a movement in American Protestantism that arose in the early part of the 20th century in reaction to modernism and that stresses the infallibility of the Bible not only in matters of faith and morals but also as a literal historical record, holding as essential to Christian faith belief in such doctrines as the creation of the world, the virgin birth, physical resurrection, atonement by the sacrificial death of Christ, and the Second Coming.

2. the beliefs held by those in this movement.

fundamentalism

A conservative movement in theology among nineteenth- and twentieth-century Christians. Fundamentalists believe that the statements in the Bible are literally true.

fun·da·men·tal·ism

1. A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.

2. A- often Fundamentalism An organized, militant Evangelical movement originating in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century in opposition to Protestant Liberalism and secularism, insisting on the inerrancy of Scripture.

B- Adherence to the theology of this movement.

Yes, removing the one line I just errased [3. strict adherence to any set of basic ideas or principles:]

this is what we are talking about. The Lord minimized the effect of both protestant liberalism and Fundamentalism on us with the shut door theory decreasing our contact with both groups durring the years they were rising. Just about every denomination except for Seventh-day Adventists ended up in one of these 2 camps (now you found a pastor here and there or a Sunday School Teacher here and there, or a congragationalist church here and there who were moderate and refused both, but the only denomination that remainde moderate-- until 1923, and even then gave lip service to moderateism-- is the Seventh-day Adventists). Even now because of this people like Elder Pippim are considered liberals among fundamentalists.

I see both Protestant Liberalism and Fundamentalism as the fall of Babylon that the Adventists were noticing in the mid 1800s. I see Mrs. White blazing a pathway of streight and narrow truth between these two extreams. I see her as an anti-Fundamentalist. When Elder Prescott learned about Fundamentalism he accepted it and began teaching it. When Mrs. White learned this she asked him to stop teaching and to work with her writings and he came out of this working with Mrs. White as an anti-Fundamentalist.

Yes, going with your defination we are on the same sheet of paper.

[Kevin H]

Old Salor, I believe that it appears that the Bible Jesus used was the Palestinian textual family (what we find in the Dead Sea Scrolls). The Egyptian textual family from which we get the LXX was the Bible Paul used (although apperently a different version than the LXX at least at times) all our versions are based on the Babylonian textual family, from which developed the Masseretic text. But again our complaints about versions are nothing compaired to the version issue in Jesus and Paul's day where they not only had different versions but three seperate textual families that the versions were based on. At least our versions are of one textual family.

Now the books of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the so called Minor Prophets are nearly word for word in all 3 families, but the other books have more variation, and even in Isaiah, there is a text that in the Dead Sea Scrolls sound a lot like Matthew 5 which which we would not recognize in our Masseretic text.

[Guest]

[3. strict adherence to any set of basic ideas or principles]

If this is what you mean when you say fundamentalist, then I see nothing wrong with being one. If you don't strictly adhere to the basic ideas and principals you believe in, then that means that you loosely hold your ideas and principals. Or are, as some would say, wishy washy.

Neither Jesus nor Ellen White taught that we should be that way. In fact Just the opposite is true.

Mat 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

A person who is wishy washy in their beliefs, cannot do this.

Ecc 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

It doesn't sound like the commandments are to be lightly held, or loosely regarded.

1Th 5:21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

Rev 3:11 Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.

Do you think these texts are saying to hold on loosely to the truth, and not strictly adhere to anything?

2Ti 1:13 Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

Heb 4:14....let us hold fast our profession.

Heb 10:23 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering;

It looks like Paul was a fundamentalist too. I will continue to hold fast, or strictly adhere to the basic principals that I know to be truth, just like the Bible teaches. If that makes me a fundamentalist, then so be it.

[Guest]

In their desire for something novel and startling they attempted to introduce new phases of doctrine, more pleasing to many minds, but not in harmony with the fundamental principles of the gospel. In their self-confidence and spiritual blindness they failed to discern that these sophistries would cause many to question the experiences of the past, and would thus lead to confusion and unbelief. {AA 580}

The church was defective and in need of stern reproof and chastisement, and John was inspired to record messages of warning and reproof and entreaty to those who, losing sight of the fundamental principles of the gospel, should imperil their hope of salvation.

Knowledge of God and Christ Is Fundamental. {CG 493}

God calls upon us to hold firmly to the fundamental principles that are based upon unquestionable authority. {CCh 326}

[Kevin H]

Exactly; when I am saying that Mrs. White was not a Fundamentalist, I removed the defination about standing for a principle, Knowlege of God and Christ is indeed fundamental, and the importance of the fundamental principles of the gospel.

I am saying that Mrs. White rejected a movement in American Protestantism that arose in the early part of the 20th century in reaction to modernism and that stresses the infallibility of the Bible not only in matters of faith and morals but also as a literal historical record, holding as essential to Christian faith belief in such doctrines as the creation of the world, the virgin birth, physical resurrection, atonement by the sacrificial death of Christ, and the Second Coming.

2. the beliefs held by those in this movement.

Dispite the fact that Stephen Haskell tryed to convince her to accept this and this movement had a tremendous impact in our church, dispite Mrs. White's opposition to it, and it got a major strong hold in 1923, and that we see Elder Pipim trying to make it even stronger in our church. Yet we can even see a relflection of Mrs. White's opposition to Haskell and thus to Pipim in the fact that some of our most conservative Fundamentalists, including Pipim, are liberals when compaired to non-Adventist Fundamentalists. The fact that they are liberal Fundamentalists are how they are trying to compromise with Ellen White and Fundamentalism. They are fearful that there are only two choices, to be a believing Fundamentalist or a non-believing Modernist. They have not been exposed to the Historical Critical Method with in a framework of faith and belief. Many of our people who have gone to the other schools have come out confused and brought confused ideas back into our schools and churches, because they don't know how to use what they learned in a framework of faith and belief. However I see Mrs. White offering a third alternative and therefore I see Pipim and Ellen White as on opposit sides of this issue.

Mrs. White, Willie White, A. G. Daniels, W. W. Prescott, the religon facutly at Washington Missionary College in the early 1900s were preparing the way to teach us how to use these in faith, but Mrs. White died and her followers were the victims of witch hunts from the 1923 General Conference. Today we are suffering from the rejection of the truth in 1923.

And we see God trying to warn us about Fundamentalism: C. M. Canright was an extream Fundamentalist. He joined the MOST conservative Fundamentalist church there was when he left Adventism. When you look at his arguments, his ONLY problem was that he was a Fundamentalist. If he was not a Fundamentalist he could have stayed a faithful Adventist. He loved Mrs. White as a person, but saw that her methods did not fit the fundamentalist presupositions on how inspiration worked.

But dispite the obvious results of Fundamentalism in Canright, sure enough we attened 2 Bible Conferences in 1919, one opposing Fundamentalism the other being the Great Fundamentalist Bible conference, and it was the Fundamentalist's Bible conference that was brought home to their schools and churches, leading to the 1923 General Conference and the witch hunts and instead of being as pluralistic as we were prior to 1923, you had basically Haskels view which grew into main line Adventism, and Elder Wilkerson's views which, with some tweeking in reaction to Questions on Doctrine, the Historic Adventists.

We then had God raise his voice again to warn us against Fundamentalism with the Walter Rea issue. Rea rehashed the same ideas as Canright, except that Canright did a much better job, showed more honesty and integrety, and Rea was living at a time of more information than Canright had to evaluate, and Rea was given the information that Canright did not have (and with Canright's basic honesty I am inclined to think that Canright probably would have looked into the truth and rejoiced and given up Fundamentalism and embrased Mrs. White) but Rea's response is "Don't bring down my Bible to the level of Ellen White". All the heart-ache with the Walter Rea crisis in our church, which lead to our leaders being less oppositional to the Historical Critical method, but as soon as the Rea issue passed we jumpped back on the Fundamentalist bandwagon.

God raised his voice twice with us, with both Canright and Rea. Will God have to raise his voice the third time? And how much louder and how much more heart-ache will this louder raising of God's voice to show us that Fundamentalism is wrong before we finally learn our lesson?

And looking at the Ford and Rea crisis: the colleges and churches and communities that were more in tune with Pipiam's book are the ones that Ford and Rea caused a lot of heart-ache and many leaving the church. However those "Liberal" schools that would not be following Pipiam's ideas, AUC, Walla Walla College etc. had Ford and Rea come with their horse and pony show, they had their say, but they came and went and while of course there were a few Ford and Rea fans who had lived in the area or gone to those schools, Ford and Rea came and went and the majority of the members continued to believe in the Investigative Judgment and Mrs. White as a prophet. From the historical critical method we knew some of the sources and that the ancient world had the day-year principle and the Bible has better year-day texts than our proof texts, and that Dr. Ford was wrong when he said there is not evidence for the year day principle. From his Fundamentalist background he could not see it, but from the Historical Critical method we know that even the residents of Sodom and Gamora would have laughed Ford off the platform as they had both the year-day principle and the investigative judgment. They will stand up and judge him as they judge the cities that Jesus criticized. And we know that the Bible has the same things that Rea sees as problems with accepting Mrs. White.

[oldsailor29]

Old Salor, I believe that it appears that the Bible Jesus used was the Palestinian textual family (what we find in the Dead Sea Scrolls). The Egyptian textual family from which we get the LXX was the Bible Paul used (although apperently a different version than the LXX at least at times) all our versions are based on the Babylonian textual family, from which developed the Masseretic text. But again our complaints about versions are nothing compaired to the version issue in Jesus and Paul's day where they not only had different versions but three seperate textual families that the versions were based on. At least our versions are of one textual family.

I thought it was the Palestinian text which was taken to Egypt to avoid destruction during the Babylonian occupation, and translated to Greek and brought back to Jerusalem after the restoration of the temple. I happen to have an English copy of that. But it is true that most Bible translations are based on the Masoretic text.

All moot points, because Jesus gave us all the Bible we need in His sermons and teachings. It really does not matter where the OT translations came from, or how they got there, or what they say. because we have all we need directly from the Mouth Of God in the flesh, through the New Testament writers as the Holy Spirit helped them remember what He said.

[Kevin H]

As I understand it The Bible was taken to both Egypt, Babylon and kept by the ones left in the land, and brought back with the return, as well as the copies and prests for the Samaratans. By Jesus day they grew into 3 textual families all with their versions, with the later books being almost identical, however Ezra and Nehmiah ended up falling into disrepair in Babylon and thus our Ezra and Nehmiah reflect the phyiscal deteriation of these books and the attempt to salvage it, and so they tend to be quite different in the Babylonian text from the others (apperently there was an unnamed govener in Ezra't time, and an unnamed prophet in Nehmiah's time and the Babylonian text it made Ezra and Nehmiah contemporaries, which is a big problem with the 70 week and 2300 day prophecy, and some parts of Nehmiah got put in Ezra and parts of Ezra put in Nehmiah from the Babylon text, and according to the Egyptian and Palestinian texts Ezra and Nehmiah were not contempories and that these other textual families are correct and that the other texts support what the Elephantiene and Samaryan papari tell us about the dates and support the 70 weeks and 2300 days)

[John317]

My point is that holy men of God were inspired, but that did not make them error free. We say that we do not believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, and we do believe in its infallibility. But I think if our belief in the infallibility of the Bible makes us think it is error free, then we are just substituting an acceptable word for an unacceptable word, and we are only fooling ourselves when we do that.

The Bible is not completely free of error, but I would rather believe in a few errors than throw out the Bible because it contains some mistakes. That's what many people do and have done. It's the same with Ellen White's writings. These mistakes or errors give people what they consider a good reason to reject anything they don't like or agree with. They reason that if one thing is wrong, who knows what else may be wrong.

The errors that I know of in the Bible do not change anything of importance. The story the Bible tells is still fundamentally the same in all the manuscripts, despite the variants. The fact that John 5: 3, 4 were added does not change the doctrines of the Bible, but it would be better for me to believe those verses than to reject much of the rest of the Gospel because they caused me to lose faith in its reliability.

That's what I see happening both with the Bible and with Ellen White. For instance, some people have rejected all of the book Great Controversy because they learn that it may contain a number of historical inaccuracies, such as that the Waldenses' were Sabbath-keepers.

There are verses in Scripture that do not make sense if we say that the words of the Bible are not inspired or that we cannot depend on the trustworthiness of the very words of Scripture: For instance, in John 8: 58, it makes a big difference whether Jesus used the present tense, I AM, or whether he said, "I was." If Jesus anything but "I AM," the entire text loses its point, that Jesus is God. (This is why the Jehovah Witnesses' New World Translation mistranslated it to read,"I have been.")

Other examples:

Jesus said, "The Scriptures cannot be broken" (John 10: 35). There the significance of what Jesus is saying relies on the use of a particular word and on the fact that it is plural and not singular.

Gal. 3: 16 is another verses where the meaning turns on the use of the singular, "Seed" and not "seeds."

There are also texts which tell us that the words are those that God spoke: For instance, Jesus said, "Man shall live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Also, "Your [God's] word is truth." Acts 1: 16 says that "the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David...." In other words, it wasn't really David that was speaking but the Holy Spirit. David was merely God's mouthpiece.

See also Hebrews 1: 1, 2. This verse makes it plain that God didn't simply speak to us through Christ but that God also spoke to us through the prophets. The Bible nowhere makes a distinction between the authority of Christ's words in the Gospels and those that God spoke to us through the prophets. In fact, Christ constantly refers us back to the prophets and says that if don't believe them, we won't believe Him, either. Compare 1 Peter 1: 23-26; 2 Peter 1: 20, 21; 3: 15, 16; Rev. 1: 2; 2 Tim. 3: 15-17.

[Kevin H]

Bulls-eye John!!! But fundamentalism had too many people who want to base their beliefs on the Bible being some sort of magic book and often used as a way to pressure people to conform to our beliefs by finding something in Mrs. White or the Bible that seems to agree with them. And there are too many who when they learn that the Bible does not have what they think it has ends up throwing the whole message out. I have one story I have to come back and tell. Our issue with Mrs. White and Rea and Canfield are all with this issue.

But the errors in the Bible and Mrs. White teach us about God. They show how God is willing to work with us and give us hope that God is not going to give up on us. We see what God sees as important. We see some things where God is teaching us lessons: For example while the Bible does not specifically condem pologamy, it shows that it is such a headache that it is not wise to follow, and therefor condems it. Churches argue over whether to be congragational or a strong general conference, and they all have their proof texts. But the religion in the North was congragational and in the south had a strong General Conference, and the Bible teaches us that niether are perfect and shows us the streanths and weaknesses of both. But our Fundamentalists gravatate towards their General conference proof texts or their congragational proof texts and push them as "This is what the Bible teaches."

The lack of fundamentalism makes us do less tapdancing to try to smooth over every bump in the road, and allows us to study the Bible as it is and to see how even the bumps in the road teach us about the God of the Bible.

[Guest]

God raised his voice twice with us, with both Canright and Rea. Will God have to raise his voice the third time? And how much louder and how much more heart-ache will this louder raising of God's voice to show us that Fundamentalism is wrong before we finally learn our lesson?

I don't believe Rae and Canright were the voice of God. I think they were used by Satan.

[oldsailor29]

Originally Posted By: Kevin H

God raised his voice twice with us, with both Canright and Rea. Will God have to raise his voice the third time? And how much louder and how much more heart-ache will this louder raising of God's voice to show us that Fundamentalism is wrong before we finally learn our lesson?

I don't believe Rae and Canright were the voice of God. I think they were used by Satan.

Well, of course they were not God's voice, and that is not what Kevin meant. They were promoting fundamentalism, a deception of Satan and something which Kevin opposes. You are correct, they were being used by Satan. But I am surprised that you would say they were being used by Satan, because it seems to me that you promote fundamentalism too. You seem to believe as do fundamentalist like Rae, except in your case, you haven't yet taken it to its logical conclusion as Rae did. I imagine you will deny this, and say you do not believe the Bible to be inerrant. That is easy to say, but all that is needed to prove it is to point out some errors.

[Guest]

Walter Rae tore down EGW. That's not fundamentalism. EGW espoused the fundamentals of our faith.

[oldsailor29]

Walter Rae tore down EGW. That's not fundamentalism. EGW espoused the fundamentals of our faith.

I reckon we are speaking of two different things when we say fundamentalism. Walter Rae was a fundamentalist. Yes he did tear down Ellen White. A fundamentalist would do that. But that isn't what you mean when you say fundamentalist. However, you do seem to be a fundamentalist by the definition which has to do with the nature of inspiration. If you are not that kind of fundamentalist then it will not be difficult for you to cite a passage of scripture in which you think the writer erred. When a person believes there are no errors in the manuscripts, that person is the same kind of fundamentalist as Walter Rae. And you are correct, that kind of fundamentalist give voice to a deception of Satan. Perhaps you are at some type of crossroad here, where a decision is called for.

[oldsailor29]

Bulls-eye John!!!

Kevin - I can't believe you wrote, "Bull's-eye John!!!"

John317 missed the target altogether with that post. His post does not reflect any belief that Jesus is God in the flesh, which is basic to Christianity. And John317 states several times that God gave His prophets the words to speak or write. John317 clearly believes the same nature of inspiration as any fundamentalist. The errors he cites are whether words are singular or plural and past or present, translation errors. He cites added verses as if they were errors. He does not cite any real errors, so I have to say it seems to me that John317 believes in the inerrancy of the Bible.

If he wanted to cite some real errors, he would have referred to Genesis, where there are two different creation stories. One is in error. Where there are two different flood stories. One is in error. And where there are two different accounts of Jacob's name change to Israel. One is in error. But these are errors only if God gave His prophets the words to speak. On the other hand, if one believes that God's prophets used their own words, these differences are not so important. It is easy to understand how two different prophets would describe the same vision in different ways, using their own words.

In my opinion, these differences are not good reasons to discard the OT. The reason I discard the OT is because Jesus, God in the flesh, has given us His version, which is the correct interpretation of all which is important in the OT, and all we need to do is study His teachings and live our lives by the words of His mouth, the mouth of God.

The words of God in the flesh certainly do carry more authority than the words of Moses, infinitely more. If God gave His prophets the words to speak, they would have said the same words. There are several sets of ten commandments in the OT, and no set is exactly the same as another. And Jesus uttered the gospel, which is the law and covenant, and if God had given Moses the words, they would have been the same as the words of Jesus.

I'm just befuddled and appalled that you would agree with John317 on the nature of inspiration.

[Guest]

Attempts to Liberate the Word.

For example, classical liberal theology tries to "liberate the Word" from its alleged historical, scientific, theological, and ethical mistakes; social gospel theology seeks to "liberate the Word" from its alleged abstract doctrinal interpretations to today's concrete social and political contexts; feminist theology wants to "liberate the Word" from its alleged patriarchal worldview, sexist language, and patriarchal God-talk; gay (homosexual) theology attempts to "liberate the Word" from its alleged homophobic bias so that it will show compassion and understanding; liberation theology, black theology, and third-world theologies endeavor to "liberate the Word" from the one-sided, white middle-class, privatized interpretation that has enslaved, colonized, and exploited the poor, the people of color, and the marginalized; and experiential theology undertakes to "liberate the Word" from dry, wooden, and lifeless interpretation void of the Holy Spirit.

In view of the different ideological agendas that come into play in the process of liberating the Word, our generation is witnessing some of the grossest abuses of the Word imaginable.

The distortion of the Word at the hands of church members, teachers, pastors, and scholars raises serious doubts about their claim to uphold the Word as the inspired, trustworthy, and authoritative revelation of God's will for humanity.

Even though Receiving the Word is concerned with how historical-critical interpreters have distorted the Word, we need to discuss other possible distortions of the Word from the moment the Bible writers penned their original messages (the inspired autographs), through the transmission and translation of the text, to its contemporary interpretation.

[Guest]

The Inspired Writers of "the Liberating Word":

No Distortions of the Word

We have noted earlier that even though the Bible was written in an imperfect human language, imperfect in the sense that "infinite ideas cannot be perfectly embodied in finite vehicles of thought" (Selected Messages, 1:22), God supernaturally guided the inspired writers of Scripture in such a way that they communicated God's message in an accurate and trustworthy manner.

When, therefore, the Bible writers describe something touching upon

science, history, geography, etc., as actually taking place, we are to believe it as trustworthy. Thus, there was no distortion of the Word when the Bible writers wrote their messages.

The Holy Spirit guided them, not allowing their personal or cultural prejudices to distort the God-given message. Rejecting any suggestion that their messages were "culturally conditioned," the apostle Peter wrote: "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is

of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Pet 1:20-21). "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty" (2 Pet 1:16; cf. 1 Cor 2:10-13).