Which Christian denomination is most faithful to the Bible?

[historia]

My take on this is that the Jehovah's Wistnesses, the Christadelphians and maybe the Seventh Day Adventists have the most fidelity to what the Bible actually says.

Question for debate: Which Christian denomination is most faithful to what the Bible actually says?

[Student]

My take on this is that the Jehovah's Wistnesses, the Christadelphians and maybe the Seventh Day Adventists have the most fidelity to what the Bible actually says.

Question for debate: Which Christian denomination is most faithful to what the Bible actually says?

Logically the answer to this question would have to be the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic church determined which of the various documents written about Jesus were valid and would comprise the cannon of the 27 books of the NT in the first place. Therefore the exact meaning of those books represents exactly what the Catholic church declares them to mean at any given time.

While the catholic [i.e. small 'c', universal church] might have come to agree the canon, it was never determined by the Catholic [i.e. Latin/Roman Catholic] church.

Despite what Roman propaganda would have us believe, the Latin [Roman] church was never universally accepted as the final arbiter of the canon. It was numerically in the minority, and intellectually / theologically inferior to the Greek church, until well after the 4th century, by which time the canon was well and truly established.

Consequently, any claim, that the Roman Catholic church was responsible for the NT canon, or that they are better place to determine the exact meaning of its contents, is entirely spurious.

[catnip]

To begin, all we are really considering here is which denomination is most faithful to the Bible. You and I might take that differently.

But isn't that a major problem?

That requires that all replies are necessary nothing more than the subjective opinions of individuals, leaving them all to have precisely equal merit. Certainly not a "debatable" topic, if that's the case. Controversial perhaps, but not debatable if the consensus is that it all comes down to individual opinion.

There are 40,000+ denominations now to prove it. But orthodox teaching and practice was an effort that began with Paul and what resulted from that were the old churches, the liturgical churches, that dominated the scene until the protestant revolution. The Orthodox church, however, caused no protest. I am recommending the same kind of practice that both held to over all these centuries. And, btw, they are the ones that acknowedge and allow for the mystical experience. And they both ensconce as dogma mystical tools to teach the people how. All that was dispensed with in the Protestant reformation.

Literalism was not a practice in Christianity until the Fundamentalists began it in 1910-1912. The integrity of the scriptures requires that it be read, really, as any other book.

I would argue, that the Bible must necessarily be taken extremely literal, and there is no room for personal subjective opinion on this point.

This may sound as if I am attempting to pass off my opinion has having more clout than any other, however I disagree because I can offer sound reasons why this must necessarily be the only conclusion.

The reason the Bible necessarily must be taken literally to the letter (to every jot and tittle as attributed to Jesus' own proclamation), is because the God in this collection of stories is making specific commandments and directives of men. Commandments and directives that he is demanding they must obey. This fact forbids anything less than a perfectly literal "interpretation" of the scriptures.

I've already explained that Jesus taught that the Summary of the Law, the Great Commandment is the whole Law and the Prophets. Beyond that, the Bible is divided into two, the old Covenant(s) and the New. Paul doesn't actually teach that we dispense with the Law, but that we can't keep it without faith. That is why the Law brought death, the letter kills, the spirit gives life.

But what I was speaking of was the integrity of the scriptures as they are read in keeping with the way they are written, keeping everything in the context of its original passage instead of picking through for single verses out of context--which is a very dangerous practice the way Evangelicals/Fundamentalists apply it.

I did not say anything about Christian practice otherwise. I clearly want to underline that! But if you want the to play the egotistical game of which side is the best, it is the older tradition of the faith that practices inner seeking, quiet contemplation, self-denial including practices now denied by most of Christendom such as fasting. And key to all of it is humility and contemporary churches are teaching outright against it now. Not one person will ever approach the feet of the living God without humility practiced fully. Set aside the ego and search within for the self that God made.

For example, this God commanded that we are to stone sinners to death. He even gives many literal examples of what constitutes these sins precisely. One arbitrary example is that we are to stone to death anyone who works on the Sabbath, even to the point of collecting firewood to cook a meal or stay warm. If anyone is caught collecting firewood (or doing any manner of labor) on the Sabbath they are to be stoned to death.

We are Christians! We are not under the Old Covenant. The two covenants are at odds with one another, one being a system of government for a nation of people and the other a means to salvation for anyone the world over.

How can we take this in any non-literal way?

We can't.

What are we going to do? Are we going to say, "Oh well, it doesn't literally mean that we should actually stone someone to death for collecting firewood on the Sabbath. It means something entirely different.

Like what?

I totally agree with the Fundamentalists in this regard. The Bible must necessarily be taken precisely literally. Every jot and tittle must mean precisely what it says. There is simply no way to get around this.

Does this mean that Fundamental Protestantism must then be in closest adherence to the Bible? Not really, because in addition to a need to be taken literally the Bible also contains extreme self-contradictions, thus making it impossible for anyone to actually be in concordance with it.

And their faith does not work. They claim to have the Holy Spirit, but they are not transformed by their faith. They remain odiously, sinfully natural, unspiritual and they do not hear the voice of God. They reject mysticism and contemplation and all the practices that help develop it.

If you go digging in the Old Testament you can be wealthy despite what Jesus taught.

So the Bible is a paradox (i.e. a self-contradictory doctrine). We might be tempted to say that fundamentalists are at least trying to be the most faithful to the Bible, but then again, it's highly doubtful that they are actually going around stoning anyone to death as the Bible literally demands.

We are not told to "be the most faithful to the Bible" but to be the most faithful to God. And they think and reflect that they believe that believing in the Bible and what it teaches about God is faith and it isn't. That is actually making the Bible into a idol. It is idolatry. Nothing, and I repeat "nothing", physical in this world, nothing made by mankind is God or contains the power of God. There are no talismans in Christian practice, no physical objects for us to cling to.

Now Christians might claim that Jesus changed all that in spite of the fact that he proclaimed every jot and tittle to remain law until heaven and earth pass.

But even Christians don't follow the teachings of Jesus. If they did, they wouldn't own a home or even have a regular job. They would never go to college or take any thought of the morrow. All they would be doing is going around begging from people preaching the doctrine of Jesus. They would need to also hate their mother, father, and siblings. They probably wouldn't even get married or have children. After all, where does Jesus instruct any of his disciples to settle down and raise a family?

That's a mouthful! I don't believe that it is youth that our faith is all that strong, usually. That said, we are guided by God and there are different gifts of the Spirit. Jesus was preparing the disciples, hand-picked regular guys, to become preachers, to carry on after he was gone. And to close, there is not one place in the entire New Testament that actually recommends marriage and family, certainly not Jesus (Matt 19) and Paul in his teaching on why people should marry though he didn't recommend it, but only to avoid sin.

In short, I don't there is a person on earth who obeys the Bible, either the New or the Old Testaments. Arguments could be made that some Muslims are trying to obey the Qur'an. But they have the same problem there. It's full of contradictions so if they are obeying one part of it they are violating another part.

Fundamentalism never results in anything remotely like faith and actually ensconces worldly ways and worldly focus. Nobody of actual faith could kill another human being. All mankind are created by God in God's image and likeness and we cannot kill them for the love of God. 1 John says clearly that if we don't love our brother, we are liars! How can we say we love God, whom we have not seen, if we hate our brother who we have seen. He said that Jesus said this many times.

So actually it's impossible to obey the Bible "Literally".

And to claim to be obeying it "non-literally" makes absolutely no sense at all.

So, in the end, you come around to your assertion that we can't obey the Bible literally. Jesus teaches us to obey God. Jesus said that we diligently study the scriptures believing that in them we have eternal life, but we refuse to come to Him for that life. Jesus perfectly did the will of the Father (God)--which can only be had through prayer, anyway. And he told us to.

I find it interesting that you, a professed now non-Christian who has rejected the faith, insist to me that a way that won't work will work. And I am the one who has not left and who knows what works in faith and what faith really is.

[The Nice Centurion]

My take on this is that the Jehovah's Wistnesses, the Christadelphians and maybe the Seventh Day Adventists have the most fidelity to what the Bible actually says.

Question for debate: Which Christian denomination is most faithful to what the Bible actually says?

Jehovahs Witnesses are not even fully Young Earth Creationists. They deny geocentrism, flat earth and the existence of ghosts.

Seventh Day Adventists were the Prototype of Jehovahs Witnesses.
They at last are YEC.

Have to read up about Christadelphians.

All Christians who allegedly follow what the bible says, but deny Flat Earth, Geocentrism or Young Earth, really give only a damn about what the bible says.

Here are Christians with the most fidelity to what the Bible actually says;

Flat Earthers keep the faith at Denver conference
https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproj ... conference