What exactly is a Christian Fundamentalist?
Well, I am not very good on all these labels because I tend to have a natural resistance to being labelled. I have been called a fundamentalist Christian once but I am not convinced that I am. I see a fundamentalist as someone who takes everything literally rather than consider figurative or metaphorical interpretations as well.

Is it good or not to be a fundamentalist?
Well, the following little adventure into the depths of Biblical mysteries will perhaps provide some kind of answer - but you must make up your own mind, of course.

I had an interesting discussion on a forum recently where somebody posted three verses from the King James Version of the Bible and coupled them with a news item that he had found somewhere. The verses were those that I have copied out in full just here to the left underneath the picture I made. Yes, that is my own best Bible, by the way - a leather bound NIV study one I happen to like. No, it isn’t my baby - he’s now much bigger than that.

The news item was about it being possible for male breast tissue to lactate, and it was suggested that men were recognized as capable of breast feeding back in Old Testament times as the verses quoted would seem to indicate. Well, I am aware that male breast tissue has been known to produce milk under certain circumstances, but most men will probably be relieved to know that it is rather a rare and unusual kind of thing all the same. It is far more usual for the better-equipped mother to concern herself with that kind of thing, the father usually having other matters to attend to instead. And of course, many men make that perfectly clear in the wee hours of the night as junior’s hunger pangs make themselves known.

Anyway, I decided to look into the matter a little more deeply and here is what I found.

The term “nursing father” does not appear in the New King James Version (NKJV), New American Standard Bible (NASB) nor the New International Version (NIV) - and probably not in some other versions which I didn’t bother checking.

First of all, the Numbers 11:12 verse…

In the NKJV the words used are:
Did I conceive all these people? Did I beget them, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a guardian carries a nursing child,' to the land which You swore to their fathers?

In the NASB the words used are:
“Was it I who conceived all this people? Was it I who brought them forth, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a nursing infant, to the land which You swore to their fathers’?

In the NIV the words used are:
Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their forefathers?

Now the reason for this…
The Hebrew word from which “nursing father” came is denoted H539 in Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary and it means:

A primitive root; properly to build up or support; to foster as a parent or nurse; figuratively to render (or be) firm or faithful, to trust or believe, to be permanent or quiet; morally to be true or certain; once (in Isa_30:21; by interchange for H541) to go to the right hand: - hence assurance, believe, bring up, establish, + fail, be faithful (of long continuance, stedfast, sure, surely, trusty, verified), nurse, (-ing father), (put), trust, turn to the right.

The term “nursing fathers” in the Isaiah 49:23 verse is the same, so the same kind of interpretations arise. They can be checked out right here.

So I think it is probably safe to say that the term “nursing father” is meant in a figurative sense, not literally after all - especially in light of the mother’s better biological equipping and the natural progression of hormonal changes stimulated by childbirth itself.
But the fundamentalist position might well propose that men really did feed their infants once upon a time. Is the fundamentalist right? Does the Bible really suggest that? You decide.

In the Job verse, you get some very intriguing variations on a theme.
The Job 21:24 quote is different again, and also quite interesting (well, to me anyway). Here is what happens to it - and note the male preposition so it is referring to the chaps:

Remember, in the KJV the words used are:
His breasts are full of milk, and his bones are moistened with marrow.

In the NIV the words used are:
His body well nourished, his bones rich with marrow.
Footnote: The meaning of the Hebrew for this word (body) is uncertain.

In the NASB the words used are:
His sides are filled out with fat, And the marrow of his bones is moist,

In the NKJV the words used are:
His pails are full of milk, And the marrow of his bones is moist
(For “pails” the Septuagint and Vulgate translations read bowels; Syriac translations read sides; Targum translations reads breasts.)

The Hebrew word from which “breasts” came is denoted H5845 in Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary and it means:

From an unused root meaning apparently to contain; a receptacle (for milk, that is, pail; figuratively breast): - breast.

So yet again, we are probably supposed to understand the use of that word is figurative rather than to take the literal meaning.
Or are we? Maybe not… if you are a fundamentalist - I don’t know.

So all you blokes who are looking on here, just what do you make of that?
Are you willing to try giving your wife a bit more of a hand in this special way, especially in the wee hours of the night, when the next new baby comes along?
After all, it would be very Biblical of you, you know.

Anyway, I believe I am not so much a fundamentalist (if that is a pure literalist) but more of an evangelical and very definitely a conservative as opposed to a liberal revisionist type.
We use a lot of terms in Christian circles - preterist, young earth creationist, calvinist, etc, etc.
I just think of myself as a Christian (and at least I know what I mean) and leave it at that. Labels both help and hinder us to understand each other. Really, I am a one off - myself. Er, whatever that is.

More information on Fundamentalism

The following beliefs were originally considered to be fundamental to Christianity:
~ Inerrancy of the Scriptures
~ The virgin birth and deity of Jesus
~ The doctrine of substitutionary atonement
~ The bodily resurrection of Jesus
~ The bodily second coming of Jesus Christ
Subscribe to the above and you are a Fundamentalist.

These days the term “fundamentalist” is often used as a perjorative for conservative “right-wing” Christians… another reason why I am not too keen on labels that detract from seeing the whole person with all their differences that make each person unique.

***sigh***