Abstract
What is fundamentalism? What do Christian, Islamic, and Jewish ""fundamentalists"" have in common that makes them worthy of this name? All three religions are ""religions of the book."" They all define themselves in terms of a religious text. But not all members of these religions can be called fundamentalists.
In this essay, I argue that fundamentalism is a way of reading a religious text. There are, I argue, four basic types of text: the religious, the legal, the informational and the literary.
Each specifies a distinct mode of reading and responding to the text. What distinguishes fundamentalism is its attempt to conflate these approaches in order to increase the ""staying power"" of its sacred text.