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The first Christians were Jewish, and were brought up to obey The Torah ("The Law"). Obeying the Law not only demonstrated love for one's neighbour, it showed love for God. "God said." was placed in front of a phrase, and it was immediately turned into a divine command, and the beginning of Christian ethics, as we know it to this day. The stories included in the Gospels involve Jesus demonstrating his approach to ethics. Jesus was non-judgemental, non-hypocritical and fair - "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her" (John 8:1). Christians aim to follow Jesus" example - their behaviour will reflect the example of compassion to others set by Jesus, they will seek to help the vulnerable, yet they will react against injustice (Jesus" Temple visit story). The Bible is written tradition - a key part of Christian ethics. The key point Jesus appears to be making is that the Law is best fulfilled by behaving with compassion towards the needy. Jesus replaced the entire body of the Torah with a single maxim, summing up the Law - "Treat others as you would have them treat you" (The Golden Rule). .
Written tradition is the ultimate authority and is static, yet requires interpretation. It is unambiguous, absolutist and transparent. A fundamentalist would believe that the Bible should be read literally, and therefore it contains the actual words of God. However, a liberal would believe that the Bible is allegorical and should be taken at "face value" and states general principles that should be interpreted and applied to the situation. For example, a fundamentalist could believe that the Creation Story should be taken literally, meaning that the World was created in 6 (24-hour) days. However, a liberal could well use a different interpretation for the term "day", on the basis that to create all things in the World, clearly was a longer task and therefore, a "day" could be longer than 24 hours.
