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The Skeptics’ Claims So Jacob arose, and set his sons and his wives on camels.—Genesis 31:17 Many biblical skeptics have claimed that camels in the Bible are anachronistic and portrayed in ways that are historically inaccurate. For example, a transcript of a National Public Radio show proclaims: "Camels as a means of transportation abound in the Old Testament. When Abraham sends a servant to look for a bride for his son Isaac, that servant chooses Rebecca. And why? Because of her kind …

The Role of Sacred Tradition in Early Christianity The first Christians didn’t learn their faith from the Bible because none of the books of the New Testament had been written yet. This is evident in Paul thanking the Corinthians for “maintain[ing] the traditions even as I have delivered them to you” (1 Cor. 11:2), and instructing his disciple Timothy,“what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2). Paul thanked the …

As the number of Christian books grew, so did the need for the Catholic Church to discern which were truly authoritative, which were merely helpful, and which were positively harmful. This resulted in a process that gradually clarified which books did and didn’t count as Scripture.The guiding principle for Christians was Jesus Christ himself, so the question became which books he would consider authoritative. Since he presented his ministry as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, this …

One evening I had the sad duty of attending my neighbor’s funeral. The assistant pastor from the church stood up and after a few remarks about the deceased began to give a sermon. The first ten minutes was dedicated to how he knew that my neighbor believed in Jesus and was in heaven, so there was no need to pray for her or offer Masses or anything like that. The next thirty minutes or so (it’s difficult to tell since it seemed like eternity) was dedicated to explaining why it doesn& …

The term word of God refers to God’s divine revelation to humanity, in which he reveals himself to us for the sake of our salvation. The Vatican II document Dei Verbum (DV) explains: Through divine revelation, God chose to show forth and communicate himself and the eternal decisions of his will regarding the salvation of men. That is to say, he chose to share with them those divine treasures which totally transcend the understanding of the human mind (6). Christians generally agree that the full …