July 2023 - St Paul Coptic Apologetics

Were the Catholic Epistles of Peter, James and John Forged?

Post published:24 July 2023
Post category:Bible Reliability
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New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman argues for the illiteracy of Peter, James and Jude, that would disable them to compose such lengthy, well-reasoned Greek texts, namely, the Catholic Epistles. For him, James was a later book that is intended to correct the misinterpretation of Pauline Epistles. Fr. Malaty sees that it is not excluded that Peter had some Greek knowledge as noticed that Andrew, Peter's brother, and Philip had Greek names. He also considers the role of the Holy Spirit who enables Peter to preach on the Pentecost, and to contend against the Jewish leaders. Regarding 1 Peter, Fr. Malaty states that the theology and the concepts of the epistle match Peter's preaching in Acts regarding God's judgment, Christ the cornerstone, and the Father who raised Christ from the dead. Moreover, he doesn't exclude the secretary hypothesis (i.e. that someone assisted St. Peter in writing the letter in…

Four Common Objections To Intelligent Design

Post published:20 July 2023
Post category:Evolution and Intelligent Design
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Many scientists object to Intelligent Design as a scientific alternative to Evolution. Here are four of these objections and replies to them. First, Intelligent Design is not scientific Intelligent Design is not a scientific alternative to Evolution because it leads to a “non-visible creator” which can’t be tested. Reply to First Objection: Intelligent Design is a valid scientific alternative because it is observable, repeatable, and falsifiable. A couple of criteria to validate Intelligent Design are irreducible complexity and specified complexity. If one throws scribbles of alphabetical letters and they follow a sequence, then that is a complicated sequence, but if that sequence results in a comprehensible essay, then it is specified complexity that is much more probably the result of Intelligent Design than undirected processes. In addition, Intelligent Design doesn’t have to point to one or many creators, visible or non visible. It simply points to design whenever…

Did God Desire Slavery in the Old Testament?

Post published:17 July 2023
Post category:Morality
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Christians often hear from non-Christians that there is violence, wars and slavery in the Old Testament, and therefore the Christian God is an angry God. However, is this really the case? Did God really desire slavery in the Old Testament? Let’s take a deeper look at slavery in the Old Testament. First of all, one should know the definition of slavery when discussing slavery in the Bible. The Cambridge Dictionary defines slavery as: ‘’The activity of legally owning other people who are forced to work for or obey you’’ (see https://dictionary.cambridge.org/). Slavery, practically, means that the slave is his master’s property. This will be important in the discussion later on. Slavery was something which occurred in both civilized and uncivilized societies, such as the Romans and the Greeks. More importantly, famous philosophers were pro-slavery. Aristotle (4th c. BC) was of the opinion that society consisted of two groups;…

When Does Human Life Start?

Post published:6 July 2023
Post category:Morality
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Some supporters of abortion argue that unborn babies are not human yet, and therefore abortion is not equivalent to killing an innocent human. Afterall, if fetuses are not human, then there is no issue with abortion. However, this argument is neither biologically nor morally correct. Life starts at the moment of conception, when a human egg is fertilized by a human sperm. They are combined together and a whole and full new human life is created. This is the miracle of life. This new human has a distinct new DNA (46 chromosomes) which is different from his/her parents and has his/her own features like, sex, hair, eye color, height and much more. Now let’s examine some objections by supporters of abortion. Objection: sperms and eggs also have human DNA and millions of them die, why is the baby different? Answer: sperms and eggs have 23 chromosomes, they are…

Misconceptions About The Christian Point of View on Abortion

Post published:3 July 2023
Post category:Morality
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There are a few misconceptions about the Christina point of view on abortion. In this article, we will address some of them. First misconception: The bible alludes to the opinion that life starts at first breath. In the Book of Genesis, it describes God’s creation of Adam “then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7) So that means that, up to birth, the fetus does not have a soul yet. Reply: That is not true, as we can see that the yet unborn St. John the Baptist leaped in his mother's womb when his mother, Elizabeth, met with St. Mary when she was pregnant with our Lord Jesus Christ (Luke 1:43-44). How can St. John do that if he was not alive then? Moreover,…