RADIOOctober 20, 2022

Is the FBI involved in this reporter's DISAPPEARANCE?

‘Emmy-winning producer James Gordon Meek had his home raided by the FBI. His colleagues says they haven’t seen him since,’ writes a recent Rolling Stone report about an American reporter’s mysterious disappearance. Though some details remain murky, in this clip, Glenn explains everything we know so far. This is something 'I've never seen before in America,' Glenn says, and it raises several PRESSING questions: Could the FBI possibly be involved in this? Where is Meek, and why have no friends or family publicly expressed concern? What was on his laptop, and why did one of his colleagues refuse to answer Rolling Stone’s questions…?

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Yeah, there's a couple of stories out that are quite disturbing. I think I'm going to start with this one and I want to read it verbatim. It's from Rolling Stone magazine, something I don't usually go to for all my facts and figures.

STU: Nor anything else.

GLENN: Or anything else. This is a really disturbing story and usually the Rolling Stone magazine is on the left. For them to bring this story to light is quite remarkable. A minute before 5:00 a.m. April 27, ABC news journalist James Gordon meek fired off a single tweet with a single word: Facts. The network's national security investigative producer was responding to a former CIA agent and they take that the Ukrainian military with assistant from the U.S. was thriving with Russian sources. This agent's tweet filled with acronyms indecipherable to the lay person like TTP, UW and EW, was itself a reply to a missive from Washington Post pentagon reporter who noted the wealth of information the U.S. military had gathered about Russian opts just by observing their combat strategy in real time. The interchange illustrated the interplay between the National Security community and those who cover it. And no one straddled both worlds quite like ABC news Meek. He was an Emmy winning deep dive journalist who was a former senior counter terrorism adviser and investigator for the house homeland security commission. His detractors within ABC, Meek was something of a military fan boy but his track record of exclusives was undeniable. Breaking the how tos of foiled terrorist plots in New York City and the army's cover up of the fratricidal death of private first class David Sherit in Iraq. A bomb shell that earned Meek a face to face meeting with President Obama. With nine years at ABC under his belt, a buzzy Hulu documentary poised for Emmy attention, and an upcoming book on the military's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the 52 year old journalist seemed to be at the height of his powers and the pinnacle of his profession. But outside his Arlington Virginia, apartment, a surreal scene was unfolding and his storied career was about to come crashing down. Meek's tweet marked the last time he posted on Twitter. The first thing Meek's neighbor, John Antonelli noticed that morning was a black utility vehicle with blacked out windows blocking traffic in both directions on Columbus Pike. It was just before dawn on that brisk April day and self described police vehicle historian Antonelli was about to grab a coffee at Starbucks before embarking on his daily three mile walk. He inched closer to get a better vantage and when he saw an olive green Lenco BearCat G2 an armored tactical vehicle often employed by the FBI among other law enforcement agencies, a few Arlington County cruisers surrounded the jaw dropping scene. But all of the other vehicles were unmarked, including the BearCat. Antonelli accounted at least ten heavily armed personnel in the group. None wore anything identifying which agency was conducting the raid. Just after ten minutes the operation inside the se in a Park apartment complex, a six story upscale building for D.C. professionals, was over. They didn't stick around. They took off pretty quickly and headed west toward Fairfax County. Most people seeing that green vehicle will think it's some sort of a tank, but I knew it was a Lenco BearCat. It's a vehicle design to jump out of so you do a raid in a quick amount of time and it can return fire if they're being fired upon. Multiple sources familiar with the matter say Meek was the target of an FBI raid at the sienna Park apartments where he had been living on the top floor for more than a decade. An FBI representative told Rolling Stone its agents were present at the morning of April 27 at that block, but they could not comment further due to an ongoing investigation. Meek has not been charged with a crime, but independent observers believe the raid was among the first and quite possibly the first to be carried out on a journalist by the Biden administration. A federal magistrate Judge in the Virginia eastern district court signed off on a search warrant that day before the raid. If the raid was for Meek's records U.S. deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco would have had to give her blessing, a new policy enacted last year prohibits federal a prosecutors from seizing journalist's documents. Any inception requires the deputy AG's approval. They said, to my knowledge, there hasn't been any case since January 2021. In the raid's aftermath, Meek has made himself scarce. Now that the first time, this story takes a turn now and I'm not sure what we're getting here. In the raid's after math Meek has made himself scarce. None of his Sienna Park neighbors with whom rolling stone spoke with, have seen him since. With his apartment now appearing to be vacant. Sienna Park management declined to confirm that their long time tenant was gone, citing privacy policies. Okay. Similarly, you know, several ABC news colleague whose are accustomed to unraveling mysteries and cracking investigative stories tell Rolling Stones they have no idea what happened to Meek. He just fell off the face of the earth. And when people are asked, no one knows the answer. ABC representatives tell Rolling Stone yeah, he resigned abruptly and he hasn't worked for us for month. Really? Sources familiar with the matter say federal agents allegedly found classified information on Meek's laptop during their raid. One investigative journalist who worked with Meet meek says it would be highly unusual for a reporter or a producer to keep any classified information on his computer. So now, what happened to him? He hasn't been seen since April. This story goes on to, I don't know, it just gets fuzzy at the end. Let me read you the last uh, last paragraph. It is unclear what story, if any, would have put Meek in the FBI crosshairs. Meek worked on extremely sensitive topics from high profile terrorists in America, and Americans held abroad and the exploits of Eric Prince, the founder of the military contractor Blackwater, in. In recent years some of Meek's highest profile reporting delved into an ambush by isos, left four American green berets dead. ABC adapted the story in a feature length documentary which debuted last year on Veterans Day on Hulu. Okay. Is anyone, A, do we live now in Russia? The FBI is completely and totally out of control. A Emmy award winning journalist tweets facts and then is whisked away into, we don't know if it's the FBI, into black vans where no one is wearing identification on their flack jacket. Now, this sticks out to me because last night I talked to one of the guys swept up by the FBI. Remember, the father of 11, he was on my show last night. And I said, you know, how did it happen? He said they were pounding on the doors, pounding on the windows. He said I opened the window to see what was going on. They had guns pointed at the front door. I went to the door and I said I'm opening the door now. I asked them for identification and the FBI guy pointed to his chest with a little velcro thing that said FBI and he said that's your identification. Now that's disturbing in the first place. But these guys didn't have any markings. Why? And where is this guy? And why isn't, why isn't the world of ABC on fire. Where are the journalists? If Donald Trump had anyone in a gray sedan, nut eve an black van, a gray sedan, an old one, from the 60s, and an old lady got out and said hey, I'm with the Trump administration and I just like to ask you about an article, they would have been screaming to high heaven. Now we have a FBI that is completely out of control. And they pick up a journalist in April. We're just hearing it about it now?

STU: That might be the most disturbing part of the story, the fact that a journalist could be taken out of their home in a raid by the government, and no one, no journalist reports it? No one's tweeting about it? There's no discussions for six months?

GLENN: Yeah. And by the way, his partner who worked with him on the documentary that they produced, he told Rolling Stone I'm a nut commenting on this story. And then hung up. This is not good, America. This is not good. The fear and the madness has got to stop. We must end it November 8 we must end it November 8. I don't think America, I don't know, I don't want mainstream media anymore so I don't know what everybody else is saying, I don't even listen to other talk radio shows, I don't listen to anything. I don't know what warnings you're getting elsewhere, but if you're not hearing an urgent warning on the loss of your country, our Bill of Rights, your freedom, and your economic freedom, you're listening to the wrong people. This is very disturbing and when we come back I'll try to tell you about the other story that I don't think even legally I can. It's a fun world, in a minute. Am I overreacting to these things? Am I looking at all of these pieces and at any time are you going Glenn, Glenn, Glenn relax.

STU: I don't think lot of people are feeling the same way you are.

GLENN: Okay.

STU: I do. Again, we don't know.

GLENN: Don't know the story.

STU: We might find out there's an explanation for this, there's an anecdote in there where one of his coworkers said he called me up and had all sorts of real problems in his life and had to pull out of the project.

GLENN: Which bothered me because it lead you to believe that he might be suicidal.

STU: Right. No, I know.

GLENN: That doesn't help that story.

STU: But it could be, that's true. But that's just one element of a million stories we've done over the past couple of months that make you think there are massive problems going on.

GLENN: Somebody disappears from April until October and you don't find a body and nobody is doing a man hunt? Nobody's even talking about this story. How is that possible.

STU: How is it possible? How is the media for forget the government actually doing it, which would be incredibly disturbing, but why, where are this guy's friends, this guy's associates, the people who he depended o who depended on him. Why weren't they out telling the story four or five months ago.

GLENN: Let me do the commercial here. It's American Financing. We are in, it's really weirds right now with an exception of inflation, when you look at the loan rate, we're about 5%. Historically, verify this, if you can, that's like a pretty low rate.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: If you go back 40 years, 30 years, that's a low rate. So we are historically at a really pretty good rate. Average, maybe six percent, seven percent, but we're looking at 5% and going this is insane. No. The world went insane after the crash in 08. The world went insane. That wasn't normal. Now, the extra whammy is how much you have to pay for everything because of inflation. American Financial is there to help you. If you are trying to buy a new house, they can help you get the best loan. If you are struggling your credit cards they may be able to help you. Please call them for a financial review, it's free, it's no strings attached. It will take you about ten minutes. American Financing,800 906 2440 AmericanFinancing.net. Ten second station ID. >> This is the Blaze Radio Network. Listen at home, at work, and in the car. Find out how at the blaze.com/radio.

GLENN: Welcome to the this is amazing. Simon Schuster, I'm just reading this some more. He co authored Americans Who Undertook One Last Mission: An Honored Promise in Afghanistan, when he coauthored with lieutenant Scott Mann, a retired green beret. Meek even featured a picture of the soon published book in his bio on social media. Post April 27, the book jacket photo disappeared from his bio and Simon Schuster scrubbed his name from all of the press materials. The first sentence of the jacket previously read in April, ABC news correspondent James Gordon not got an urgent call from a special forces op rater serving overseas. Now it says in April an urgent call was made from a special forces operation serving overseas. Why is he being erased? Why is he being erased? Welcome to 1982, gang. Back in a minute. >> The Glenn Beck Program.

GLENN: Every day is different. Every day is like, every week is like a decade. It's moving so quickly and I just want you to know that we're going to be fine and there are things that you can do and we can do that are really important. One of the things you is to have people watching your back while you're busy doing things. On line, no one can prevent identity theft but it is a real problem especially if we're getting into a digital war with somebody like rush a. Life lick log protect what's yours save 25%, life lock dot com, Life Lock.com promo code Beck or 1 800 LifeLock 1 800 LifeLock, promo code Beck at LifeLock.com.

STU: All the best election coverage at blaze TV dot com/Glenn use the promo code Glenn to save yourself 10 bucks. >> This is the Blaze Radio Network, truth lives here.

GLENN: Welcome to the Glenn program. My staff is reaching out to the FCC to have a conversation about something that I will, I will delay a day and see what, see what my team I need to tell you this story, but I don't think legally I can and I want to, I want you to hear the story the gloves have to come off and I think our attorneys and the FCC need to be involved before I move forward. If not, well then we'll tell you the story in another way. But the gloves need to come off and I want some answers. So we'll get to the second story I was telling you that I'm not sure I can tell you on the air, we'll give you an update hopefully tomorrow maybe tomorrow we'll tell you the story.

STU: A weird time to do a radio show.

GLENN: I've never dealt with this.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: You've been in it for 22 years, 24?

STU: 24.

GLENN: 24 years? I've been doing this for 45. Nothing like this ever. Ever. People need to understand that. When you listen to people like Joe Rogan or Dave ruin or any really good podcasters, that podcast. They haven't seen broadcast. So they don't know the standards that we've always had to live up to and they were without question. We never even got close to the those things. You never had when you have media experience and you're not one of the club or the cult, when you have that and you see how much things have changed and I mean, it's remarkable. And how fast it is changing. We are talking about this story from Rolling Stone and Stu and I were talking about it off the air and I think we should talk about it more. ABC news producer's home raided by FBI. This is from the Rolling Stone. Why is this only in the Rolling Stone. Emmy award winning producer James Gordon Meek had his home raided by the FBI, this is back in April. Colleagues say they haven't seen him since. The neighbors haven't seen him since. His home is now just vacant. It rooks like it's empty. What happened? Where is he? Is there a missing persons report out on him? Is there anybody in his life? Why doesn't the story quote anyone from his family? Now, maybe, maybe because you know, the one guy he was his director and producer on a film that they were working on that they won the Emmy for, when Rolling Stone contacted him about hey, where is he? What happened? Was I'm not commenting on this story and hung up the phone his colleagues, investigative journalists at ABC, have no idea what happened to him. He was just picked up at 5:00 in the morning after he tweeted Facts, that was his last tweet, and then gone. Now, in reading the story, and I can't explain this other than a feeling because the story kind of changes halfway through. It makes this incredible charge. Now, either Rolling Stone, which is possible, Rolling Stone has something and they're hyping it up, but why would they do that? So they're making it look like this is something cloak and dagger, you know, the FBI, that maybe because they don't like the FBI? Good. Stand in line. Maybe it's because that the way that doesn't make sense in today's world where journalists are supposed to love the FBI.

STU: Certainly Rolling Stone is left wing, but they also have, they have a strain of, I don't know, the intercept; right? A sort of anti

GLENN: Military.

STU: Military, anti law enforcement strain to their reporting that you could see them being critical even when a democrat is in office. We should also point out, to be fair, Rolling Stone does not have the best record when it comes to telling factual stories.

GLENN: True, true.

STU: They have had massive payouts they've had to make. If I remember right they were one of the ones, weren't they the Virginia case

GLENN: Yeah, they were.

STU: Where they basically a

GLENN: Accused this teen of rape.

STU: Accused of rape and it was a big scandal and then the whole thing fell apart.

GLENN: Correct.

STU: So they've had many, many issues over the years.

GLENN: Okay. But here's the thing. In the first part of the story they make it, they lead you to believe that he's gone. He's just gone. Nobody's seen him. I mean, they say that. Nobody has seen him. No one knows where he is. The last time anyone saw him way the morning of the FBI raid. This is in April. But then the next paragraph in the raid's aftermath, Meek has made himself scarce. Now that not making yourself scarce.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: That means you've made yourself invisible. You've fallen off the map.

STU: I think the accusation is that he didn't make himself anything. The point is he was made by outside forces to be invisible.

GLENN: Correct. So but that bothers me. That sentence bothers me because that says the reporter is either reaching and doesn't really have everything but enough for the story to be printed, but the editor comes in and says wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. You can't say they took him and he disappeared because do you know that? Well, no. Okay. I need you to soften this up because then for a couple of paragraphs it kind of, kind of softens it up. Nowhere does it say they did anything to him the one colleague that co wrote a book and was the co writer of this book, the guy who's had that now handed to him and Meeks' name is completely off the book and he's been entirely taken out, for what? What ha reason? What reason? He's the one who says yeah, he called me and he was just distraught and said I can't work on the book anymore. I said I understand, okay.

STU: That would be the reason; right? In theory, if you believe the narrative of the story that he's saying that I mean, like the alternate theory here would be that this guy just has massive problems going on, maybe his people around him don't want to talk about it because again I'm just throwing this stuff out there, he's in rehab or he's having emotional problems, or some sort of physical ailment. That doesn't line up with the fact that this all seems to have happened after the FBI raid. That the part of it

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: If there was no FBI raid you might say why is this guy missing, we don't have any answers.

GLENN: If I were the editor, I would be asking is there a missing person's report out on him? Has anybody filed a missing persons? This guy can't be a guy that can just disappear and has no friend that says hey, you know, I'm really concerned with him. We haven't seen him since April. He hasn't tweeted, he hasn't done anything since April. You know, if you're a good friend of his or a family member, and you think that he's having some issues, you are even stronger on that.

STU: Yeah. And they don't have family members quoted in there.

GLENN: They have no family members.

STU: They're not saying hey, we're looking for him too, we don't know. It's co workers and co works, it's possible, certainly this day and age where everyone's working at home, may not see a co worker for a long period of time. You'd think they wouldn't write the story, though, if they did not have an indication. If they knew ten minutes after they write it that one of their family members is saying I just saw him at lunch yesterday, You've got to have some sort of confirmation.

GLENN: He's not in New York, have you looked at his home town?

STU: Right.

GLENN: You know what I mean?

STU: Yeah. He just took different job. He's been working at talk y bell for the past six months.

GLENN: That would be like you saying I was here one day, it was the summer, Glenn just disappeared for months. He's been gone since June and it's August. Yeah, I'm up in the mountains.

STU: He's at the ranch.

GLENN: He's at the ranch, right.

GLENN: You can't do that.

STU: Right. They don't, I assume they want to avoid looking that dumb today if a family member is like hey, here he is, we swam in the pool yesterday. You want to have some belief in the media, I guess. I think what's more shocking here, we're picking apart this report, but why weren't these people asking questions about their friend, about their co worker? Where were the reporters where they can write about every rumor about Donald Trump, they can accuse him of being a Russian asset for five years but they don't have any interest in their own friend and his whereabouts? That kind of weird, is tent?

GLENN: Mmhm. That's why I started this hour with never seen this in America before. I've never seen this in America. This is what you expect in a banana republic. This is what you expect government to do in Russia. And the idea again he had classified I don't think on his laptop. He's a journalist, he's protected by law and they recently reinforced that law by saying if it's a journalist laptop you have to have the assistant AG to sign off on that warrant. The AG didn't. So how, how is that even, how does that square with the story? Why did they conduct the raid with the roomers they were looking for some classified information. You can't conduct the raid for that on a journalist. You've broken the law. The good news is the FBI's looking into it. As soon as they get those pro life clinic bombers they'll be on this one.

Why Biden's Corrupt Pardons CANNOT Stand... And Why it STILL Matters!

A new wave of sweeping “pardons” has triggered one of the most urgent constitutional alarms Glenn Beck has ever raised — not because the individuals involved are controversial, but because the actions themselves may not even qualify as pardons at all. Glenn Beck breaks down how these broad, immunity-style declarations can bypass investigations, rewrite laws by fiat, and push executive power into territory the Founders explicitly warned against. With mass clemency increasingly used as a political shield and executive actions replacing the legislative process, America is drifting toward a model of governance that no longer resembles a constitutional republic. This episode exposes how the pardon power is being stretched beyond recognition, why Congress has surrendered its role as a check, and what must happen before the nation crosses a point of no return. The question now is unavoidable: Who will stop this before the Constitution becomes optional?

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

CALLER: I wanted to talk about the pardons. Hunter's pardon was legitimate. He was actually accused of a crime. I know you're plugged in with the president. I haven't heard anybody say this anywhere. I have been watching everything.

These pardons. Forget the auto-pen. The auto-pen doesn't even matter. Because these were immunity deals. These were not pardons. None of these people were under investigation. None of these people had any crimes they were accused of.

So you can't pardon somebody for something they may have or may not have done. That's an immunity deal.

Again, I've watched everything. I don't hear anybody bring that stuff -- I don't think the auto-pen matters. I just think those things are null and void from the jump.

GLENN: Who --

CALLER: Like I said.

GLENN: Who do we have besides Mike Lee? Because Mike is always hard to get a hold of at this time. He's like, I'm working on Senate stuff, Glenn.

Who do we have that is a Constitutional scholar that we can call real quick, and see if we can get an answer on that before the end of the show? At least put a call out to Mike Lee, will you?

But I would like to know that happen at that. Because the president has. And Stu and I have talked about this for a while. This has gotten out of control. These pardons are out of control. Out of control.

It's something Constitutional. It's been there since George Washington. The President has always had this right, and it's a privilege of his. But you're right.

These things where, wait. I can't investigate this? What that does is if you're as a president doing something that you shouldn't be doing, all you have to do then is say, I pardon everyone in my administration for anything that they might have done wrong.

That can't stand. You're absolutely right on that.

STU: Yeah. You have the immunity deal. Which again, I think is -- I don't see -- I don't see how a pre-pardon is even possibly covered.
Like, it's just such an insane concept.

The way that Biden. He's right that Hunter Biden actually committed a crime and pardoning him from that in theory, obviously, outside the family interest was the way that that was supposed to work.

But they also pardoned him for multiple years of question marks, whether he committed crimes or not. Right? That was all included on that.

To go a step farther on this, I am on a bit of a personal jihad against the pardon. I'm done with it. I'm done with it personally. There's reasons the Founders were very, very smart. But the Founders were smart enough to also have a process for Constitutional amendments. And I would support one, getting rid of the part in power completely. I'm done with it.

GLENN: Wait, may I just interrupt for a second. I just want to point out. We now have verification, not only is Stu a Canadian spy, but he's also a hidden Nazi. Noticed the word he used, jihad, which translates to my struggle. Hitler's book, My Struggle, Mein Kampf. I just want to point it out.

JASON: Exposed.

STU: Just to be clear, I'm not planning a genocide on the power of pardons.

But I'm against it, strongly. But the other part I would say that I think is every worse and is never discussed, are these types of pardons where they say, you know, all marijuana crimes. They're -- everyone -- there are 17,000 people.

That is just you legislating. If I wanted to New Jersey and say, hey.

I think marijuana should be legal. I could theoretically be president.

Saying, everyone convicted of a marijuana-related crime is now pardoned.

And that's just you making laws. It's you going completely around Congress. And the entire process we have there.

At the very least. It should be massively restricted from the way it's being utilized. Not only -- several presidents in a row, I would argue.

But it's -- it should just -- I think it should just go away completely. It's the most king-like power the president has. And it doesn't make any sense to me.

GLENN: Yes. Yes.

So I'm looking this up here.

Barack Obama did this.

He gave clemency for anybody who was convicted of a non-violent federal drug crime.

With no significant criminal history, while serving extraordinarily long sentences. And anybody who was a violent offender was not eligible.

And it was -- it wasn't a -- a true mass pardon. But it was pretty close to it. You know, it was -- it was mass in scale, but not blanketed.

STU: Right.

GLENN: And I think there were like 2,000 people that he parted on that.

STU: It was a law. Creating a new law.

GLENN: Yeah. You're saying, oh, by the way. That law that I personally disagree with.

We're not going to -- it's gone.

STU: The whole law doesn't count at him. We have a whole process to make laws. When someone -- when they pass a law, you can't say, eh. And shrug your shoulders. And say, I don't particularly like it.

And for some reason, that's the way the pardon power has been translated.

GLENN: The problem is the President can. The President has just always had the restraint not to do that.

STU: Right.

GLENN: Because it was bad for the country. And bad for laws.

You know, you don't just -- you don't do this. We're becoming more and more of a king. In our administration.

And it's not Donald Trump.

This has been about to go for a long time.

Barack Obama I think got really, really bad.

But this was going on before him. Obviously.

But Barack Obama kind of set something off.

And then because we couldn't get any legislation passed. We had Donald Trump try to do executive orders, to combat Barack Obama's executive orders.

Then Biden did it. And Trump. It's got to stop.

Because here's the problem. One of the things I said in our special on Wednesday.

Which was, biggest stories of the year.

And predictions for next year. I said, you will start to see rolling brownouts in places like Texas in 2026. Texans, wake up. Wake up.

But you're going to start to see rolling brownouts. But I also made another prediction. And I've just lost what I was going to say was the prediction.

Oh!

This massive swing. We're getting whiplash.

You can't -- you can't run a country like this.

You can't run a country where it's all being done by executive order.

Because look, we were all the way over to one side. When Trump was here. Then we swung way farther than that. With Biden.

Now Trump is bringing us back this way. If you don't pass laws, it's just going to swing.

And you can't -- you can't run a country like that.

This has got to stop!

We have to pass laws. Congress must do its job.

Why the Australia beach shooting should terrify EVERYONE

Two shooters opened fire on Bondi beach at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration. Glenn Beck reacts to this horiffic act of evil and also to the heroic act of a man who tackled one of the shooters.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So let me just cover the headlines really quickly: Brown University, yesterday, there was a shooter. Two are dead. The only one that has been named so far is the Republican Club Vice President Alec Cook. There have been nine that have been injured. They thought they had the shooter. But turns out, it's not him. He has been released. And there's just some questions on this one that are weird.

Also, al-Qaeda struck and killed US soldiers over the weekend in Syria. There will be a military response to that, I am sure. And yesterday -- yesterday, on the beach, Sydney's eastern suburbs. Sydney, Australia, it's summer there. There's locals. There are people that are coming from all over the country, all over the world, for the warmth of summer and the community celebration of the first night of Hanukkah. The rest of the world is the darkest days of winter. On the other side of the globe, it is still sunlight because it is in the middle of sunlight. But it was a dark, dark day yesterday despite the sun being up.

There were families with children. They were chasing the waves. The smell of grilled food that was drifting across the sand. Music, conversation, laughter in the air. And then around 7 o'clock, laughter was replaced with screams of terror. Two men dressed in black and armed with high-powered firearms positioned themselves atop a small concrete pedestrian bridge. It arched over the Campbell parade near the Bondi pavilion. They stood on top in the center of this bridge and rained bullets as they fired into the crowd. Shots rang out. Astonished the crowd.

VOICE: Get down. Get down. Boys, get down. Oh, my God.

GLENN: It just went on and on and on. Thousands had been gathered for Hanukkah by the Sea. They're now ducking for cover. Some trying to push children to safety, others frozen in disbelief as friends and strangers alike fell all around them.

The carnage was unbelievable. For ten minutes, these guys fired off this bridge. The beach, usually alive with surfers and sun seekers, just transformed instantly. Bodies were trampled. Frantic dash for some sort of shelter and protection, as the waves just continued to lap innocently at the shore while people were screaming for help.

Now, in the chaos, there were acts of individual courage. A fruit vendor, later named by the media as Ahmed al-Ahmed. He saw one of the gunmen firing his weapon. And in a moment of pure resolve, he vaulted from behind a nearby car, tackled the shooter from behind, and wrestled the rifle away. It was an unbelievable scene. Witnesses say -- and it was all captured on tape. There he is. Witnesses say, his bravery likely saved countless lives.

Police arrived, they started shooting at him. They shot at the two that were up on the bridge. They wounded both of them.

15 people had been killed by the time it was over. Dozens wounded. Young children to the elderly. Cherished members of the Jewish community, including Rabbi Eli Schlanger, a British-born assistant rabbi. He helped organize Hanukkah by the Sea.

The beach won't be looked at the same ever again. As the suspects went down, people from Australia just ran up on to the bridge.

And what I thought was an amazing, amazing moment that spoke volumes of our culture! The police were on top of these men, trying to administer care to keep them alive. While citizens, understandably, came up on the bridge and just started kicking them.
Police jumped on those people and pushed them away. And said, stop, stop, stop. And they did.

Because we're not a culture of death. First suspect, 50 year old, Sajid Akram, 50 years old. He's a dad. The second suspect is his 24-year-old son. Both in critical condition. Now in the hospital under police guard.

Let me ask you to imagine just for a minute, what it must feel like to be Jewish today. Not in theory. Because we -- we had an incident stopped in Amsterdam over the weekend, in Germany over the weekend, in LA, somebody, a drive-by just shot at a Jewish home with the Hanukkah candles in the window, screaming, "F the Jews." You want to know what -- you want to chant, "Bring the Intifada here," this is what it looks like.

It is here now. So what does it feel like to be Jewish today?

I don't know. I can't relate. But I want you to imagine, not as a talking point. But in quiet moments, when the phone would light up with another alert, another headline, another synagogue guarded by concrete barriers, armed police.

There's a particular fear that comes with memory. Jewish people carry history. Not as abstraction, but as inheritance. And it lives in names that are whispered at dinner tables, and photographs rescued from ash. And stories that begin with, "And we thought it would never happen here."

Europe told itself, that very thing once. So did Germany. So did France. So did polite society, everywhere, right before it happened.

And the world has been saying that for decades now. It would never happen here. And here we are again. And here we are, the worst we've seen in America.

Shadows that all of us hoped were buried forever. Hatred with organization, ideology. Hatred with teeth. Violence. Justification.

They're no longer whispers. They're shouting it now in our streets. They're shouting it in the streets of Australia. They're shouting it in the streets of Germany. And England and France. And Norway. They're burning flags. They're firing guns. They're chanting not only death to the Jew, but death to the West, death to Canada, death to the US. Death to Europe. This is no longer confined to the margins anymore. And the West is tolerating it. The west has explained it away. We have minimalized it. We have said it was a lone wolf. Sometimes we even excuse it.

Just for the day, let's just stop and look at Australia for a minute. For years, Jewish communities are warned the officials.

Anti-Semitism isn't theoretical. It's here. We're living it. We're seeing it. It's not just graffiti or angry words.

It's metastasizing into something ideological and organized and deadly. And in Australia, the officials told them, calm down.
Trust the institutions. We've got it.

Somehow or another, multi-cultural harmony would manage itself, but it didn't. Because it doesn't.

Ideology doesn't dissolve when it's ignored. It consolidates. It grows he has and it has across the Western world entirely. Europe, Britain, Australia. Canada. The United States. It's the same pattern!

Violent anti-Semitism rising Jewish schools like fortresses. Your families wondering whether visibility itself is now a liability.

And yet, all across the West, officials hesitate, to name the problem. Clearly!

So let me do it. Precisely. Precisely.

Truthfully.

Islamism.

Islamists. Not Islam. Not Muslim. If you're a Muslim, you want to live peacefully, worship freely. Raise children. Continue to, you know, live and contribute to a society. You know, and you're not an enemy of the West. I'm totally good with that. Look at the fruit cart guy. He apparently didn't hate Jews. He wasn't part of the culture of death.

He stopped it.

And millions do that every single day. But Islamism, Islamists, that's something entirely different.

Islamism is a political ideology.

It's not about faith. It is about power.

It's the belief that society has to be governed by religious law. Sharia law.

That freedom of conscience is illegitimate. That women are subordinate, that dissent is heresy, and that the world and everything in it has to submit. And it's very clear about all of this. It writes it down. It teaches it. It shouts it from the public square. For the love of Pete, it's everywhere. It chants it. It doesn't hide its ambitions. It doesn't hide behind anything. But here's what it doesn't do: It doesn't co-exist with open societies.

It replaces them and has been replacing open societies for centuries.

Any culture built on individual liberty, freedom of speech, equality before the law, it can't survive alongside an ideology that views all of those principles as sins or as an affront to Allah! In that scenario, one side must yield, or one side will be destroyed!

And history is very clear on which one does. You know, we're very different people. Even the difference between us and Canada. And us and Europe.

It might be seemingly starved. It might be we're very different. But when you look at us as a civilization, we're very different. Together, we're very different from the rest of the world.

We don't understand these things. Because we project our values, on everybody else.

We assume that everybody ultimately wants to live. And to compromise. Live side by side. We assume violence is accidental. We assume that it's a lone wolf. We assume that words like to do and dialogue mean the same thing to everybody.

But they don't! And so we tolerate politicians and newscasters and everything else that explain things away. They explain the stabbings and the truck attacks and the shootings and the riots. It's isolated incidents. They're not! We talk about finding the root cause. But we won't -- we won't name the root itself!

We call it extremism, as though it sprang out of nowhere, as though it was a weather event, instead of a worldview that's been around for centuries! I ask you to think about what it feels like to be Jewish today because of the Jewish people.
But also because, you're next. Jewish communities always pay the price first.

They always do. And believe me, you're on the list. You!

Your freedom. Your children are on the list!

And history shows this, with brutal consistency.

When a society begins to rot, from ideological cowardice.

The Jews are always the early-warning system.

They're the canary in the coal mine.

When they're targeted openly. And the state responds with hesitation.

That society is already sick and in the hospital.

It's already in trouble.

And make in mistakes.

The science is not far away.

It is already here.

Synagogues attached. Jewish students harassed on campus. Jewish neighborhoods guarded like war zones. Public celebrations requiring armed protection now. This is not normal, and it's not sustainable. And the West likes to believe and understands freedom.

But freedom is not a five! It's not a comfort. It's not the absence of conflict. Freedom is costly! And it requires moral clarity, and it requires the courage to draw a line and say, this doesn't belong here! And if we refuse to do that work now, our children will have to do it later under far worse conditions! They will have to fight, not to preserve freedom, but to recover it. And history always shows, that's much more costly. America, you're closer than you think to losing not only our country, but countries that took centuries to build!

Not through invasion. But through erosion. Through silence. Through the polite refusal to speak uncomfortable truths.

If not you, who?

If not now, when?

You're running out of time.

"You're being PLAYED": Glenn Beck exposes the TRUTH about Illinois' new MAiD program

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has signed a bill legalizing "medical assistance in dying" (MAiD) for certain terminally ill patients. Glenn Beck rages against this "culture of death" that is sweeping America, even after it ravaged Canada.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So JB Pritzker in Illinois signed into law a bill on Friday, that will allow doctors in Illinois to prescribe the deaths of their own patients. First, do no harm. I'm having a hard time with that, doctors. Maybe you can tell us how you're getting around this. First, do no harm.

That is a very important concept, that our doctors are to buy into. And that we all believe.

First, do no harm. If you don't have that, all kinds of things can follow. Especially when they're couched with compassion.

And that is exactly what this is always couched in. Compassion.

Okay. So this new law goes into effect in September of next year. Terminally ill patients over the age of 18 are going to be able to get a suicide drug from their doctor. This is the 12th state in the country, that is allowing assisted suicide. And there are about 25 others that are standing in line for it. What a surprise.

Illinois is the -- is the one -- the first of this -- this batch of them coming in to say, I want to kill people!

It is a culture of death. And we are -- that's what we are battling. No matter what anybody tells you, we're not battling the Republicans or the Democrats.

It's not politics.

It's not Marxism.

It is a culture of death, that we're battling. It is evil. It is evil. A culture of death.

When you look at -- when you look at what people are saying about global warming, what is the solution?

Fewer people. How do you do that? Well, culture of death takes care of that. Right?

When you look at -- when you look at, you know, just about anything now, health care, abortion, culture of death.

Islam, culture of death. Marxism, honestly, it is a culture of death. Why would I say that know.

Well, because it eliminates people who disagree with it. And first, it just pushes them off the sidelines.

But eventually it ends in camps. But also, look what's being taught to our kids. They are killing themselves, because they're so depressed. Because it has no meaning. It completely rejects the you human aspect of humanity.

Culture of death. That's really what we're fighting. Make no mistake.

Now, Illinois and Pritzker, they're saying, well, no. No, no, no. This is going to be -- we're going to be very, very careful. You have to have two doctors. Okay. That's good. That's good.

Germany had three doctors, to give you permission. You're not even up the line of Nazi Germany, but congratulations on that. And they have to be diagnosed with having six months or less to live.

Okay. Okay.

I want you to know, Illinois, America, Western world, you're being played. This is not compassion.

I'm going to be real clear with you.

This is preparation for when the system can no longer afford to fulfill its promises, that's what this is.

They are preparing the system to be able to have the way out. And they're preparing you, so you look at this as compassion and so when it gets worse and worse, up until the very end, you don't recognize it. I mean, they're beginning to a little bit in Canada, to see what's coming their way. And why is it happening? Because they can no longer afford socialized medicine. They can't afford to fulfill the promises.

Let me just say, can America afford to fulfill its promise, that it's made for generations on all of this socialized everything?

No. In fact, there are people now, trying to double down. We can't afford anything. They're trying to double down and expand those programs, which will only collapse us faster.

When they collapse, you know, nobody likes. Well, rich people can get surgery. And as I've said to you before, I don't like that either. I really don't like that. But how else do you do it? How else do you do it? Well, we have a committee. And we -- we ration things. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Here's where you're not going to like that. You're not going to like that, because that's not the way humans work. When they ration things, either people with money or the people with power, always find a way to short-circuit so they can get to the top.

So the one that you're saying now is the poor, helpless waif that's not getting anything because of the rich people, when the system changes, that poor lonely waif is still not going to get any help because the powerful, the ones that are connected, they'll get the medical care, and the waif won't get medical care. People will find a way to short-circuit the system because people generally suck.

And when you give all the power to people, it's not good. It's usually not good. So you may not like the, you know, pay for it kind of system, but it is the best one out there. And you really don't want to give a bureaucracy the -- the ability to kill you if you become expensive or inconvenient.

Now, I know that's not what they're saying. That's not what we're doing. We're giving people out of compassion, help them end their lives. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That's exactly what happened in Canada. Let me just tell you. It was called C14. Let me just look up the facts here. C14 in Canada. It happened in 2016.

And it -- what it -- what it meant was, you could get compassionate care, if you had doctors. Three doctors approved.

You had a terminal, I don't remember what they called it.

But basically, you could see the end in sight. Okay?

There was -- there was no way for us to repair your body and heal you.

So we could see that.

Basically, you know, you were terminal.

We could see that.

In the future. Near future.

And three doctors agreed.

And then you had a waiting period after you requested it, the doctors would approve.

And then there were ten days, before you would administer. Ten days before you would back out.

That's what it started as, okay?

That's not what it's become. 2016, that's what it was. And you had to be 18 years or older.

And you had to have full capacity. So you couldn't listen to, you know, friends or family.

You had to make the decision. And you needed full capacity.

Okay.
Then things started to fall apart.

Then we had COVID. Then we had all these expenses. Then we had people move into the country.

This is Canada. Same thing happened here. COVID. Hospitals are overwhelmed.

Medical care goes to hell.

And then you start bringing in people from all over the world.

And now you don't have hospital care. Everybody is crowded. The doctors are overwhelmed.
And so in 2021, they decided the Quebec court decided, well, you know, death in the foreseeable future. Is that really necessary?

Excuse me?

I mean -- I mean, the reasonable foreseeable natural death requirement. Do we really need that?

The court said, no, we really don't.

There are two tracks! Those who have natural death in the foreseeable future. We're going to make it a little easier for them. So beyond the request, the three doctors and the ten-day waiting period. We're going to get rid of some of that because it's not necessary.

I mean, if you're in the reasonably foreseeable future, you don't need all those safeguards. And then people whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable. Well, we're going to make them do all of those things. Oh, okay.

And, by the way, we're removing the ten-day waiting period too. Once the doctor says, you're good, you're good.

Okay. All right.

That wasn't far enough. Now, they have a new bill, C7.

Canada bill seven.

When they -- when that removed the foreseeable requirement, they added a temporary exclusion for people whose sole medical condition was a mental disorder.

Oh, wow. So now we're into mental illness.

So your death isn't in the foreseeable future.

But you really want to die.

So does this apply to mental.

People with mental problems?

Oh, no, no, no. No. We're not going to ban it. We're just going to put a temporary ban on that one?

Why would you put a temporary ban on that?

Why would you put a temporary ban on something like that?

Let me give you the answer and you tell you what else it's done and bring it home for you here in just a second.

Okay. So why would you -- why would you remove the restriction on the mentally ill?

Remember, the first thing was -- the first thing was, you've got to be -- you've got to be fully there.

You have to be competent and aware of what you're doing.

Then they said, well, the foreseeable future thing.

Your death is inevitable. We're going to take that away.

But we're going to put a temporary restriction on mental illness.

The only reason why you would make that a temporary restriction, is because you're just trying to get the rest of the society to catch up with what you're going to do.

That's the only reason.

And that's why, it has been extended.

Okay?

It was supposed to end in 2023.

Then it was extended to March 2024.

And now, it has been pushed to 2027.

Okay?

So you're not eligible for MAID until March 2027, if you have a mental illness.

Hmm.

Huh! Now, they may push it forward again, to give it more time to convince everybody that that's what they have to do.

And how do you convince people?

Well, you convince people, because there's shortages and be that person doesn't have the capability to think they're mentally ill. They might want to tie. They're very, very depressed. They're very depressed, and so they want to die anyway.

They want to die. I need the doctor. Okay?

That's what's going to happen. That's what's going to happen.

Unless we remember who we are. Unless all of a sudden, we -- we're like, you know what, that's -- you know, that's not who we are.

That's not the West. The West is not defined by its technology.

Even by its freedom or its wealth.

Everybody thinks, oh, the West. They're wealthy.

No. That's not it.

What makes us unique in the West. The entire West Canada, included. All of Europe. This radical idea that the individual has inherent value.

That nobody is expendable.

And not because they're useful, not because they're productive, not because they're convenient.
They have an inherent right to exist, to live.
If you look at the past, you look at Athens and Rome.
Oh. I mean, they just put you -- you this put babies that were not boys, that were girls. Where they were deforming.

They throw them on a garbage barge. These barges would go down the river. With screaming babies on them. They just let them die, okay?

That's the way it does. But West through Judeo Christian ethics taught us, that's not right!

And we build hospitals before skyscrapers.

We put limits on -- on force. We teach doctors to heal. Not to calculate.

When a society like ours stops choosing life, it does not become more compassion.

It becomes more efficient. Not compassionate! Efficient!

And efficiency has never given birth 20 moral virtue.

Efficiency kills it. If that's your goal. It kills it.

Fighting this culture of death, it is the most important thing we can focus on.

A lot of people will focus on politics and everything else.

And what JB Pritzker is doing here, there, and everywhere else.

I don't even care about politics.

We have to convince one another, we have to start standing up for the principles that made the West, the West.

Because without the choice to protect life at its most fragile, we are no longer a civilization worth saving! We're just another system deciding, eh, I don't know, is that worth the trouble? And history is very clear where that society ends. That's why, last week, to me, it was so personal, and so important.

To help this woman, not just because it's the right thing to do. And because every life matters. And this happened to be a life that came across my path.

And I'm like, we've got to stop that! But because, this goes to something bigger! And it is infecting us right now. And if we buy the lies, that this is for compassion. Look! I understand. I understand pain. I understand end of life. I don't want to be in that situation.

I know, you don't want to be.

I mean, I know what it feels like with my dog, putting my dog down. It kills me. It kills me to put my dog down. So I get it on the dog level, let alone, you know, a parent level or a spouse level. I get it.

But you cannot as a society go down this road. Because once you open this door, all the other doors just start to swing open. When there's trouble!
The first sign of shortage, all those doors open up. And guess what we're headed for. Shortages.

Lee Strobel: We got this WRONG about the Christmas story

Renowned Christian author Lee Strobel joins Glenn Beck this Christmas season to discuss the new updated version of his book, "The Case for Christmas." Plus, he dives into the REAL history and facts about the nativity story, including some parts we may have gotten wrong...

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Lee, welcome to the program. How are you?

LEE: I'm doing great, Glenn. Great to be with you again.

GLENN: Yeah. I love talking to you. I'm really excited to hear the case for Christmas. Now, you were an atheist?

LEE: Yes.

GLENN: And we've talked about this before. Your eyes opened up. And how did you get to the place to where you're like, okay. Let me see if I can make the case for the baby Jesus in the manger?

LEE: Well, yeah, being an atheist. My wife became a Christian. So I decided to try to rescue her from this cult that she had gotten involved in. So that launched me on to an investigation into the historical reliability of Christianity.

I did it that for two years, until I became convinced that in light of the evidence, it would take more faith to become a Christian. So I became a Christian, ended up believing journalism and so forth.
GLENN: Amazing.

LEE: And written many books about it. But I wanted to do a book on Christmas. Because in the Christmas season, there seems to be a more spiritual openness, than any other time of the year.

GLENN: Yeah.

LEE: Even when I was an atheist, I felt more spiritually sensitive during the time of Christmas. I don't know why. I guess because it permeates the culture.

GLENN: Yeah. I think it's because we see hope. We see goodness in one another.

LEE: Yeah.

GLENN: It's different.

LEE: Yes. Exactly. But how do we know if it's based on reality?

How do we know? We can all enjoy the parties and the gift-giving and so forth. But how do we know it's really based on historical reality?

That's what really intrigues me as someone who is a history buff.

GLENN: So take me through that. How do we know?

LEE: Yeah. We have two really early, independent, but consistent reports about the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.

One comes from the Gospel of Luke. Now, Luke, was -- I love this guy. He was an investigative reporter.

There was a companion of St. Paul, and Luke said -- he didn't say, well, I'm going to tell you about something that happened in the distant past once upon a time. No, he said, I carefully investigated everything so I could write an orderly account about the certainty that took place. He's claiming, I'm writing about what actually took place.

I believe he writes from Mary's perspective. I think he may have interviewed Mary. If he didn't, I think he interviews Hosana and Joanna, who were friends with Mary, who he mentions in his gospel. And then we have Matthew. Matthew was also -- he was a disciple. Matthew was -- was right there in the first century setting. He later became a leader in the church of Jerusalem. And one of the other leaders was a guy named James, who was the half brother of Jesus.

So James, I think communicated to Matthew, kind of the male perspective. For the birth of his brother Jesus.

GLENN: Hmm.

LEE: By the way, I was talking to a woman the other take. And she has a young child. I was talking to her about this.

And she said, yeah. If you ask my husband about the birth of my child and you ask me, you will get two different perspectives.
(laughter)

GLENN: Yeah. Yes.

LEE: It's the same birth. We're talking about the real situation.

So we've got this two really early reports. That are independent, that are consistent with each other. And then we have a very interesting report in the gospel of Mark. Now, Mark is writing based on the recollections of Peter, who is one of the inner circle with Jesus.

And he starts his gospel later in life. So he doesn't have a birth narrative. But interestingly, in Mark 6:3. He refers to Jesus as Mary's son. Now, in first century Jewish culture, you would never do that. You were always your father's son. It would have been Joseph's son.

Even if Joseph were already deceased, he would always refer to him as Joseph. And, no. He referred to him as Mary's, and I think there's a wink, that says, yeah, yeah, I know.

Joseph wasn't his biological father. And then we have John, who writes the last gospel.

He doesn't repeat a lot of the historical stuff in the first three gospels. He writes from a grand theological perspective about the incarnation. And with him was the word, and the word was with God. And the word was God.

And then the word came into our world and dwelled among us. So it was very theological. But interestingly, John had a disciple, who he mentored.

And that guy wrote the letter. And in that letter, he says, Jesus was, quote, really and truly born of a virgin. Where did he get that idea?

I think it was from John, who wrote the gospel of John.

GLENN: So is it concerning at all. Because I've heard this argument before. You know, when -- when the gospels all same say the same thing, it's pretty clear. But they can't even decide. They can't even agree on the last words of Christ when he's on the cross.

And is it -- is it -- does it matter. Should we be concerned that only two of the four gospels talk about the birth?

LEE: No. I don't think so. Because first of all, those are two solid sources historically and very early. Mark gives us a reference to the fact that Joseph was not the biological father. And he also portrays Jesus as being the Son of God. And John, of course, was a theological take on the reincarnation. He's basically saying the same thing. So, no. I don't think are a problem. And the differences in the gospels I don't think are a problem either. Because as someone trained in law, if you're in a trial, and the witnesses get up. And they all say the exact same thing, you object. And say, Your Honor, collusion.

They got together, they worked out the story, and you can't trust it.

But when you have different perspectives, people emphasize different things. There's, for instance, a technique that was used in ancient literature, that was used today.

That was called literary spotlight. What that means, somebody will focus on what one person is saying or doing. And other purpose will focus on other people who are involved in the same scene. But it's not contradictory. They're just focusing on different aspects of the same scene. So when you look at what the -- yeah.

GLENN: No. I'm sorry to interrupt. Finish. And then I have a question.

LEE: Sure. When you look at the literary techniques that were used in the first century by (inaudible) and so forth. These historians. And you use those literary techniques in writing the New Testament. These discrepancies between the gospels virtually disappear.

GLENN: So let me take you here: And I believe in the story. So, but I want to push back as hard as I can on this.

LEE: Sure.

GLENN: You know, the virgin birth is so hard for people to accept. And especially once you look at Greek mythology. This is the same story. They're just plagiarizing. This is half man, half God.

LEE: Right. Right.

GLENN: So how do you respond to that?

LEE: Yeah. I actually deal with this in my book. This is totally bogus. This was invented by German theologians in the 1800s. In the early 1900s, the Christians responded to it.

They refuted it. But now, it's come up again. I think as the internet has dredged up these old arguments. For instance, you have the most famous example is Dan Brown in his book and movie the Da Vinci Code. Where he says, oh, well, you know, crusades just copied all this stuff. He said, there was an ancient myth called Mithras. And Mithras was born of a virgin on December of the 25th.

He had 12 disciples. He tied for world peace. He was resurrected from the dead.

So now Jesus is just kind of plagiarizing. The story of Jesus was invented by people and plagiarized from Mithras. Well, I investigate that. And what do you find?

You find in the actual myth of Mithras.
Number one. He was not born of a virgin. The myth was he emerged fully grown, naked, wearing a hat out of a rock.
(laughter)

GLENN: But, I mean, it's the same thing!

LEE: Yeah, I guess you could say the rock is a virgin. But, I mean, secondly, born on December the 25th. So what. We don't know the date Jesus was born. It's not in the Bible, where the ancient records are recorded. Ancient Christians did not care about birthdays. Third, he didn't die for world peace.

He was known for killing a bull. Fourth, he didn't have 12 disciples. According to one version, he had one disciple. According to another version he had two disciples. He wasn't resurrected from the dead. There's nothing in the myth -- it's about him dying. And so nothing about a resurrection. So all of these parallels, supposed parallels disappear when you investigate what actually took place. You know, people say, well, Alexander the great. You know, there was a myth that he was conceived by Zeus.

Well, even Alexander the Great's own mother, Olympias said, it's not true. It's crazy. It's a story. It's not true.

So every one of these supposed myths that predated Christianity, none of them are parallels to the story of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem.

GLENN: All right. Let me take a break, and then I want to take ask you about one word, one Greek word that shed new light on the traditional Christmas story.

More with Lee Strobel here in just a second.

So tell me about the one, the one Greek world that opens things up.

LEE: It really does say he went about the common perception of Christmas. The common idea of Christmas that people have is it's Mary and Joseph because of a census had to go to Bethlehem to register.

And they get there. And she's about to give birth. And they go to a lodge or an inn, and they meet an old entity who says, sorry, no room, dear. And throws the door in her face. So they go off to a stable. And she gives birth among the animals and puts the baby in a manger.

Well, what that comes from. Just a second in the gospel of Luke, where he says, the baby was placed in a manger because there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the katalima.

That's the Greek word. Katalima. So the question is, what does that word mean?

Does it mean an inn? There's no room at the inn? I don't think so. And most scholars don't think so. That's how it was translated in the King James in 1611. But it's probably not the best translation.

So let me explain something. How a house looked in the first century Bethlehem. There was one large room, broken down into two parts. The larger part was the living area.

That that's where people would live, eat, sleep, and then there was a couple of steps bound to a smaller area where the animals were brought at night.

And they were like pets. They may have a couple goats, a couple sheep, and there was a manger there, but because there was a couple of stairs up.
They would sometimes come you up in the living room area. You know, how cute are they?

They're like little lambs, like pets. And so there was a manger also, in the living area. While some of the more wealthy people had a katalima, a guest room. It had a separate entrance. And it made their house bigger.

What apparently happened, is that Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem. And they went to a home of a relative and knocked on the door. They said, hey. We're here for the census. And they said, oh, that's great. But you know what, we have a lot of people here for the census.

There's no room for you in the guest room, the katalima. But you can give birth in the living room. And, yes, there is a manger there, and, yes, some of the animals may have come up the stairs because of the commotion of what was going on. And, yes. There was -- the baby was probably put there in a manger.

Now, in the year 1395, John Wycliffe, who did a translation into English, in the Greek Bible.

GLENN: Right.

LEE: Translated it as a guest room.

The New International version, which is probably the most popular translation in America today, does not use the word "inn." It uses "guest room."

Now, in writing this account, he knew what word to use. Katalima. He uses it one other time. And in that other instance, it was also a room in a house. There's another word he uses, andohayan (phonetic), which is a Greek word that means an inn. And he does use that word when he talks about the parable of the good Samaritan. So he knew, if he wanted to use the word inn, he would have used andohayan, but he didn't. He used katalima.

And the conviction of most scholars, it gives me a guest room. There probably was no inn.

GLENN: Wow.

LEE: Yeah. It's kind of mind-blowing after everything we've heard. And, yeah.

LEE: The other thing is, in first century Jewish culture, the value of hospitality was so high, that -- it would have been impossible for an innkeeper to turn away a pregnant Jewish woman. I mean, he would have been ostracized. He would have been run out of town on a rail. It would have destroyed his business. You could not do that because the value of hospitality was so high.

And we don't even know there were many inns in Bethlehem. It was a small town. Five hundred people. It wasn't on a main crossroads. There may or may not have been an inn there in the first place.

So I think the majority of scholars, I think would agree, that the word really means guest room, and not an inn.

GLENN: That changes everything!

That changes your whole vision of that. You know what I mean?

That's -- that's mind-blowing. That's just totally mind-blowing.

LEE: It is! And not only that, the image we have is that Mary is on the verge of giving birth, as she's arriving. And makes it urgent.

That's not in the text either! It just says that while they were in Bethlehem, she gave birth. It doesn't say they were in Bethlehem five minutes or five days or five months. Now, where the idea, the urgency comes from is the book of fiction that was written in 200 A.D.. A lot afterwards. No real historical connection. In that fictional account, Mary Joseph are approaching Bethlehem, to get 3 miles away from Bethlehem.

And she had to give birth. And so they went into a cave. And she gave birth to some animals in a cave. That's the idea of where a cave come up. Because people to envision her giving birth in a cave. That's really fiction. That doesn't have historical reality written -- you know, way, way later.

GLENN: I have so many questions, Lee. Can I have you back next week?
LEE: Sure!

GLENN: I have so many questions on this. I would love to have you back next week on this.

Because I want to talk to you about the Old Testament. Because people say, well, they just wrote that in later. Because they knew, he was the fulfillment. So they looked, and they just jammed this story together.

But you have the answers to -- to all of that. I would love to have you back next week.

LEE: Absolutely. Just let me know.

GLENN: You've got it. Lee, thank you so much. God bless you. Merry Christmas, we'll talk to you next week. You bet. It's a fascinating book. You've got to read it. The Case for Christmas. It -- while, I mean, you just did. It will turn everything upside down. And I love those kinds of things that make you think and look at things in a new and different way.

Lee Strobel, I think he's one of the best.

He's an author for the case for Christ.

But his new book is the case for Christmas.

How you can know for sure, what was laying in that manger. And where was that manger?

Was it in the kitchen, apparently?

I don't know.