RADIOJanuary 17, 2024

Foreign operatives TARGET Blaze Media, beg for MORE CENSORSHIP

As global elites meet for the World Economic Forum's 2024 Davos summit to talk about "rebuilding trust," Glenn is utterly shocked that the global mainstream media is falling in line. Instead of war, inflation, or even their favorite - climate change - the globalists have deemed "misinformation and disinformation" as the biggest global threat over the next 2 years. And of course, by that, they mean anything that disagrees with their narratives. Glenn recently stumbled upon one of the most eye-opening looks at what the globalists have in store for us: a piece from The Independent (a British outlet) titled, "Climate misinformation is mutating on YouTube – and the platform is profiting". The piece argues that YouTube should stop monetizing a "new" breed of climate "misinformation" from so-called climate deniers like Jordan Peterson and Glenn Beck. Their source? Another British group, the Center for Countering Digital Hate. Glenn warns that this is just the beginning: 2024 is gearing up to be a year of increased global censorship and their number 1 target is Elon Musk. So, he gives you a list of ways you can prepare. Most importantly, you can subscribe to our growing network of independent voices at http://BlazeTV.com/Glenn. Your subscription may become the ONLY way to ensure you continue to receive the truth. Use code “GLENN30” to save $30 off your yearly subscription.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: This week, you have the Davos gathering. And in Davos the most important thing, this is above climate change and everything else. Is mis and disinformation.

The -- the president of the European Union just spoke at Davos. Said, our freedom comes with risks. The top concern is disinformation and misinformation. As the boundary between online and offline is getting thinner and thinner.

The top concern for the next two years, is not conflict. It is not climate.

It is disinformation, and misinformation.

The global risk report says addressing misinformation and disinformation take priority even over extreme weather events. War, terrorist attacks. And inflammation -- inflammation -- inflation.

Got it?

Global warming is an existential threat. Terror attacks like what happened in real and war, inflation, which can collapse your dollar.

All of those things are now secondary to miss and disinformation. For the global business community, the top concern over the next two years, it's disinformation and misinformation. The boundary between online and offline is getting thinner and thinner. And it's more important than ever in the era of generative AI. The World Economic Forum's global risk report puts artificial intelligence as one of the top potential risks of the next decade.

But of the next two years, it's you.

They also called for a global regulatory body to oversee, artificial intelligence. In other words, take control of AI and digital ID systems, akin to vaccine passports.

It is important, she said, to harness and utilize this technology responsibly.

So what does all that mean?

I believe that we are now measuring things in my world, by days and months, not by years.

We are now looking at people labeling us, me, the Daily Wire, anybody you trust, as mis and disinformation. And it is happening in realtime.

We told you a couple of weeks ago, that our spy agencies and our Pentagon are in league with the Five Eyes. And they are doing misinformation, disinformation editing, and also cognitive training.

So they are training the way you think by controlling what you're seeing. Let me give you this story, that just came out from the Independent. This is new today.

Climate misinformation is rapidly mutating across social media.

Allowing nefarious actors to skirt restrictions and continue to profit. According to a new report.

With climate had much driven disasters, now impossible to ignore. Outright denials of climate change no longer hold up with most people.

That's not true. The people who believe in climate change. The people who are believing that this is some sort of disaster, is actually going down.

It has less credibility than ever before. In the murky online realm of climate misinformation. There is a shift in tactics that is in motion.

Researchers analyze thousands of hours of YouTube content from the past six years. And found that old climate crisis denial, which claims that global heating is not happening. And burning fossil fuels is not the cause.

Is giving away to a new type of misleading content, intended to muddy the waters. The report by the nonprofit research group, Center For Countering Digital Hate.

This is the Media Matters, if you will, the new replacement, I think for Media Matters. It comes out of England. But there's also an office here in America.

We'll get into that on a later episode.

They found that this new continual falls into a few broad groups. That the impact of global warming or global heating are beneficial or harmless. The second group is climate solutions won't work. And that climate science and the climate movement can't be trusted.

Those are all mis and mis and disinformation. Client scientists and author Michael Mann describes these new misinformation strategies as the 5D's of inactivism: Deflection, delay, division, despair, and doomism.

They found that videos containing new denial doubled since 2018 on YouTube. In total, there were more than 34,000 climate crisis denial claims on 96 channels that were analyzed, amounting to more than 325 million views.

The shift as been rapid and stark. As old climate denial narratives declined across YouTube. New denial has surged.

The later now accounts for 70 percent of climate misinformation on YouTube. While old denial has dropped 30 percent.

The Imran Ahmed, the CCDH's chief executive explains.

So this story, from The Independent has one source. And it is Media Matters, if you will. This new group that is trying to counter digital hate. There's been a clear shift in the climate misinformation on YouTube in the last six years. Blah, blah. Mr. Ahmed said, the new findings were somewhat optimistic, because they showed that scientists and activists have been successful in conveying the facts of climate change to people.

Climate advocates and policymakers must recognize this shift or risk losing the information battle necessary to deliver climate solutions. Let me say that word -- that sentence again.

Climate activists and policymakers must recognize this shift. Or risk losing the information battle necessary to deliver climate solutions.

While climate denial trends were evident across social media, blah, blah -- the study focused on YouTube, which is owned by Google, a platform that has formidable presence as information resources for billions of people, while at the same time being able to reward people on that channel.

Using AI tools trained on climate denial, the study found YouTube is made up to $13.4 million in revenue on videos espousing new types of climate crisis. Google's current policies, which are intended to demonetize and deamplify climate misinformation, do not tackle the new denial. YouTube continues to serve ads on old forms of climate crisis denials, barred under its policies.

Google also announced in 2021, that it would stop monetizing climate crisis denial content.

In a statement to The Independent, a YouTube spokesperson said, our climate change policy prohibits ads from running, blah, blah, blah.

However, when content crosses the line in climate change denial, we stopped showing ads on those videos.

The shift from older tropes on conservative outlet Blaze TV to a brand-new climate denial.

The study analyzed videos made by fossil fuel lobby groups. Media companies. And individual pundits.

One of those highlighted in the report, is Jordan Peterson. The psychiatrist with 7.5 million YouTube subscribers.

His channel typically takes the format of interviews with fellow climate change deniers, where posts have included titles such as the Great Climate Con and the killing -- the poor to save the planet.

The Independent contacted Dr. Peterson for comment. Blaze TV founded by conservative firebrand Glenn Beck, regularly features climate change denial.

Media company has also shared false climbs about the 2020 presidential election. Along with hosting Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

In a video published July 2022 and watched 71,000 times, Mr. Beck claims the Biden administration is using the climate crisis as a cover for government control, and a great reset.

An online conspiracy theory, that claims the global elite is trying to dismantle capitalism, and create a new social order. They do not care about saving the planet.

They know climate change is not going to kill millions around the world. This is about gaining power and control over you.

They are using this so-called emergency to justify a Great Reset, Mr. Beck said, on the video.

The independent, much to my surprise has contacted Blaze TV for comment.

The CCDH, the Center for Disarming Hate, study found that in some cases, YouTube splits ad revenues with the channel, reportedly paying 55 percent to the content creator and retaining 45 percent.

The ads served on the new denial, where major brands like Hilton Hotels, global charities. Save the Children, and International Rescue Committee, they called on YouTube and other social media platforms to update their policies to keep up with the new forms of climate crisis denial, along with removing any financial incentives and reducing their reach and visibility.

People have the right to post this content. But do you have to reward them with money. And give them a megaphone?

They added, we're not blaming Google for not recognizing this. But we want to make some small changes to their policies. Don't reward this content and profit from it.

Let me ask you this. When was the last time you saw Russell Brand in your feed?

Since he was destroyed by smear tactics. And do we know they're true?

Yes. Did the BBC know they were true back then?

Yes. Did they say they were true -- did he allude that, yeah. He was that kind of guy, and I'm not that kind of guy long before the charges?

Yes. Why is it that when he was all over Davos, ESG, and the global warming thing, why is it he cannot be found anymore?

He's still doing his broadcast, but you don't hear anything about him. This is what I called about three or four years ago, and got hammered for it.

A digital ghetto. That they were going to ghetto any voices they didn't.

It's what the Germans did to the Jews. Look, you have a right to be out and have your place, and you can have your say. Just behind this wall. They were called ghettos. And after they were not seen. They could easily be liquidated.

Now, I hope no one is thinking about liquidation. However, there is a digital wall that is being built.

For voices that disagree, reasonably, and read things differently than the governments want you to read.

For instance, Elon Musk. Elon Musk. This digital hate organization. Do you know who they're after?

Their number one threat. Is Elon Musk.

If you care about global warming. Why would you go after Elon Musk?

Because they care about countering hate, you see.

And Elon Musk, won't play their game.

By the way, our disinformation, the one that we were called all kinds of names for.

Liars, dangerous liars.

We told you that the laptop of Hunter Biden was real. Did you know that just yesterday, the Department of Justice has acknowledged Hunter Biden's laptop content is legitimate.

For the first time yesterday.

Now, who was engaged in disinformation.

The government. Or us.

By the way, the January 6th videos from Capitol Hill.

Prove now, TheBlaze has proven it. That the Capitol police officer lied in the Oath Keeper's trial.

And he wasn't the only one.

And we have released the video. Have you tweeted it?

Have you put it on Instagram. Is it trending anywhere?

Or is that too being suppressed because it's misinformation, even though the video shows it to be absolutely 100 percent provably accurate.

No. So who is lying to you? Us? Or the government?

There's a story out, is corporate ESG investing over?

Here's my answer: No. It's just going to change names. And they're going to do what they always do.

How about this story from Reason. The fiscal hawks were right about debt and interest rate.

We are told that there is pharmaceutical disinformation. That those who disagree with what the government is saying, that we are a danger, to you, because we disagree with them.

How about COVID?

Did you know that Fauci just last week finally admitted that that wasn't a conspiracy theory, that it came from the Chinese labs.

That that wasn't mis and disinformation. Who lied to you, the government or us?

By the way, new story out today from the New York Post. COVID-19 strain kills 100 percent of infected mice, in a new Chinese lab study.

They're still doing it!

Who is lying to you?

Us or them?

World leader met this week.

They're still doing it. To thrash out a plan to protect against disease X. Which they say is a coming pap democratic.

Examine they need all kinds of power.

By the way, open AI CEO, Altman was at Davos. He said, future AI depends on energy breakthroughs. But we all know how dangerous AI is. We all know it.

We've watched the movies.

It's the elites that want control of it. That's one of their objectives this week at Davos.

To control it. And at Davos, the Microsoft CEO said, there's nothing that cannot be controlled by humankind.

Basically, let me translate: We are gods.
There is only one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. One God. And they do not serve them. Now, an important warning coming next.
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GLENN: American hostages still held in Gaza, day 103.

Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program.

If you missed the first half-hour of this broadcast. I urge you to go back and listen to that first half-hour. On the podcast today. It's wherever you find your podcasts currently.

And it is a very important monologue. Let me pick it up now, on part two of it. Let me tell you what just happened in Canada.

Jordan Peterson has, in his attempt to have the Ontario Justice System prevent the college of psychologists of Ontario from ordering him to undergo remedial social media training, has lost his bid. Panel of three judges in the Court of Appeals dismissed his motion for leave, to appeal an earlier instigation by the Ontario Divisional Court. No reason was given. So this is giving Canada and Trudeau, it's giving all of the regulatory body, and any organization that has -- you have to have a license, much broader field to be very, very aggressive.

Now, there is no free speech in Canada. This is now codified by this court. Over the course -- this is what they got him on.

Over the course of 2022, the college which governs the conduct of psychologists practicing in Ontario, received a number of complaints about Peterson's online behavior. The concerned tweets include: His tweet about a plus-sized Sports Illustrated model whom he said was not beautiful.

Elliot Page's gender transition, who he said had her breasts removed by, what he called a criminal physician. There are also complaints about his views on climate change and aggressive conduct towards Gerald Butts, prime minister Justin Trudeau's former principle secretary.

They investigated those complaints is felt that he needed to go into a reeducation camp, or lose his license.

Why doesn't he just give up his license?

Because then you abandon a very important licensed group of people, doctors. Once you get people of conscience out, you can do anything.

They've already purged the doctors who disagreed with listening to the government, and listening to big pharm about only one way to treat COVID. They've already got rid of those people. They have gotten rid of the doctors and the nurses that wouldn't wear masks, when distance six feet said that was nonsense.

We now know it is. They got rid of the doctors who said, this does not look like it came from bats. This looks like it was designed in a laboratory. They got rid of all of those people.

You cannot keep getting rid of doctors and psychiatrists who have a conscience.

That's what's happening. And they're doing it to now those of us who speak out to try to tell you the truth, as we perceive it.

These are opinions. But you cannot have opinions anymore.

They say, that I'm a climate denier, climate change denier. No. Climate is always changing. Always.

I disagree, and I have since An Inconvenient Book. Which was printed, what?

In 2008?

STU: I thought it was a couple years before that, actually.

GLENN: Okay. So since this. I wrote a whole book about climate change and Al Gore.

And I say in it, that I agree, that climate is changing. It always is it. And I can read a thermometer. At that time, it was going up.

But I think that all of the solutions are insane!

Because it will cripple. Cripple society.

Cripple all modernity. What did they get me on here, Stu?

STU: From the report.

GLENN: Yeah. From the report, the independent is now reporting that I'm being monitored and watched, because I'm dangerous.

STU: As if you don't know your evils.

This is -- I'm looking through the report. Here's one of the things they say makes you guilty.

Quote, if we try to go without fossil fuels in our lifetime, you're going to see the standard of living plummet. You're going to see our security plummet. And it's going to be a disaster, end quote.

GLENN: Yep. That's my opinion.

But apparently, that's misinformation. This has, I mean, that's an incredible one. Because in our lifetime. What are you?

You have to be five years from death?

GLENN: I'm not suicidal, by the way.

STU: No. But seriously. What are you talking about. In the next 40 years, right?

That would be a hell of a transition. By any standard, that if you transitioned completely away from fossil fuels, in the next 40 years. By the way, the way you phrase this. You're not even limiting a transition possibility.

You're just saying, it can't happen that quickly.

GLENN: Yeah, I was talking about 2030 and 2035.

STU: So I think that's a pretty defensible opinion.

But also, it's just an opinion. It's just what you think might happen in these circumstances.

GLENN: That's what I do for a living.

STU: Then we have, let's see.

Beck this is incredible. Beck falsely claims there's been zero warming for over a decade. Media Matters for America is the source of this claim.

April 23rd 2010.

Now, I happen to just -- just for the fun of it. Go back to 2010.

When you made this claim.

You would be talking about the -- 2009. Would not have been released yet. You would be talking about the decade of 1998 to 2008.

In 1998, we were plus 0.63 degrees Celsius. In 2008, we were plus 0.55 degrees Celsius. So actually, there was -- pretty slight. Again, you were not saying, there was no climate change. You were just saying, in the decade you were talking about.

There had been no warming across the globe.

That is from the NOAA. NOAA.gov, if you check it out.

GLENN: Well, that's disinformation. Because it disagrees. Now, listen, here's the important thing. I can't believe I'm telling you this, and I've subtly been telling you for a while that it's coming.

It's no longer coming.

It is here.

I started TheBlaze to be the Alamo.

To only rely on you. That they would crush us, every way they can.

And they are going to.

They are starting to. My Facebook page is down 95 percent. Now, there's no way that is true. We are having our best year ever. The last three years, have been tremendous growth.

We have more listeners and viewers than we've ever had. Even when we were at Fox. Ask yet, my Facebook page is down 95 percent. The only metric that is down, is social ahead. Isn't that weird? Everything else is skyrocketing up. Social media is down.

By the way, Facebook at one point, they brought me out to Silicon Valley to talk to their people, correct me if I'm misstating this. To find out how we were overindexing Facebook.

I went, and I thought I was going to join a meeting and I was going to ask them, how can we better -- and they said, no. We called you. You didn't call this meeting. We called you here. We wanted to know how you are overindexing. What is it that you're doing, we want to study it.

Okay. We've gone from that to down 95 percent. Wow. That's weird.

All of a sudden, we've become morons on social media, even though we run a social media empire!

Hmm. That's weird.

Listen, first thing you have to do is go to my email and newsletter. It's free. This story is, I think, the last story in it.

Or you can find it in the independent, and go look for all of the shows we've done recently, on what our government is doing.

This is the Canadian and the European. Government targeting Google to silence us.

Now, we also have this pressure in the United States.

You need to know what's true and what's not. You need to alert your friends. You have -- you can do it on social media.

But I would private DM them.

I would put it on X. Because you know it will go through on X.

I would subscribe to my free email newsletter. Not because I want to tell you, but I need to know how to contact you, if we lose touch.

I would also switch primarily to X. That is troublesome as well. Because while this organization planted or did this story, independently, with the independent.

I went to their website. Their number one target, is Elon Musk.

This is not going to happen, because of global warming.

This is a priority, mainly in America. And the rest of the world. Because of Donald Trump.

Look at what they're doing to Trump.

You don't think they'll silence people.

It will be troublesome for them.

As they've said in their own word.

It will be troublesome. Because they have large yawns.

But the private sector needs to figure it out.

And that's why Google and YouTube and everybody else, is going to receive the pressure. Already have.

Facebook down 95 percent.

Because our voices must be silenced.

Because Donald Trump this year, possess a great threat to their power.

But also have some money in Bitcoin.

I would begin to listen for what must become subtle.

I have a ham radio. Do you?

I have a CB. Do you?

I think -- I'm learning to play the piano now, but I think I should stop and learn smoke signals. We must be able to communicate with each other. The last is: My piece of advice to you, that I urge you, please, listen.

Get close to Christ.

Clear out all of the things you fear could be exposed.

Clear out all of the mistakes that you have made.

Use the atonement and redemption.

Use it. It's a free gift.

It will take away many of your fears. Of, well, I have to do this.

Because this could come out.

Get rid of it. Top it.

Just clean it up, right now.

Because as much as many of us in this business like to think we're replaceable. Or unreplaceable.

We are very replaceable.

And I am urging you to become my replacement.

I'm urging you now to do the things, where you will be a credible source, in your own circle.

You must do research.

You must not just hop a bandwagon. You must root yourself in the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, if you want to save our country.

If you want to save souls, and people, then root yourself in the gospel. My recommendation is both.

But I am very replaceable. You won't like the replacement. You must become the replacement.

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.