The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program ｜ Guests： Greg Koukl & Gary Habermas ｜ 3⧸29⧸24

00:00:00.000 Hey, it's Good Friday. There is a lot of great stuff on today's program. A lot of it revolves

00:00:06.000 around redemption and the crucifixion. You'll learn things about crucifixion that you didn't

00:00:12.120 know before, and also what the skeptic scholars say about resurrection. All of it is part of our

00:00:19.480 Good Friday podcast, and it's coming up right after this. I want to talk to you about being

00:00:24.580 pro-life, really getting into the battle here for life. We have a spiritual and moral mandate

00:00:31.800 as citizens of this country and citizens of a higher kingdom, as Christians. That mandate

00:00:37.600 is to bring about an end to the senseless slaughter. And there's two ways to go. We could start

00:00:47.140 a revolution. We could hate people that are engaged in abortion. Or we can just love the 0.69

00:00:54.900 mothers and the babies and help them. Most of these moms feel trapped and they have no other 0.99

00:01:01.360 place to go. And so they easily buy into the lie that it's not really a baby. That's why

00:01:06.160 $28 will buy an ultrasound for a mom coming in just to see, you know, maybe talk about an 0.96

00:01:12.140 abortion. They give them a free ultrasound that doubles the chance of baby's life. So 0.88

00:01:17.340 pound 250, say the keyword baby. Please give pound 250, keyword baby. Preborn.com slash Glenn.

00:01:24.860 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. Easter is all about forgiveness and

00:01:44.860 practicing forgiveness. Stu, I want you to know, I forgive you.

00:01:51.460 Oh, thank you, Glenn. You're welcome. What are you, what are you forgiving me for exactly?

00:01:58.060 Oh my gosh. Well, see, this is a good, this is good to point out. See,

00:02:02.060 he's pretending he doesn't know his trespasses against me, but I forgive him of his trespasses

00:02:10.820 and, but he doesn't have to, it doesn't change my forgiveness, Stu. It doesn't. I still forgive you.

00:02:16.800 All right. Oh, it's an important lesson on an important day.

00:02:20.160 Yeah. I got another important lesson. You're, let's say, put yourself in this scenario. Okay.

00:02:25.420 You're on the view. All right. Okay. Yes. And you've been on the view, right? You've gone through

00:02:30.860 this. I have been on the view. I have, I have. So you're on the view and it's Easter Friday. You

00:02:38.700 know, it's good Friday. What, you know, joy says something to you. Your response is shut up, joy.

00:02:47.480 You fat witch. No, no, no, that would not. No, it's again, good Friday. So. Okay. And whoopie, 1.00

00:02:56.040 you too, you old hag. Okay. No, that's not, not the way to do it. No, that's not. We shouldn't do it 1.00

00:03:01.700 that way on Good Friday. That's what we're trying to tell people. We probably shouldn't do it on

00:03:06.160 average Wednesday. You know what I mean? No, it's true. He's probably shouldn't do that. I will say

00:03:10.840 my response was somewhat close to what you said when you were on the, when you, when you were actually on

00:03:17.740 the view. I think I was complete. No. Well, maybe in the aftermath. Wasn't I? Maybe that was. Yeah.

00:03:23.520 The aftermath. I think I tried to be nice the whole time. Yeah. I certainly off the air. I feel

00:03:28.900 like I heard that type of response at one point or another. Yeah. Well, I don't know about that.

00:03:34.140 That would be wrong of me. There was a guy though on the view that I think we should play that does

00:03:40.180 demonstrate how people better than us actually respond. Yeah. This is Coleman Hughes who, uh,

00:03:47.540 who is, he wrote a book recently, which is a great book. It's about basically in defense of

00:03:52.100 colorblindness. Uh, Hey, maybe we shouldn't abandon the idea that colorblindness is the goal here,

00:03:58.060 guys. Like I can't believe you need to write even a book about this, but he did. And it's very good.

00:04:02.940 And he went on the view. And of course, I mean, they had to give him the ad hominem, uh, charlatan

00:04:10.960 question, which is what you'd expect a hundred percent from the view when just praising the idea that we

00:04:17.200 should be colorblind. This is the question he got. Your argument for colorblindness, I think,

00:04:23.000 is something that the right has co-opted. And so many in the black community, if I'm being honest 0.86

00:04:29.480 with you, cause I want to be, believe that you are being used as a pawn by the right and that you're 0.99

00:04:35.220 a charlatan of sorts. He's not a Republican. So how do you, you've said that you're a conservative.

00:04:40.920 No, no, no, no, you did. You actually said that, uh, podcast that you did two weeks ago.

00:04:46.280 I said I was a conservative. Yes, you did. So, but my question to you, my question to you is how do

00:04:52.640 you respond to those critics? Stop, stop, stop, stop right here. Okay. Stop right there.

00:05:02.060 You're shut up. You fat, which does seem to be calling out to me for his response. And that wasn't 1.00

00:05:12.620 even joy. That would be what I would be. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. But just, just buried deep inside

00:05:17.600 of me, hearing that question, phrase that way, shut up. You fat, which does seem to be an option. 1.00

00:05:26.400 That's what we're trying to say on this day is that's the wrong option. That's not what you should

00:05:32.260 do. It would feel good in the moment. You're only human. Yeah. Right. You're only human. I don't think

00:05:36.860 even though Jesus was part human, I don't think that was an option that he felt, but you, me,

00:05:43.400 probably would feel that way. But here's how he responded. I think it's very important. The quote

00:05:50.980 that you just pointed out about doing something special for the Negro. That's from the book Why

00:05:56.720 We Can't Wait that I just mentioned. Yes. A couple paragraphs later, he lays out exactly what that

00:06:01.680 something special was. Yes. And it was the Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged, a broad class-based

00:06:06.920 policy. But he also says you must include race. No, he didn't. He says it's a... Yes, he does. Okay. 0.54

00:06:12.760 Well, everyone can go, everyone should go read the book Why We Can't Wait. Let's not get sidetracked by

00:06:16.520 that. Yeah. I don't think I've been co-opted by anyone. I've only voted twice, both for Democrats,

00:06:21.760 although I'm an independent. I would vote for a Republican, probably a non-Trump Republican,

00:06:25.880 if they were compelling. I don't think there's any evidence I've been co-opted by anyone. And I think

00:06:30.680 that that's an ad hominem tactic people use to not address really the important conversations we're

00:06:37.040 having here. And I think it's better and it would be better for everyone if we stuck to the topics

00:06:42.340 rather than make it about me. It's not about you, but I want to give you the opportunity to

00:06:47.460 respond to the criticism. I appreciate it. There's no evidence that I've been co-opted by

00:06:52.380 anyone. I have an independent podcast. I work for CNN as an analyst. I write for the free press.

00:06:59.140 I'm independent in all of these endeavors and no one is paying me to say what I'm saying. I'm saying

00:07:03.720 it because I feel it. So what he's saying there is, shut up, you fat witch. I think that's what I 1.00

00:07:13.040 heard. I think that's what I heard. Just in a very nice way. Yeah. And it's like, he's good at just

00:07:18.980 dismantling it with reason, right? Like there's no evidence that this guy has been co-opted by the

00:07:24.780 right. These are arguments that we all used to agree on. They were, I mean, outside of the KKK,

00:07:30.620 if you were not wearing a white hood, most people would say, Hey, we shouldn't focus on skin color

00:07:35.340 as much. And now 50% of the population, or at least 50% of our major political parties have

00:07:42.620 embraced an idea that we should only focus on race or, and gender and other unreadable characteristics.

00:07:49.520 Yeah. Like, it's, it's, it's horrific that that has happened under all of our watch. At least if

00:07:57.440 you're on the left, you've let this happen and you should be on the side of Coleman Hughes and

00:08:02.520 pushing back against it. And there are very few that are, you know, it's amazing to me that the,

00:08:08.040 the Democrats get stuck in about 1968. You know what I mean? It's like, it's like they just stopped

00:08:16.840 seeing new things. You know what I mean? It's just like, yeah, well, you know what?

00:08:26.440 That's why black should be able to go to school with whites. And you're like, yeah. Okay. We've 0.99

00:08:33.160 believed that for now 40, 50 years, maybe even longer. We've been on that. Yeah. We've been on

00:08:39.900 that, uh, train, you know, white, white people. Again, there are still some clan members out there

00:08:45.900 that don't agree, but there's also joy read. Yeah. So yeah, but that's the thing. Like they have

00:08:52.500 decided when we like the, Oh, in the 1960s, Hey, black should be able to go to school with whites. 0.92

00:08:58.100 The left has reversed that. They now say they should have safe spaces away from whites. 1.00

00:09:03.340 I know. They've legitimately gone the opposite way. And they're acting as if we're the crazy ones.

00:09:09.440 I know. I know. And we learned that my generation, I am the last of the boomer generation last year.

00:09:18.160 And I grew up in a time where I didn't see color. We didn't do that. You know, I mean, it's not.

00:09:27.460 Yes. There were, when you're in a bad section of town, bad section of town, you might look over your

00:09:35.800 shoulder. Oh, does that because it's black? Why? Because I said a bad section of town, you all of a 1.00

00:09:44.280 sudden assume that it's a black neighborhood. Who's the racist here? Who's the racist here? 0.87

00:09:52.720 Um, uh, you know, you, you just don't do that. We have gotten to a place or we were at a place

00:10:01.660 to where we wanted to see people for the content of their character thought that was right. And in

00:10:07.500 many cases, that's the way we judged the world. And it's as if all of these radicals, as if 1970,

00:10:16.720 1980, 1990, 2000, 2000, well, 2008, I think was the end of that. I mean, it's like none of those

00:10:26.160 years happened. Like all of the things, all the progress we made didn't happen. We're still in

00:10:32.920 1965. In what world? In what world? Yeah, no, it's true. And you see the way that these people

00:10:39.980 retreated. There was another interview that happened. It was a speech, I think happened recently. It was

00:10:45.340 part of the free press, which, uh, Coleman Hughes also mentioned in that clip, um, where they

00:10:50.080 interviewed a guy who, who did a study, an academic who did a study on police violence against blacks.

00:10:56.900 And the study, uh, came out, uh, in an interesting way, not the way the media would have believed it

00:11:04.940 would come out. Now the man who's speaking is, uh, I don't have his, I misplaced his name, but he,

00:11:09.660 he, uh, he's an African-American gentleman who is describing a study he did in academic circles

00:11:15.920 to talk about violence against African-Americans by the police. Listen.

00:11:20.280 I collected a lot of data. We collected millions of observations on, uh, everyday use of force that

00:11:26.460 wasn't lethal. We collected thousands of observations on lethal force. And, and it was in this moment in

00:11:33.480 2016 that I realized people lose their minds when they don't like the result. So what my paper showed,

00:11:40.100 you'll see tomorrow, uh, like some of you, uh, was that, yes, we saw some bias in the low level uses

00:11:45.920 of force every day, pushing up against cars and things like that. People seem to like that result,

00:11:51.300 but we didn't find any, um, uh, racial bias in police shootings. Now that was really surprising to me

00:12:00.800 because I expected to see it. The little known fact is I had eight full-time RAs that it took to do this

00:12:07.020 over nearly a year. When I found the surprising result, I hired eight fresh ones and redid it

00:12:15.440 to make sure. They came up with the same exact answer and I thought it was robust and then I went to

00:12:22.280 go give it and my God, all hell broke loose. It was a hundred and four page dense academic

00:12:30.520 economics paper with 150 page appendix. Okay. Jeez. It was posted for four minutes when I got my

00:12:39.860 first email. This is full of. Doesn't make any sense. And I wrote back, how'd you read it that fast?

00:12:48.240 That's amazing. You are a genius. And I had colleagues take me into, to the side and say,

00:12:56.640 don't publish this. You'll ruin your career. I said, what are you talking about? I said,

00:13:06.060 what's wrong with it? Do you believe the first part? Yes. Do you believe the second part?

00:13:13.560 Well, it's the issue is they just don't fit together. We liked the first one, but you should

00:13:19.560 publish the note the second one another time. I said, let me ask this. If the second part about the

00:13:25.580 police shootings, this is a literal conversation. I said to them, if the second part showed bias,

00:13:34.180 do you think I would, should publish it then? And they say, yeah, then it would make sense.

00:13:39.640 And I said, I guarantee you I'll publish it. We'll see what happens. So it was, it was, you know,

00:13:46.400 I lived under, under, um, police protection for about 30 or 40 days. I had a seven day old

00:13:55.560 daughter at the time. I remember going and shopping for it. Cause you know, when you have a newborn,

00:14:00.340 you think you have enough diapers, you don't. So I, I was going to the grocery store to get diapers

00:14:05.380 with the armed guard. It was crazy. It was really, truly crazy. For just saying the truth and saying,

00:14:12.300 hey, maybe police aren't intentionally trying to commit a genocide on African-Americans. Like

00:14:17.100 something that I think everyone in their heart actually knows, but the evidence showed that it

00:14:23.060 was true. And because he published actual evidence about actual things that go on in our country,

00:14:28.600 he had to live under police protection for months. Let me just leave it at this.

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00:15:01.400 Thank you so much. Relief factor. Debbie, thank you for writing in and letting us know about your

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00:15:48.060 800-4-RELIEF. 800-4-RELIEF. Relieffactor.com. Now back to the podcast.

00:15:54.580 This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

00:15:59.900 Okay. You're standing in a bookstore and you're looking at the rack and all kinds of titles are

00:16:07.200 facing you. And one sticks out the story of reality. How do you not pick that book up?

00:16:15.400 The story of reality. It's written by Greg Kuchel. Sorry, Kuchel. It's, uh, it's a story,

00:16:28.980 uh, of really what is meaningful, how we got here, how the world began, how it ends and everything

00:16:40.720 important that happened in between. His author, the author of, uh, the story of reality.

00:16:49.420 Greg Kuchel is with us now. Greg, how are you?

00:16:52.740 Hey, Glenn. It is so great to talk with you today, especially this particular day on this

00:16:57.820 particular topic. Thanks for having me.

00:16:59.760 You bet. So I, I, first let's start with, um, the story of reality. How, how, how does it start?

00:17:09.320 Well, the subtitle is how the world began, how it ends and everything important that happens in

00:17:15.900 between. And as a follower of Jesus, I am looking at the way the world is laid out

00:17:22.360 as God describes it in scripture. There is a beginning, there is an end, and there are things

00:17:28.480 that happen in between that are really critical. And they have to do with what happened with human

00:17:34.200 beings in the beginning, the whole problem of evil, how God plans to solve that through his son,

00:17:40.480 Jesus of Nazareth, and the ramifications that have for us at the end of the age. You see,

00:17:47.140 this is a story. Uh, what's really compelling about the story though, and a lot of people don't

00:17:52.700 realize this, Glenn, they, if they look at the Bible or they think of Christianity, they have

00:17:57.340 all these little bits and pieces that are like a pieces to a puzzle, but the puzzle's never been

00:18:02.200 assembled. And what I've tried to do here, and anybody can do this who goes through the account

00:18:07.780 in the scripture is to put that together piece by piece, uh, following the plot line from beginning

00:18:14.200 to end. So people can get a picture of the entire story. But the unique thing about this story,

00:18:20.880 Glenn, is it doesn't start with the words once upon a time. It's not a fiction. It is the true

00:18:28.460 story of reality. And what I've tried to do in this book is to show the elegance of the story,

00:18:34.780 the greatness of the drama from the beginning to the end. So people understand how the world

00:18:41.160 actually works, what reality is really like, so they could live in tune with it, especially

00:18:47.660 in tune with the author of reality, God himself, through his son, Jesus of Nazareth.

00:18:53.840 You know, I, I have always been convinced that if, you know, the 10 commandments, 10 commandments

00:18:59.460 were called, you know, today, we're just called, uh, most 10 safety tips. Everybody would do them

00:19:06.360 because it is, it's all common sense. Reality is what it is. And we have completely detached from

00:19:14.480 universal truths. And that, that is God. Everything is, is a pattern. It's math. It's a universal truth.

00:19:24.080 You do this and this will happen. Um, there are things that you just cannot, um, change no matter

00:19:32.520 how much you want to. And we reject it because it's Christianity or it's God or it's church or 0.98

00:19:40.160 whatever. Do you see what I mean, Greg? I, I, I do. Uh, I think the biggest reason is, look,

00:19:48.140 everybody wants to do their own thing. Ultimately, what is the slogan of the age? You do you. And that

00:19:55.600 means you don't bend your knee to anyone and certainly not God. And so people are going off doing

00:20:02.020 their own thing. And of course, when you break the rules, when you don't live according to reality,

00:20:06.780 uh, things are going to go south on you because reality has a way of, of bumping into you and

00:20:12.160 injuring you when you don't, right. When you don't write it seriously. One of the things that I've

00:20:18.260 noticed though, I've been a follower of Jesus for 50 years and, uh, and I'm a defender of Christianity

00:20:24.340 that I'm an apologist by trade. Okay. One of the things that I noticed about the story of reality,

00:20:30.120 as it's described in scripture, is that so many points, um, comport with common sense. And this

00:20:37.840 is what you just mentioned a moment ago, Glenn. So many things that we see in scripture, if, if we're

00:20:43.120 willing to acknowledge it, fit the world, the way we actually experience the world. All right. Even

00:20:49.700 the idea that human beings don't want to bend their knee. And by the way, that is the classic

00:20:54.180 definition of truth. When you have a point of view or a belief or an idea that actually fits the way

00:21:00.360 the world is, that means your view is true. And this is one of the things I'm totally convinced

00:21:06.020 about the story of reality. It is true. And there are ramifications to getting it right. And that's

00:21:12.440 why I wrote the book, The Story of Reality. And isn't that what the whole message of the Bible is?

00:21:18.340 Because it's really basically the same story over and over and over and over again. You, you read the

00:21:25.140 stories and you're like, okay, different place, different people, but I'm seeing the same thing.

00:21:30.280 I saw three chapters before. I mean, how are we missing this? You know, people making the same mistakes.

00:21:39.360 Time changes. Human beings don't change. We learned from the very beginning, something very special about

00:21:46.340 human beings. God made human beings to be in friendship with Him, and He made them like Him

00:21:52.140 in a very important way. The story says we are made in the image of God. And that's not our

00:21:58.520 physical bodies. That's our invisible selves. Our souls bear His mark. And Glenn, this is what informs

00:22:06.240 every single moral obligation that we have towards other human beings. We don't have the same moral

00:22:12.560 obligations to, you know, Fifi and Fido that we have to other human beings. Some people have that

00:22:18.460 confused nowadays, but most of us get this. But why is it like that? We realize that's the case,

00:22:24.880 even without the Bible. Yet the story of reality, God's story, tells us why. Because God made us to be

00:22:31.960 in friendship with Him. But you know what? A man got himself in a heap of trouble, didn't he? He didn't

00:22:38.700 want to bend his knee. He rebelled against God, and that is what caused all the problem. People complain

00:22:45.180 about the problem of evil. The story tells where that came from. That's in chapter 3. And the next 66

00:22:51.680 books are meant to explain how God solved that problem. And He solved that problem by coming to

00:23:00.460 earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth to rescue us. And this weekend, of course, is one of the most

00:23:08.460 important weekends in our calendar reflecting on exactly what He did to accomplish that end.

00:23:15.060 You know, I'm struck now by the biggest problem that I think we have. And it's really simple.

00:23:26.860 We will not recognize or bend our knee to truth. We want it our way. We want to do it our way.

00:23:36.380 And as a former, you know, a recovering alcoholic, I have to tell you, it doesn't end well. It never

00:23:43.380 ends well. And this weekend is all about forgiveness, forgiving yourself, forgiving others, and humbling

00:23:52.520 yourself just as Christ did. I mean, there was no more humiliating death at the time than being nailed

00:24:02.320 to a cross. It was the most humiliating thing a man could go through in that culture at that time.

00:24:11.320 He humbled himself. Our country would be fixed if we could humble ourselves, ask for forgiveness,

00:24:19.840 make a list of all the things we in the country have done, and just say, you know what, we don't want to

00:24:24.920 live like that anymore. Help us. We'll do it the way you want us to do it. And our country would be

00:24:30.620 fixed overnight. But people think that's too easy.

00:24:33.920 Mm-hmm. Well, it's not too easy when you think about human nature, Glenn. And you're right.

00:24:40.880 No, I know.

00:24:42.420 Jesus humbled himself. He came down from heaven. That's an act of humility right there.

00:24:46.780 And then he served human beings. That's another act of humility. And then he died, as one translator

00:24:52.800 puts it, Philippians chapter 2, where Paul's writing, the death of a common criminal. So Jesus

00:24:59.580 is the model of humility, okay? And I think you're right. What happens with humility, though, is it

00:25:08.740 doesn't happen on a national scale. It happens when individuals do it. Now, when a lot of individuals do

00:25:15.480 the same thing, then something happens nationally. That's what's called revival. But the humiliation,

00:25:23.340 the humility that we're to observe is the precise thing that is necessary before God,

00:25:29.740 who's the first one we've offended. You know, in Psalm 51, David's great prayer of contrition,

00:25:36.120 he said, God against you and you only have I sinned. Now, of course, he sinned against Bathsheba.

00:25:42.980 You know, he sinned against her husband, Uriah, but he saw that the sin was against God. And when we

00:25:49.120 individually come before God and beat our breast, and we say, as Jesus described in the parable,

00:25:57.340 Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner, that's when it changes for every single one of us individually.

00:26:05.360 And the more we do that as a community, the more that transforms the community, which, like it did

00:26:11.520 in the Mediterranean region, the whole known world at the time, when Christianity slowly began to take 0.96

00:26:17.540 over that region, as people did exactly what we're talking about. You're listening to the best of

00:26:22.960 Glenn Beck. Check out the full show podcast to listen to the rest of this interview.

00:26:27.460 Gary Habermas is with us, Liberty University apologetics and philosophy professor. Gary,

00:26:35.820 welcome to the program. Glad to be with you on such a wonderful day that deserves some celebration,

00:26:42.580 as you've already noted. Yeah, you know, I mean, I don't, I guess today does as well, because

00:26:48.800 this is the atonement. But Sunday is the real celebratory day. I don't think we take enough

00:26:56.700 time on Good Friday to really understand what this man went through. Yeah, absolutely. He was,

00:27:05.800 you know, the movie The Passion, people, it was called all kinds of things by people who didn't

00:27:11.480 like it. Pornographic of violence was one of the phrases I remember. But there is a reference in

00:27:18.060 ancient history to people being beaten for punishments. And the ancient source says that

00:27:25.800 they whipped the men until their organs fell out. And that even surpasses The Passion. But all I'm

00:27:36.980 saying is that that was only the prequel to the crucifixion. So it's a very serious event. And what we

00:27:42.740 portray is not overdone. And when they crucified people, they weren't on big, tall crosses like we

00:27:51.860 see. It was, they were street level and almost eye level. So people coming into the town would know

00:27:58.440 this is what happens to people if you do these things, right? Correct. Because they, the men were

00:28:04.900 talking to each other. And if you remember the scene at the end where Jesus is pierced with the

00:28:09.600 spear, now he's already dead. And by the way, I'll just add, we have a Roman reference that says the

00:28:18.040 same thing, that the centurion could allow the family to take the dead body of the crucified person

00:28:25.660 when they were taken down, they were dead, and they were given one last blow. And the Latin word

00:28:31.900 that's used means, it's a military term, for using an axe, a spear, or a sword. And, but anyway, my point

00:28:38.960 is, if you're low enough that a person could stab you with a Roman short spear, yes, you're closer to

00:28:45.380 the ground than a lot of the depictions. So I thought that it was unusual to take the body and bury it,

00:28:52.960 because from what I learned about crucifixion, part of it was the dogs would come and eat some

00:29:02.340 of the flesh, and it just made it more grisly for visitors. Hey, come to our town, don't end up like

00:29:08.500 this. Yeah, and birds too, but of course your point about the dogs, that shows you how much closer they

00:29:14.000 are to the ground. Correct. By the way, Romans often did leave victims on the cross. Thousands were 0.89

00:29:20.740 crucified outside Jerusalem in the Jewish war, 66 to 70 AD. However, Josephus, the Jewish historian,

00:29:28.900 tells us that Jews had such respect for bodies that even crucifix victims, I mean, criminals, 0.84

00:29:38.360 if they were, even criminals' bodies were taken down and buried. So Jewish tradition is an exception 1.00

00:29:44.820 to the stain on the cross. Do you have any idea when they started

00:29:50.220 crucifixion? How it started, when it started? Yeah, it goes way back, before the Romans, back to the

00:29:56.880 Assyrians. And even before that, it was practiced around the eastern end of the Mediterranean. But

00:30:04.060 all the way up in Italy, you remember the story of Spartacus and the slaves, and crucifying the people

00:30:11.760 down the Appian Way near Rome. And they were talking about lighting people on fire, and being,

00:30:21.840 in particular, Nero, lighting them to be torches in the night. So that's just kind of how,

00:30:28.160 you know, it's not enough to be beaten up, it's not enough to be hung, and then burned. So I can't think

00:30:36.480 of a worse way to die. Is there anything in particular that you read in the scriptures about

00:30:44.040 this day that really, you can really truly show the evidence in the scriptures and go,

00:30:52.180 that we know is absolutely true because of X, Y, and Z? Yeah, there's actually a couple. I co-authored

00:31:00.820 an article in 2021, four years ago, three years ago, with two other people, one a neurologist,

00:31:09.720 MD, PhD, and another researcher. And what we did was, we didn't try to prove how Jesus died. We simply

00:31:16.220 did a head count of medical views. And by far, the most common view, double all the other views put

00:31:23.720 together, was that in crucifixion, the victims asphyxiate. And what happens is, when you stretch

00:31:32.140 out in that condition, and by the way, the closer your hands are to your head, the closer your arms

00:31:38.640 are brought up, the faster you asphyxiate. And of course, when someone starts asphyxiating,

00:31:46.060 you say, well then, how soon is it over? Well, believe it or not, medical doctors, even in Nazi 0.89

00:31:52.660 Germany, in the Middle East, crucifixion is still performed. And they did experiments where they 0.91

00:31:59.160 didn't hurt the person, they didn't use nails, but they did it. And the men in one experiment lost

00:32:05.160 consciousness in a maximum of 12 minutes. They lost consciousness. They say, well then,

00:32:10.200 how about explain the three hours? It would be over fast. Well, the issue is, you could push down

00:32:15.640 on those nails in your feet. And when you push up, anti-gravity, but you had push up to breathe,

00:32:23.840 and that allows you to unfreeze the muscles, the intercostal pectoral deltoid muscles that you work

00:32:28.900 out in a gym, the ones around your lungs, you can free them. And so you can stay alive on a cross for

00:32:37.020 more than a day by pushing up, sinking down, pushing up, sinking down, and that relieves the asphyxiation

00:32:43.300 process. That's really why they break their legs, right? When they want them to die,

00:32:48.180 they just break their legs. You're exactly right. And that's not the only blow. And by the way, 0.86

00:32:53.100 not just the Gospels. I just wrote a huge, almost 1,100 pages, work on crucifixion and resurrection,

00:32:59.560 and I assembled a number of secular examples of people all the way up into Rome and Italy,

00:33:06.300 where ankles were broken. Now, there's almost no reason to break an ankle. I mean, if you can beat the

00:33:11.500 guy up, hit him with a board, shoot him, one guy was threatened with an arrow, one guy had a skull 1.00

00:33:16.140 crushed with the mallet. All kinds of things happen, but why break ankles? And of course, 0.98

00:33:22.200 it can cause shock. But it seems the main reason is to make the person go down low. We're done. We

00:33:28.580 want to go back to the barracks and play cards or something. And they break the ankles, and it's

00:33:33.840 over. Now it's over quickly if the person can't push up. By the way, the other reason is the spear

00:33:40.520 wound in the side, but I already said, where the Roman source says, this guy is already dead.

00:33:46.060 We took him down. We laid him on the ground. His family wanted the body. And so we pierced

00:33:51.680 him one more time. And you go, where? In the thigh? No, Roman soldiers didn't have anatomy

00:33:56.440 lessons, but they knew where to stab a person to drop them the quickest in battle. And it makes

00:34:03.860 sense. They would stab them in the chest. You know, you don't stab the skull. So where are you 1.00

00:34:09.140 going to go? Probably the heart, lung region would be normal. And that's stabbing the chest

00:34:13.740 of Jesus is there. So you've got asphyxiation as being a possible way of dying. You've got

00:34:19.940 the broken ankles that you pointed out and is backed up in archaeology. And you've got

00:34:23.740 the spirit wound. There's three right there to make sure that Jesus was dead.

00:34:30.240 So there's also something else, the humiliation of it all. I mean, this is why I had a guest

00:34:36.240 earlier this week that was saying, you know, if this is all made up, they were really bad

00:34:42.000 at making this up because in the ancient world, the worst thing that could happen to somebody

00:34:47.780 and certainly not the Messiah, if you're telling a story and making it up, is to nail them to

00:34:53.400 a tree. That is the most humiliating thing you can do. And then they mocked him. Now, I'm

00:35:01.680 sure the mocking was usual, but the crown of thorns was unique to him.

00:35:08.440 Yes. Right?

00:35:09.440 Yes. Believed to be a criminal. He was crucified as a criminal. And I will add this. This is

00:35:14.580 not always true, but crucifixion victims were all often crucified nude. So if you want to

00:35:22.180 add to the humiliation and the point you're making there, that wasn't always done. But

00:35:27.480 that was a common way to do it.

00:35:32.440 Do we think that that's the way he was crucified?

00:35:36.240 We have no idea. There's an in-between view, you know, and that's what's often in the paintings.

00:35:42.640 They would have a garment put around their waist, almost like when you go to play football or

00:35:48.960 something, you've got too many clothes on, you take the sweatshirt off and you tie it around

00:35:52.540 your waist. Jesus could have had one of those deals where they just tied a modesty cloth. We

00:35:58.500 don't really know if that portion was done or not done or how much he was. He wasn't clothed

00:36:04.600 totally. I mean, he was either clothed with a modesty cloth or not clothed at all, most likely.

00:36:10.880 When he was crucified, you know, we always see him up on Golgotha, and he's up at the top of a

00:36:17.800 hill, and it's just the three of them. Is that likely to be that way, or was he with

00:36:24.420 a whole bunch of other crosses all around him?

00:36:27.580 No, it seems like the three is historical. I've done so much reading on this and studied

00:36:32.780 it for decades, and I don't even see, let's put it this way, I don't think scholars even

00:36:39.200 bring it up. I don't remember if I've ever seen the question of whether there were more

00:36:43.900 than three crosses. And I think they generally think that, just like the Gospel said, it

00:36:48.680 makes sense that two guys were thieves, Jesus was in the middle, and they talked to each

00:36:53.660 other, and one of them says, remember me when, you know, when you come into your kingdom, and

00:36:58.180 Jesus said, today you'll be with me in paradise. I mean, that is good historical material.

00:37:03.600 Na na na na naaaa

00:37:05.700 Na na na naa 0.64

00:37:05.820 Na na na na trending

00:37:06.640 Na na na na na na Haa

00:37:07.880 Na na na na na na na na nauuu animal na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na

The Glenn Beck Program - March 29, 2024

Best of the Program ｜ Guests： Greg Koukl & Gary Habermas ｜ 3⧸29⧸24

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