Ep. 218 - Now Is Not The Time To Mock ＂Thoughts And Prayers＂
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Summary
A gunman opened fire at a mosque in New Zealand, killing at least 49 people and wounding many more. On today's show, we discuss the latest in the investigation and debunk some of the false narratives being spread about the attack. We also discuss Beto Ocasio-Cortez's campaign and why he could be a formidable challenger to Donald Trump in 2020.
Transcript
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Today on the Matt Wall Show, a horrific attack against mosques in New Zealand.
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We will talk about the latest news surrounding the attack.
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I will also try to dispel certain false narratives that have already been constructed about the attack, as per usual.
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And I also want to talk about why now is definitely the wrong time to be mocking thoughts and prayers, as some people have started to do.
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We'll also discuss some other news of the day, including Beto's bid for the presidency.
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And I want to explain why he could be a formidable challenge for Donald Trump.
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It feels like, as you've heard, I'm sure at this point there was an attack on a mosque,
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two mosques in New Zealand yesterday, 49 people dead as of the last time I checked.
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The killer filmed himself, live streamed the attack.
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And that video was unfortunately everywhere across almost every platform you can think of within a very short amount of time.
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The first thing we should acknowledge here simply is the human toll of an attack like this, the loss of human life.
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And we should extend our prayers for those who have been lost and for their families.
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And I think so often we forget to do that part because we jump right into the controversy and the arguments and everything.
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Anyone who is religious, whatever your religion happens to be, if you're religious, then you can imagine.
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Because unfortunately, we see this sort of thing so often that, you know, whatever your religion is, I know this is something that I think about every time I go to church.
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It always crosses my mind about, you know, is this going to be the time when someone walks in here with a gun?
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So you can you can imagine the special horror of something like this happening at a house of worship.
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And we've seen, as I said, over the past year, we've seen some of the worst mass shootings in history at houses of worship.
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Just over the last year, we've had New Zealand, Pittsburgh, Sutherland Springs and Texas, the church shooting.
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Almost 90 people killed between just those three attacks.
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You know, we sort of reflexively call these mass killers cowards.
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Right. Every time there's any kind of mass killing, we say, oh, that person was a coward.
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Almost to the point where the word ceases to have any meaning because it is so reflexive.
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And in fact, the truth is that just even if it makes us feel better to assume that every evil person is a coward, that's actually not the case.
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Just because someone's an evil person doesn't make them a coward.
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So when I call this guy a coward, it is not just reflexive.
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And I'm not just saying it because he did a terrible thing.
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The only thing more cowardly is something like Sandy Hook, where you're going and killing elementary schoolers.
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You're going after people who, you know, or you think will not be armed.
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Now, from the reports that I've read, at the second mosque attack, someone did return fire, thank God, and probably saved many lives in doing so.
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But these, you know, these areas are chosen because the thought is that the people there will be completely vulnerable and not only unarmed, but they're not going to be thinking about this.
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They're going to be focused on prayer and be in a completely sort of docile kind of state.
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And that's why these, that's why a house of worship is chosen.
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It's just, on top of being evil and disgusting and all of that, it is just so cowardly as well.
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Now, speaking of this scumbag, and I thought about it before I turned the camera on, I was thinking about how exactly to go about this because it's a difficult thing.
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Um, I believe that it is important to starve these mass killers of the attention that they so desperately crave.
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And especially this guy clearly wanted attention.
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Uh, and so on one hand, you don't want to give it to him.
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But I also think that the truth is important and it's important to combat false narratives.
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And I feel, especially in my, if my position is worth anything, if I'm supposed to be doing anything with this platform, it's, I'm supposed to be speaking the truth.
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So there have been a lot of false narratives cropping up around this particular attack.
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People have been, people have been blaming certain right-wing personalities like Candace Owens.
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Um, they blamed, you know, uh, so on and so forth.
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Claiming that the killer was inspired by these people.
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Um, well, I did go and read part of this scumbag's manifesto.
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That makes it sound more significant than it really is.
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And he published 70 some pages of ramblings, uh, before his attack.
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But I read enough and I hate that I had to read it at all, but I read enough just to tell you this,
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that all of the narratives you're seeing surrounding this attack are false.
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His, his manifesto is filled with sarcasm and obvious trolling.
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This is essentially like an internet troll that is, uh, coming to the real world.
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And, and, uh, he mentions well-known names, hot button issues, and so on,
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all because he wants attention and controversy.
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At one point he said that he, you know, he used a gun because he wanted to, he wanted
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to spark debate in, in the United States about, about guns and so on.
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And so he's a murderous, a murderous, nihilistic coward.
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Um, so obviously we, we throw racist in there, a racist, murderous, nihilistic coward.
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But the nihilistic part is very important as well.
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The rest, everything else that you're going to hear about his political views, his affiliations,
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et cetera, et cetera, much of it is, is simply false.
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And the important thing to realize is that reading his diatribe makes it clear.
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It's, I read it so that you didn't have to, you know, I've, I've told you everything you
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Um, but reading it makes it clear, inescapably clear.
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That he was a nihilist with no clear political agenda and with the desire to stir up division
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He, he, he says in succeeding sentences, he says first that he supports Donald Trump as
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And then he also says he does not support Donald Trump as a leader or a policymaker.
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So he's saying he supports Trump and he doesn't support Trump.
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Um, so that people can latch onto whichever angle they want, um, and then argue with each
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So that if you're a Trump supporter, you can say, oh, see, he didn't, he doesn't like
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And if you, if you hate Trump, you can say, oh, he likes Trump.
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Clearly that is the strategy that this scumbag was going with very obvious.
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I mean, I've seen this all over the media, all over social media as well.
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People saying, oh, he was a Trump supporter, this and that.
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And I hate talking about what this scumbag believed and what he wrote.
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And I don't want, I don't think we should be, I don't want you to be manipulated.
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One other thing I wanted to say, uh, is that it's pretty standard procedure now, as you know,
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after these attacks to hear people mocking thoughts and prayers, right?
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And the usual suspects are at it again with this thing.
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Every time there are people say, oh, your thoughts and prayers don't do anything.
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Unsurprisingly, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got in on the action.
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She says, um, at first I thought of saying, imagine being told your house of faith isn't
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safe anymore, but I couldn't say imagine because of Charleston, Pittsburgh, Sutherland Springs.
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What good are your thoughts and prayers when they don't even keep the pews safe?
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Uh, and then she goes on later and she says, thoughts and prayers is referenced to the NRA's
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phrase used to deflect conversation away from policy change during tragedies, not directed
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at the prime minister of, uh, of New Zealand, who I greatly admire.
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So to call this thoughtless and insensitive would be a massive understatement.
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First of all, thoughts and prayers is an, is the NRA's phrase.
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Does she really think that the NRA invented thoughts and prayers?
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Like this is, it's a, it's a, it's a, some sort of conspiracy that they came up with it.
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Despite what you might think, this is just opportunism.
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She's using the bodies of 49 dead people to bludgeon her political opponents.
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As, uh, as of thoughts and, as for thoughts and prayers, the fact is this, even if you don't
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believe in the power of prayer, the victims clearly did, their families did, they died in
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So now is not the time for the criticism of prayer.
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And I remember this every time you have a shooting at a house of worship, the same thing
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happens. I remember it with Sutherland Springs and the, uh, I think it was 20, 25 or 26 people
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who were killed, uh, shot in cold blood point blank range at a, at a church in, in, uh, in Texas,
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People say, Oh, you know, so you think thoughts and prayers do that?
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Well, the thoughts and prayers couldn't even keep the killer out of the church.
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Leaving aside how the people who say that clearly don't understand what prayer is and what the
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faithful believe prayer to be. We don't, we don't think of prayer as some sort of magical incantation
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where if you say these certain words enough times, uh, you know, good things are automatically
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going to happen, or there's going to be some sort of force field put around you to stop, uh, bad
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things from happening to you. That's not what we think of prayer that if you don't pray, if you're
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not religious, maybe that's what you think we think, but that's not it. Prayer is about, uh, it's about
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union and connection with God first and foremost. That's what it's about. And in fact, uh,
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not every prayer is even a petition. So when we talk about prayer, we're not talking always about
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asking for things from God. Sometimes prayer is simply adoration. It's worship of God. Uh,
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sometimes prayer is, is contemplation, simply thinking about the divine. Sometimes it's a prayer
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of repentance. Sometimes it's a prayer of thanks, thanksgiving, many different kinds of prayer.
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And it is not principally about asking for things. And when we, the faithful,
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when we see terrible things happen to people and to other people of faith, even in a church or a
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mosque or a synagogue, we're not confused by that. We don't think, well, how could this have happened
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when they were praying? Because we don't expect prayer to work like that. And we know that terrible
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things happen in this world. That's why we pray. It's why our faith is so important to us.
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So you simply, you have a misunderstanding. If you're going around saying this kind of thing,
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you have a misunderstanding of what faith means, what religious people believe of what prayer is.
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You have a misunderstanding. But even aside from that, it just is just not the time.
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Can you have a little bit of sensitivity? These, these people believe this, they, they died
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in prayer. Can't you have a little bit of sensitivity and leave that just, you know,
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hold off for a little bit. You can, you can launch into your anti-prayer rant any other time. You've got
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all the time in the world to complain about prayer and talk about and mock it and say how worthless
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and stupid it is. You've got all the time to do that. You don't need to do it right now.
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I mean, look, even if you think, even if you think that prayer is pointless and worthless and it does
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nothing and you're just talking to yourself and there is no God, whatever, even if you think that,
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even if that's your belief. Okay. Well then, then from your perspective, then people pray at times like
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this to make themselves feel better and so that they can commune with each other. And it is so
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fine. What does that bother you? Just, just let them do that. Then I don't even understand. Even
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if I were to adopt your perspective, I was still not, I wouldn't be out there after a mass shooting
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say, Oh, don't, don't pray. What do you care? If it's just something people do to make themselves
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feel better, then fine. What does that bother you? Why do you need to, who cares? Why do you
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care? What happened to live and let live? What about what happened to letting people live
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their lifestyle? You don't have to understand it. You don't have to agree. You could think
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it's stupid. It doesn't matter. All right. Um, I had a couple of things I wanted to talk
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about today. Uh, less important things, less serious and tragic things to talk about. So
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I'm going to move on to a couple of those. First of all, Beto O'Rourke announced his candidacy
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for president yesterday. Uh, I don't have a lot to offer on this as I find news about
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political campaigns to be exceedingly boring, but I will say one thing about Beto O'Rourke.
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Uh, I disagree obviously with his views. Uh, not only do I disagree with his views, I think
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that his shtick is, is phony in many ways, but I also think that conservatives make a mistake
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when they take him too lightly. He is, uh, he is a formidable political talent and he would be a
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formidable challenge for Trump. Now, fortunately for Trump, I don't think that he's going to get
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the nomination. I think the Democrat party is at a place right now where a guy like Beto O'Rourke,
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uh, is probably just can't win the nomination. But if he did somehow get the nod, he would be a tough
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out for Trump, I think for sure. And, and remember Trump has never, this is one of the reasons why
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it'd be tough for him. Trump has never faced anyone with actual charisma or political talent. So that,
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that would be a new challenge for Trump. Trump has never faced someone like that. And even outside of
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the campaign, most of the, uh, feuds that Trump has been in have been with people who are completely
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devoid of charisma or, or, or, or talent of any kind. Uh, Hillary Clinton, Clinton was like a black
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hole for charisma. She was where she just, just everything is just sucked in and obliterated.
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Um, so there's just nothing there in terms of, uh, of political talent or charisma. And his number one,
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number one primary challenger was Ted Cruz, who I liked Ted Cruz, but Ted Cruz is actually listed as an
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antonym for charismatic. If you look up in a thesaurus, you'll see his name there. So it would
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be a new thing for Trump. And, uh, Beto is, is not the only Democrat with charisma. Kamala Harris has it,
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though. I think she's soulless and evil. She, uh, she does have, uh, she does have charisma. So
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there are a few others as well. Here's the problem. For one thing, O'Rourke is,
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he's good at speaking off the cuff or at least looking, seeming like he's speaking off the cuff
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and then, and also in the process being coherent and superficially insightful emphasis on
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superficial, but superficial insight fools a lot of people. There's that, uh, there was that viral
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video of, of O'Rourke answering a question during the campaign against Cruz. He was answering a question
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about, I think it was about the, um, the NFL, the anthem controversy. And of course he was
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coming out in favor of the players who were kneeling and he just goes on this, whatever,
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four or five minute thing about the anthem. And, uh, the reason went viral and millions of people
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shared it is because everyone was saying, Oh, this is so insightful. And he's just,
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he gets it. He understands. Now I don't agree with the point of view he was expressing there,
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but the fact that he can do that and give you a four or five minute answer on something
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seemingly off the cuff. And then other people will go, Oh wow, that was really insightful.
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The fact that he can do that is, is that's a challenge. Trump, as I said, he's never faced
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anyone who could do that. Hillary Clinton definitely could not do that. Um, and the problem is that
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Trump Trump's off the cuff speaking style is basically rambling and incoherent. Uh, when
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Trump goes off the cuff, he just goes in a million different directions and it's basically incoherent.
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You can't even tell what point he's trying to make the contrast, I think, between rambling
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incoherence and someone with some charm and charisma speaking coherently is just not a contrast that
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will work well for Trump. I'm afraid also Beto. And there again, are a few Democrats who have this
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going for themselves. Uh, but Beto has basically mastered the art of coming off like a regular
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down to earth guy. And now again, I think, I think, I think a lot of that is shtick, but it doesn't
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matter. This is politics. And if you can come off that way, that's, that's a huge advantage. Um,
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and that's why some of the attacks that Republicans launched against him during the campaign in, uh,
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in Texas, a lot of those attacks failed so miserably. And I know you'll say, well, he lost.
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Yeah, but it was Texas. Uh, this was Texas. He had no business even coming close to winning
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in Texas. The fact that he came close is stunning, honestly, really is. And it shows you that the
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attacks were not effective at all attacks. Like, um, I mean, the fact that what Republicans would
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try to, and conservatives are still doing this. They're trying to use the fact that Beto was in
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a punk rock band as a younger person. They're trying to use that against him. Like this guy was in a band.
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Okay. Most people think bands are cool. That's not, you're, you're just making him seem cool.
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That is not a good line of attack. I know you might think if you don't like him, you think that
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any line of attack is good. You think, Oh, this loser was in a band. No, when people see, Oh,
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he was in a band. You know what? People think they think, Oh, okay. He had friends. He was a musician.
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Uh, he liked to party. Most people think, well, that's cool. That's he was like, I was as a,
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as a younger person. He's just a normal person. Oh, he had a DUI. Again, nobody cares about the
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DUI. No one cares about that. Maybe they should, but they don't. That's it. No one cares. If you
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had a DUI 20 years ago, when you were a crazy punk rocker, blah, blah, blah. Nobody cares about that.
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And a guy who has matured after being a crazy partying punk rocker, et cetera, that's a story
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that people find relatable. You know why? Because a lot of other, a lot of normal people are like
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that. Maybe they weren't punk rockers, but there are a lot of people who, when they were younger,
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they were kind of crazy. They did stupid things. They drank a lot. Then they matured and they
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changed. So, uh, that is a story that does well for, for O'Rourke. That's a, that when you use that,
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you're helping him. And in fact, most people can relate more to that than they can to the story
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of a billionaire real estate developer who before being a president was a, you know,
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Hollywood celebrity. Yeah, nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying that that's not,
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no one can relate to that story. That's not, no one is, most of us have never been in that world.
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Uh, but we have been many of us in kind of the world that O'Rourke was in. So that's not a,
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it's not an effective line of attack. It just makes him seem normal. And it also presents a
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difficult contrast for Trump because Trump, I think struggles to come off like a regular human
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being. Sometimes he he's Trump is, there's just so much, it's just bombast all the time with Trump
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constantly. And that routine is wearing thin for a lot of people. And I know that if you're a big
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Trump fan, you don't want to hear this, but you need to hear it because he's good. He'll lose in 2020.
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If he doesn't change something that the, the stick that Trump has now, I know when he goes up and
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speaks for four hours at a campaign rally and just rambles about a million topics. If you're a big
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Trump fan, you think, Oh, this is great. It's once awesome. This is, it's not most, most people
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don't find that compelling. You might, cause you're a big fan. That's fine. But most people don't find
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that compelling. And I tell you something, there are a lot of people who did find it compelling in 2016
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and now they don't anymore. Cause it's just, it's, it's old. It's a, it's an old thing.
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You gotta, you gotta switch it up. You can't stick with that. And it's, it doesn't do any good to
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say, Oh yeah, well he won like that in 20. Yeah. But times have changed. That was 2016. He was running
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against Hillary Clinton, the most, the most unlikable human to have ever existed. He had the
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good fortune of running against. And by the way, a human who didn't even think to go and campaign in
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the Rust Belt. Um, and he also had the advantage of no one took him seriously. So no one actually
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thought he was going to win. So he, a lot of people that hated him didn't go and vote against
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him because they thought he had no chance. He's going to have none of that in his favor this time
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around, unless he runs against, unless he has the, the great fortune of running against someone like
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Elizabeth Warren, well then fine. But, um, that's probably not going to happen. If he pulls someone
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like O'Rourke, he's not going to have those advantages anymore. And he's going to have to change
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things up. Um, and the four hour unscripted campaign rallies where he's just doing nothing,
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but throwing red meat to people who already agree with him. It's, it's not going to work
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and he's going to lose. So if he wants to win in 2020, he's going to need a strategy that goes
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beyond just slapping a silly nickname on his opponent and making fun of his hand gestures.
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That was Trump's response yesterday was he was making fun of O'Rourke's hand gestures. Um,
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and again, conservatives were like, Oh, that's great. This is classic stuff.
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It's it's it's Bush league. Maybe that was enough in 2016. It's not going to be enough this time.
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You see, when you're running against someone with zero personality and zero charisma and who,
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and who nobody likes like with Hillary Clinton, then yeah, basically any strategy will work against
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but when you've got someone who's got some talent, you're not going to be able to knock them out by
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putting a nickname on them. That's not going to be enough, especially when everyone knows, sees it
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coming. It's you don't have the element of surprise anymore. No one is surprised. Everyone knows what
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Donald Trump is about. So if he wants to win, he's going to, he also had that going for him in 2016 is
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that no one had ever seen anything like this before and they didn't know what to do with it.
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Well, now we've all seen it. We're expecting it. So Trump, if he wants to win, he's going to need
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to come with a move that we haven't seen. Uh, and I think that maybe if he could figure out a way to
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just come off like a regular person, I, you know, there's a, I don't know if you've ever seen that
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clip of Trump, um, on Oprah, like 30 years ago, there's a clip. It's made the rounds online plenty
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of times. Trump is on Oprah. Uh, and he's talking about 30 years ago. He's talking about a lot of
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the same things, trade and all that. He's talking about a lot of the same things that he talks about
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now. So an impressive amount of consistency. But if you watch that clip of Oprah, he's saying
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the same sorts of things, but he comes off like a normal person. He just, he's just speaking. He's
00:27:12.500
not rambling. He's not, it's not bombast. It's not bluster. Uh, he's not saying things to get a rise
00:27:19.300
out of people. He's not trolling. He's not doing any of that. He's just, he seems like a normal
00:27:24.100
person who knows what he's talking about and who's actually concerned about the country.
00:27:29.980
And, uh, and that's how he comes off in that clip 30 years ago. If he could somehow rediscover
00:27:37.100
that part of him, uh, then I think he'll present a real challenge to the other side,
00:27:47.700
especially because they're not going to expect that. And I think maybe the only way it's for him
00:27:53.820
to, at this point, maybe that part of him is dead now and there's no reclaiming it. It's quite
00:27:58.880
possible. Um, people change, but nowadays you see that part of him mostly when he's reading
00:28:08.360
scripted speeches that he didn't write like the state of the union address, everyone raved about
00:28:14.720
that. So I think, and his sycophants will disagree, but I think his best chance in 2020 is to stick to
00:28:21.680
the script, to give a lot of scripted speeches, just like that state of the union to be as scripted as
00:28:27.040
possible to dial things back a little bit, to be as normal as possible. Uh, I think that's going to
00:28:34.060
be his chance to win. And I know that again, the, the sycophants will say, no, he just needs to do
00:28:39.960
exactly what he's been doing all along. All right. I mean, if you want to encourage him to, uh, you
00:28:47.600
know, do that if you, if you really think I'll just say this in closing, I think to win, there is
00:28:57.440
going to be a huge, huge, uh, anti-Trump movement, you know, at the polls in 2020, obviously there are
00:29:07.720
a lot of people who absolutely hate him and there's no denying that. Right. So I, it seems clear to me
00:29:15.600
that Trump, if he wants to win, he's going to need more votes than he got in 2016. It's going to need
00:29:23.660
more, not less. And so you have to ask, has he done anything over the last two years to earn more
00:29:32.400
supporters? Do you think he's earned that? You think what he's doing now is earning more supporters
00:29:38.940
or is it just keeping them the same and possibly even losing people?
00:29:48.040
All right. Uh, let's see, I guess we'll move on to, to emails. I had a couple of things to talk
00:29:55.120
about, but all right, we'll move on to some emails and we'll wrap up for a Friday. Uh,
00:30:01.060
mattwallshowatgmail.com, mattwallshowatgmail.com. This is from Dennis says, hi, Matt. Great show as
00:30:06.800
always. Roughly 38 years ago, my little brother attempted to blow out his candles. He managed to
00:30:13.660
lodge his wad of chewing gum into the center of the cake. I've been scarred since. The good news is that
00:30:18.840
there's an easy solution. When the singing stops and it's time to extinguish the fire, simply clap
00:30:22.940
your hands directly above the cake, the candles. The gush of air created by a single clap is usually
00:30:27.360
enough to put out every single candle. Small children may have to clap a second time,
00:30:30.920
but at least they're not spreading the plague that they most certainly would have. Uh, yes. Well,
00:30:36.600
if you watch the show a couple of days ago, uh, Dennis is referring to, um, uh, I went on a rather
00:30:42.480
lengthy rant about people blowing out their birthday candles and spewing, uh, their spittle all over the
00:30:48.420
cake. So yeah, clapping now that, that seems, especially if you had a little kid's birthday
00:30:52.840
party and you intentionally clap, Oh yeah. Over the candles to put them all out. Uh, that will get you
00:30:57.840
some dirty looks, but I do. It's better than, than someone blowing on the cake. Anyway, this is from
00:31:02.340
Tom. Hi, Matt. Enjoy the show. Uh, I listened to your recent critique of academia as a scam and had
00:31:08.000
to agree with most of what you said. As a college professor, I am often embarrassed by my profession.
00:31:12.920
I'm a 55 year old white straight conservative, so I don't fit the stereotypical academic profile.
00:31:18.300
I worked in industry for 25 years before I changed careers, mostly so I could spend more time with
00:31:23.820
my kids while I have an engineering and a, uh, and heavy, um, uh, let's see engineering background.
00:31:31.280
I teach in a college of business that puts us somewhere between the STEM fields and the humanities.
00:31:36.600
While I can't disagree with the overall points you made about academia, I wanted to let you know that
00:31:40.920
there are some of us who are truly trying to provide our students with important career skills.
00:31:46.060
I teach mostly MBA students and work hard to impart not only technical skills,
00:31:50.180
but important practical business skills based on my prior career. Although I am conservative,
00:31:55.080
I try and keep my politics out of the classroom because that's my job. Uh, keep up the good work
00:31:59.740
and hold the, the academy accountable. Just know that we are not all left-wing intersectional ideologues
00:32:05.300
trying to indoctrinate our youth. Well, Tom, I, uh, appreciate that. And it is, it's always concerning.
00:32:12.540
I appreciate your email. It's always concerning though. When I hear someone say,
00:32:15.260
I'm a college professor and I agree with you. I always, I wish that you wouldn't agree. You know,
00:32:20.080
I wish that you would tell me I'm totally wrong. But when even college professors agree that higher
00:32:26.400
education has in some, in many ways become a scam, that's, that's, that is concerning. But
00:32:30.400
I have a lot of respect for people like yourself who stay in the thick of it, uh, to try to be at
00:32:37.960
least some small glimmer of light in the midst of all this madness. I've got a ton of respect for that.
00:32:42.600
But you're doing the Lord's work and keep it up. Um, all right, let's see. This is from Nathan says,
00:32:50.920
Hey Matt, I'm wondering if you could give some advice. Me and my wife are planning to have our
00:32:54.780
second child. Congratulations. Fortunately, we agreed to name our first daughter in honor of my
00:32:59.500
grandmother, but with the upcoming children, we can't seem to come to an agreement. I want my children
00:33:04.400
to have biblical names like Peter, Noah, Delilah, Rebecca, et cetera. But she keeps coming back with
00:33:09.440
names like Maria, Maria, Maria, Leah, what Maria, Leah, Georgia, Bo, et cetera. It seems to me like
00:33:18.260
she's coming up with names for a dog rather than name names for a child. And I've expressed this much
00:33:23.900
to her. She repeats over and over. I want my child to have an interesting name, not an old slash common
00:33:28.760
one. I'm not sure how, how much common ground can be reached here. Any suggestions, Nathan, I would
00:33:33.960
just quote Ephesians five to your wife. Uh, wives must submit to their husbands. And in fact, actually
00:33:40.700
bring out the Bible and say, uh, come here for a minute, honey, let me show you this. Let me read
00:33:45.440
you. There's an interesting passage here. I think St. Paul has something to say. Uh, actually maybe
00:33:49.940
don't do that. That might be counterproductive. Just, okay. This is what I would say. First of all,
00:33:55.380
Maria, Leah sounds like the name of a Dr. Seuss character or maybe some sort of disease. So that's not
00:34:01.140
a good one. Georgia is as common a name as just look at any map and it has the name Georgia on it.
00:34:07.280
And, uh, Bo is a great name for a child. If you want your child to be a cliched jock character from
00:34:13.420
an early nineties high school sitcom, then yeah, go with Bo. Uh, otherwise maybe stick with the
00:34:19.420
biblical names unless she hates the Bible, you know, tell her that, look, we could name our kid
00:34:25.540
after a biblical, unless you hate the Bible. Is there something you want to tell God about, uh, that you
00:34:30.740
dislike his book? All right. Guilt trip. I mean, it can work sometimes. So it's worth a shot.
00:34:38.100
Anyway, this is from James. Speaking of the Bible says, hi, Matt, you seem to answer emails about
00:34:42.940
biblical history a lot. So I thought I'd throw this one out at you. One claim I hear all the time
00:34:47.840
that confuses me is that the gospels are anonymous. Last I checked though, they have names at the top.
00:34:54.440
Where does this claim come from and how do you respond to it? Uh,
00:34:58.440
hi, James. Yes, I do talk about biblical history a lot, but I should emphasize that I am not a,
00:35:05.620
an expert, uh, just to be clear. I'm interested in the subject. I read about it a lot,
00:35:10.740
but I'm not an expert. So I'll always, whenever I give an answer on a question like this,
00:35:15.700
always check my answer, uh, check my work. Okay. Go and look it up for yourself and make sure that I'm
00:35:21.000
right because don't take my word for it. Now, uh, yes, almost any mainstream secular scholar that
00:35:29.240
you'll hear from will say that the gospels are anonymous, not just scholars, but secular people
00:35:34.580
in general, like to say that they say, Oh, it's anonymous. Nobody knows who wrote them,
00:35:38.180
et cetera. Where does it come from? Well, it, it, it doesn't come from thin air. We have to admit,
00:35:44.060
it's not like they just invented this. The people who make this claim will point out correctly
00:35:49.260
that the gospels themselves do not claim authorship. They don't, the gospels themselves in the text
00:35:57.260
don't claim to have been written by any particular person. So they might say gospel of Matthew, Mark,
00:36:03.500
Luke, John at the top, but in the text itself, it doesn't say, this is Matthew. Here's my account of
00:36:11.420
the life of our Lord. Uh, and that is a noticeable fact because the, the epistles do claim authorship.
00:36:19.260
At the very beginning. Like if you, if you read any of Paul's epistles, they always start with,
00:36:24.220
uh, Paul identifying himself, uh, Paul slave of Christ, so on and so forth. And this was common
00:36:31.120
for people to do back in the ancient world and, and in today's world as well. If people are, you know,
00:36:35.600
offering an account of something, they'll often, especially if it's a firsthand account. So
00:36:41.680
that's the other interesting thing is that the gospels are written in third person. So Matthew
00:36:46.980
never says, uh, we went there, we did this, we, we met up with Jesus and went over there. Um,
00:36:55.060
even when, when referring to himself, he just says, he doesn't say, ah, he just calls himself Matthew
00:37:01.080
and never hints that he is talking about himself. Um, so the gospels themselves never claim authorship
00:37:10.980
and they never claim to be eyewitness accounts and they are not written like eyewitness accounts.
00:37:19.300
That, that is all true. We can't, that can't be denied. I mean, that's absolutely true.
00:37:23.140
And so when someone makes this claim, that's what they're basing it on. It is not a baseless claim.
00:37:31.220
And I, I'll admit that I don't really understand why Matthew didn't write his gospel like an
00:37:37.560
eyewitness account. I kind of wish that he had, honestly, uh, I would be, I wish he had, but he
00:37:44.660
hadn't. But as you point out that that's all true. But, but as you point out that there are,
00:37:51.700
there are names right at the top. So it's, it's hard to overlook that part of it does say the gospel
00:37:56.460
of Matthew, um, gospel of seems pretty clear cut. And what's really important is that we don't have
00:38:05.080
any complete manuscripts that lack that identification. As far as I know, as far as I
00:38:13.480
know, someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't have, now we have gospel fragments that are
00:38:20.820
just little pieces of the gospels that obviously don't say gospel of, because it does, it's only
00:38:25.460
just a little part of the page. But, um, of all the completed, of all the, whatever hundreds of,
00:38:32.020
uh, completed manuscripts we have, there is not a single one that does not have that identifier at
00:38:39.620
the top. And there also is not a, a, a, you know, for instance, um, uh, we don't have something like
00:38:45.440
the, the text of the gospel of Matthew, but at the top it says gospel of Luke or whatever, where things
00:38:49.780
are mixed, uh, uh, mismatched. So, uh, that's a significant fact as well. The gospels, as far as we
00:39:00.620
can tell, have always had these identifiers. Now we don't have the originals though. We don't have,
00:39:06.520
we don't have the originals. We don't have copies of the originals. We don't have copies of copies
00:39:10.260
of copies of copies, um, at least not in complete form. So strictly historically speaking,
00:39:18.780
we don't know, historically speaking, we don't know what kind of identification they had originally.
00:39:26.780
We can't say as a matter of history for an absolute fact, which means secular people,
00:39:32.340
the most they can claim is that the gospels might be anonymous or the most they can do is say, uh,
00:39:41.320
the gospel allegedly written by Matthew or something like that. But when they, when they come out and
00:39:46.260
just say, Oh, Matthew didn't write that gospel. It's anonymous. They're going, they, and they know
00:39:52.080
this if they know, if, if they've read this, if they've researched the topic at all, they know
00:39:56.360
that they are going far beyond where the evidence actually leads them. Because as far as we know,
00:40:04.340
it has always said the gospel of Matthew. We don't have any evidence that there was ever a point when
00:40:09.860
the gospel of Matthew did not say gospel of Matthew. And obviously if we had the original document,
00:40:16.300
which we don't, I wish we did. We don't. If we had it and the original document said gospel of
00:40:22.420
Matthew, well, then that would put the whole claim to rest, wouldn't it? If it said that on the
00:40:26.700
original document, then clearly there you go. Uh, we can't say as a matter of history that it
00:40:33.900
absolutely did say that, but, um, we can say as a matter of history, as far as we know, in all
00:40:42.040
likelihood, this, you know, Matthew wrote the gospel of Matthew. And so, um, the secular people,
00:40:49.760
I think in their, in their zeal to discredit the Bible, they, they often step, uh, far beyond where
00:40:58.940
the evidence actually takes them. So they're, they're not content to just point to this or that
00:41:06.340
difficulty in the scriptures. And there are difficulties and there are things that are
00:41:11.280
difficult to understand. Like why, for instance, the eyewitness accounts are not written like
00:41:16.080
eyewitness accounts. So they could point that out and just leave it there, but no, they want to go
00:41:22.140
for the certainty. They want to prove that, Oh no, this is all just bogus. And then they go off.
00:41:28.040
So in a way, ironically, they're, they're doing what they accuse us of doing, which is having a sort
00:41:33.800
of unfounded certainty, uh, which they themselves often demonstrate. All right, we'll leave it there.
00:41:42.940
Thanks for watching everybody. Thanks for listening and have a great weekend. Godspeed.
00:42:00.000
A horrifying evil terrorist attack on Muslims and Christchurch shakes the world.
00:42:04.740
President Trump runs into Republican resistance over his national emergency. And we check the
00:42:08.760
mailbag. I'm Ben Shapiro. This is the Ben Shapiro show.