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March 15, 2019 - The Matt Walsh Show
42:09
Ep. 218 - Now Is Not The Time To Mock "Thoughts And Prayers"

A horrific slaughter in New Zealand. We will talk about the latest news surrounding the attack, and I will try to dispel certain false narratives that, as per usual, have been constructed around the attack. We will also discuss why today, of all days, is not the right time to mock “thoughts and prayers,” as some have done.  Date: 03-15-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Today on the Matt Wall Show, a horrific attack against mosques in New Zealand.
We will talk about the latest news surrounding the attack.
I will also try to dispel certain false narratives that have already been constructed about the attack, as per usual.
And I also want to talk about why now is definitely the wrong time to be mocking thoughts and prayers, as some people have All right.
It is, well, it's not a good day.
Another day of tragedy.
We also discussed some other news of the day, including Beto's bid for the presidency, and I want to explain why he could
be a formidable challenge for Donald Trump.
So all of that today on The Matt Wall Show.
All right, it is, well, it's not a good day. Another day of tragedy.
We have so many of them, it feels like.
As you've heard, I'm sure at this point, there was an attack on a mosque, two mosques in New Zealand yesterday, 49 people dead.
As of the last time I checked, the killer filmed himself, live streamed the attack.
And that video was unfortunately everywhere across Almost every platform you can think of within a very short amount of time that just was everywhere.
That's the way things work now.
The first thing we should acknowledge here simply is the human toll of an attack like this, the loss of human life.
And we should extend our prayers for those who have been lost and for their families.
And I think so often we forget to do that part because we jump right into the controversy and the arguments and everything.
Anyone who is religious, whatever your religion happens to be, if you're religious, then you can imagine, and you probably have imagined, 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.
It always crosses my mind about, you know, is this going to be the time when someone walks in here with a gun?
Where are the exits?
And that kind of thing.
And it's not crazy to think that way.
So you can imagine the special horror of something like this happening at a house of worship.
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.
Just over the last year, we've had New Zealand, Pittsburgh, Sutherland Springs in Texas, the church shooting.
Almost 90 people killed between just those three attacks.
Charleston too, that was a few years ago.
You know, we sort of reflexively call these mass killers cowards.
Right?
Every time there's any kind of mass killing, we say, oh, that person was a coward.
Almost to the point where the word ceases to have any meaning because it is so reflexive.
And in fact, the truth is that even if it makes us feel better to assume that every evil person is a coward, that's actually not the case.
Just because someone's an evil person doesn't make them a coward.
But to attack a house of worship, I mean, that truly is the height of cowardice.
So when I call this guy a coward, it is not just reflexive.
I'm not just saying it because he did a terrible thing.
It really is the height of cowardice.
The only thing more cowardly is something like Sandy Hook, where you're going and killing elementary schoolers.
But with something like this, you're going after people who you know Or you think will not be armed now from the reports that I've read at the second mosque attack.
Someone did return fire.
Thank God and and probably saved many lives in doing so.
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.
They're going to be focused on prayer and be in a completely sort of docile kind of state.
And that's why a house of worship is chosen.
On top of being evil, And disgusting and all of that it is just so cowardly as well now Speaking of this scumbag And I thought about before I before I turn the camera on I was thinking about how exactly to go about this because it's a difficult thing and
I believe that it is important to starve these mass killers of the attention that they so desperately crave.
And especially this guy clearly wanted attention.
And so on one hand, you don't want to give it to him, right?
But I also think that the truth is important.
And it's important to combat false narratives.
We can't just allow falsehood.
To spread.
And I feel, especially 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, right?
So there have been a lot of false narratives cropping up around this particular attack.
People have been blaming certain right-wing personalities like Candace Owens.
They've been blaming certain YouTubers.
They blamed Donald Trump.
They blamed, you know, So on and so forth.
Claiming that the killer was inspired by these people.
Well, I did go and read part of this scumbag's manifesto.
And I hate to even call it a manifesto.
That makes it sound more significant than it really is.
It's just ramblings is all it is.
And he published 70 some pages of ramblings.
Uh, before his attack.
Now, I didn't read the whole thing.
I, there's no way I could possibly do that, but I read enough and I hate that I had to read it at all, but I read enough just to tell you this, that all of the narratives you're seeing surrounding this attack are false.
In fact, here's the important point.
The scumbag wanted to fuel false narratives and he basically said as much.
His manifesto is filled with sarcasm and obvious trolling.
This is essentially like an internet troll that has come into the real world.
He mentions well-known names, hot-button issues, and so on, all because he wants attention and controversy.
At one point he said that he used a gun because he wanted to spark debate in the United States about guns and so on.
So he's a murderous, nihilistic coward.
And that's all.
And he's clearly also legitimately racist.
He hates Muslims, calls them invaders.
Um, so obviously we, we throw racist in a racist, murderous, nihilistic coward, but the nihilistic part is very important as well.
The rest, everything else that you're going to hear about his political views, his affiliations, et cetera, et cetera, much of it is simply false.
And the important thing to realize is that reading his diatribe makes it clear, and I don't recommend reading it, by the way.
I read it so you didn't have to.
I've told you everything you need to know about it.
But reading it makes it clear, inescapably clear, that he was a nihilist with no clear political agenda and with the desire to stir up division and discord and to bring attention to himself.
I'll just give you one example.
He says in succeeding sentences, he says first that he supports Donald Trump as a symbol, whatever that means, And then he also says he does not support Donald Trump as a leader or a policymaker.
So he's saying he supports Trump and he doesn't support Trump.
Why is he saying that?
So that people can latch on to whichever angle they want, um, and then argue with each other.
So that if you're a Trump supporter, you can say, Oh, see, he doesn't like Trump.
So this is the fault of Trump haters.
And if you, if you hate Trump, you can say, Oh, he likes Trump.
See, it's the fault of people who like Trump.
Clearly, that is the strategy that this scumbag was going with.
Very obvious.
And the media is willingly playing into it.
I mean, I've seen this all over the media, all over social media as well.
People saying, oh, he was a Trump supporter, this and that.
And I hate talking about what this scumbag believed and what he wrote, but it's important that the truth be known.
And I don't want, I don't think we should be, I don't want you to be manipulated.
So I'll leave that there.
We'll put that to the side.
Just wanted to make the record clear.
One other thing I wanted to say is that it's pretty standard procedure now, as you know, after these attacks to hear people mocking thoughts and prayers, right?
That phrase.
And the usual suspects are at it again with this thing.
Every time there are people saying, oh, your thoughts and prayers don't do anything.
Unsurprisingly, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got in on the action.
This is what she tweeted.
She says, at first I thought of saying, imagine being told your house of faith isn't safe anymore.
But I couldn't say imagine, because of Charleston, Pittsburgh, Sutherland Springs,
what good are your thoughts and prayers when they don't even keep the pews safe?
And then she goes on later and she says, thoughts and prayers is reference to the NRA's phrase
used to deflect conversation away from policy change during tragedies, not directed at the prime minister
of New Zealand who I greatly admire.
So, to call this thoughtless and insensitive would be a massive understatement.
First of all, thoughts and prayers is the NRA's phrase?
What does that even mean?
Does she really think that the NRA invented thoughts and prayers?
It's some sort of conspiracy that they came up with it?
No, she's not that stupid, despite what you might think.
This is just opportunism.
She's using the bodies of 49 dead people to bludgeon her political opponents.
As for thoughts and prayers, the fact is this, even if you don't believe, In the power of prayer.
The victims clearly did.
Their families did.
They died in prayer.
Literally.
So now is not the time for the criticism of prayer.
And I remember this every time you have a shooting at a house of worship, this same thing happens.
I remember it with Sutherland Springs and the, I think it was 20, 25 or 26 people who were killed, shot in cold blood, point-blank range at a church in Texas, you know, about a year ago.
And it was the same thing.
People say, oh, you know, so you think thoughts and prayers do that?
Well, the thoughts and prayers couldn't even keep the killer out of the church.
Leaving aside how the people who say that clearly don't understand what prayer is and what the faithful We don't think of prayer as some sort of magical incantation, where if you say these certain words enough times, good things are automatically going to happen, or there's going to be some sort of force field put around you to stop bad things from happening to you.
That's not what we think of prayer.
If you don't pray, if you're not religious, maybe that's what you think we think, but that's not it.
Prayer is about union and connection with God, first and foremost.
That's what it's about.
And, in fact, not every prayer is even a petition.
So, when we talk about prayer, we're not talking always about asking for things from God.
Sometimes prayer is simply adoration.
It's worship of God.
Sometimes prayer is contemplation, simply thinking about the divine.
Sometimes it's a prayer of repentance.
Sometimes it's a prayer of thanksgiving.
There are many different kinds of prayer.
And it is not principally about asking for things.
And when we, the faithful, when we see terrible things happen to people and to other people of faith, even in a church or a mosque or a synagogue, We're not confused by that.
We don't think, well, how could this have happened when they were praying?
Because we don't expect prayer to work like that.
And we know that terrible things happen in this world.
That's why we pray.
It's why our faith is so important to us.
So you simply, you have a misunderstanding.
If you're going around saying this kind of thing, you have a misunderstanding of what faith means, What religious people believe of what prayer is, you have a misunderstanding.
But even aside from that, this is just not the time.
Can you have a little bit of sensitivity?
These people believe this.
They died in prayer.
Can't you have a little bit of sensitivity and leave that?
Just, you know, hold off for a little bit.
You can launch into your anti-prayer rant any other time.
You've got all the time in the world.
to complain about prayer and talk about and mock it and say how worthless and stupid it is.
You've got all the time to do that.
You don't need to do it right now.
I mean, look, even if you think, even if you think that prayer is pointless and worthless and it does nothing and you're just talking to yourself and there is no God, whatever, even if you think that, even if that's your belief, Okay, well then from your perspective then, people pray at times like this to make themselves feel better and so that they can commune with each other.
So fine, what does that bother you?
Just let them do that then.
I don't even understand, even if I were to adopt your perspective, I was still not, I wouldn't be out there after a mass shooting saying, oh, don't, don't pray.
What do you care?
If it's just something people do to make themselves feel better, then fine.
What does that bother you?
Why do you need to, who cares?
Why do you care?
What happened to live and let live?
What about what happened to letting people live their lifestyle?
You don't have to understand it.
You don't have to agree.
You can think it's stupid.
It doesn't matter.
All right.
Had a couple of things I wanted to talk about today.
Less important things, less serious and tragic things to talk about.
So, I'm gonna move on to a couple of those.
First of all, Beto O'Rourke announced his candidacy for president yesterday.
I don't have a lot to offer on this as I find news about political campaigns to be exceedingly boring, but I will say one thing about Beto O'Rourke.
I disagree, obviously, with his views.
Not only do I disagree with his views, I think that his shtick is phony in many ways, but I also think that conservatives make a mistake when they take him too lightly.
He is a formidable political talent, and he would be a formidable challenge for Trump.
Now, fortunately for Trump, I don't think that he's going to get the nomination.
I think the Democrat Party is at a place right now where a guy like Beto O'Rourke probably just can't win the nomination.
But if he did somehow get the nod, he would be a tough out for Trump, I think, for sure.
And remember, Trump has never, this is one of the reasons why it'd be tough for him, Trump has never faced anyone with actual charisma or political talent.
So that would be a new challenge for Trump.
Trump has never faced someone like that.
And even outside of the campaign, most of the feuds that Trump has been in have been with people who are completely devoid of charisma or talent of any kind.
Hillary Clinton Clinton was like a black hole for charisma.
She was where she just everything is just sucked in and obliterated.
So there's just nothing there in terms of political talent or charisma.
And his number one primary challenger was Ted Cruz, who I like Ted Cruz, but Ted Cruz is actually listed as an antonym for charismatic.
If you look up in a thesaurus, you'll see his name there.
So it would be a new thing for Trump.
And Beto is not the only Democrat with charisma.
Kamala Harris has it, though I think she's soulless and evil, she does have charisma.
So, and there are a few others as well.
Here's the problem.
For one thing, O'Rourke is, he's good at speaking off the cuff, or at least looking, seeming like he's speaking off the cuff, and also in the process being coherent and superficially insightful.
Emphasis on superficial.
But superficial insight fools a lot of people.
There was that viral video of O'Rourke answering a question during the campaign against Cruz.
He was answering a question about, I think it was about the anthem controversy.
And of course he was coming out in favor of the players who were kneeling.
And he just goes on this, whatever, four or five minute thing about the anthem.
And the reason it went viral, and millions of people shared it, is because everyone was saying, Oh, this is so insightful.
And he's just, he gets it, he understands.
I don't agree with the point of view he was expressing there.
But the fact that he can do that, and give you a four or five minute answer on something seemingly off the cuff, and then other people will go, Oh, wow, that was really insightful.
The fact that he can do that is, that's a challenge.
Trump, as I said, he's never faced anyone who could do that.
Hillary Clinton definitely could not do that.
And the problem is that Trump, Trump's off-the-cuff speaking style is basically rambling and incoherent.
When Trump goes off the cuff, he just goes in a million different directions.
And it's basically incoherent.
You can't even tell what point he's trying to make.
The contrast, I think, between rambling incoherence and someone with some charm and charisma speaking coherently is just not a contrast that will work well for Trump, I'm afraid.
Also, Beto, and there again are a few Democrats who have this going for themselves, but Beto has basically mastered the art of coming off like a regular down-to-earth guy.
And now again, I think a lot of that is schtick, but it doesn't matter.
This is politics.
And if you can come off that way, that's a huge advantage.
And that's why some of the attacks that Republicans launched against him during the campaign in Texas, a lot of those attacks failed so miserably.
And I know you'll say, well, he lost.
Yeah, but it was Texas.
This was Texas.
He had no business even coming close to winning in Texas.
The fact that he came close is stunning, honestly, really is.
And it shows you that the attacks were not effective at all.
Attacks like, I mean, the fact that Republicans would try to, and conservatives are still doing this, they're trying to use The fact that Beto was in a punk rock band as a younger person, they're trying to use that against him.
Like, this guy was in a band!
Okay, most people think bands are cool.
That's not, you're just making him seem cool.
That is not a good line of attack.
I know you might, if you don't like him, you think that any line of attack is good.
You think, oh, this loser was in a band.
No, when people see, oh, he was in a band, you know what people think?
They think, oh, okay, he had friends.
He was a musician.
He liked to party.
Most people think, well, that's cool.
He was like I was as a younger person.
He was just a normal person.
Oh, he had a DUI.
Again, nobody cares about the DUI.
No one cares about that.
Maybe they should, but they don't.
No one cares if you had a DUI 20 years ago when you were a crazy punk rocker, blah, blah, blah.
No one cares about that.
And a guy who has matured after being a crazy, partying, punk rocker, etc., that's a story that people find relatable.
You know why?
Because a lot of normal people are like that.
Maybe they weren't punk rockers, but there are a lot of people who, when they were younger, they were kind of crazy, they did stupid things, they drank a lot, then they matured and they changed.
So that is a story that does well for O'Rourke.
When you use that, you're helping him.
And in fact, most people can relate more to that.
than they can to the story of a billionaire real estate developer who, before being a president, was a Hollywood celebrity.
Nothing wrong with that.
I'm just saying that no one can relate to that story.
Most of us have never been in that world, but we have been, many of us, in kind of the world that O'Rourke was in.
So that's not an effective line of attack.
It just makes them seem normal.
And it also presents a difficult contrast for Trump, because Trump, I think, struggles to come off like a regular human being sometimes.
He's—Trump is—there's just so much—it's just bombast all the time with Trump, constantly.
And that routine is wearing thin for a lot of people.
I know that if you're a big Trump fan, you don't want to hear this, but you need to hear it.
Because he'll lose in 2020 if he doesn't change some things.
The shtick that Trump has now, I know when he goes up and speaks for four hours at a campaign rally and just rambles about a million topics, if you're a big Trump fan, you think, oh, this is great, it's awesome, it's not.
Most people don't find that compelling.
You might, because you're a big fan, that's fine, but most people don't find that compelling.
And I tell you something, there are a lot of people who did find it compelling in 2016, and now they don't anymore, because it's old.
It's an old thing.
You've got to switch it up.
You can't stick with that.
And it doesn't do any good to say, oh yeah, well, he won like that in 20... Yeah, but times have changed.
That was 2016.
He was running against Hillary Clinton, the most unlikeable human to have ever existed.
He had the good fortune of running against.
And by the way, a human who didn't even think to go and campaign in the Rust Belt, And he also had the advantage of no one took him seriously, so no one actually thought he was going to win, so a lot of people that hated him didn't go and vote against him because they thought he had no chance.
He's going to have none of that in his favor this time around, unless he has the great fortune of running against someone like Elizabeth Warren.
Well then, fine.
But that's probably not going to happen.
If he pulls someone like O'Rourke, He's not going to have those advantages anymore, and he's going to have to change things up.
And the four-hour unscripted campaign rallies where he's just doing nothing but throwing red meat to people who already agree with him, it's not going to work.
And he's going to lose.
So if he wants to win in 2020, he's going to need a strategy that goes beyond just slapping a silly nickname on his opponent and making fun of his hand gestures.
That was Trump's response yesterday, was he was making fun of O'Rourke's hand gestures.
And again, conservatives were like, oh, that's great.
This is classic stuff.
It's Bush leak.
Maybe that was enough in 2016.
It's not going to be enough this time.
You see, When you're running against someone with zero personality and zero charisma and who nobody likes, like with Hillary Clinton, then yeah, basically any strategy will work against her.
But when you've got someone who's got some talent, you're not going to be able to knock them out by putting a nickname on them.
That's not going to be enough.
Especially when everyone sees it coming.
It's, you don't have the element of surprise anymore.
No one is surprised at all.
Everyone knows what Donald Trump is about.
So if he wants to win, he's going to, he also had that going for him in 2016 is that no one had ever seen anything like this before and they didn't know what to do with it.
Well, now we've all seen it.
We're expecting it.
So Trump, if he wants to win, he's going to need to come with a move that we haven't seen.
And I think that Maybe if he could figure out a way to just come off like a regular person.
I don't know if you've ever seen that clip of Trump on Oprah, like 30 years ago.
There's a clip.
It's made the rounds online plenty of times.
Trump is on Oprah, and he's talking about, 30 years ago, he was talking about a lot of the same things, trade and all that.
He's talking about a lot of the same things that he talks about now.
So an impressive amount of consistency.
But if you watch that clip of Oprah, he's saying the same sorts of things, but he comes off like a normal person.
He's just speaking.
He's not rambling.
It's not bombast.
It's not bluster.
He's not saying things to get a rise out of people.
He's not trolling.
He's not doing any of that.
He seems like a normal person.
who knows what he's talking about, and who's actually concerned about the country.
And, and that's how he comes off in that clip 30 years ago.
If he could somehow rediscover that part of him, then I think he'll present a real challenge to the other side, especially because they're not going to expect that.
And I think maybe the only way for him to, at this point, maybe that part of him is dead now and there's no reclaiming it.
It's quite possible.
People change.
But nowadays you see that part of him mostly when he's reading scripted speeches that he didn't write.
Like the State of the Union Address.
Everyone raved about that.
So I think, and his sycophants will disagree, but I think his best chance in 2020 is to stick to the script, to give a lot of scripted speeches just like that State of the Union, to be as scripted as possible, to dial things back a little bit, to be as normal as possible.
I think that's going to be his chance to win.
And I know that, again, the sycophants will say, no, he just needs to do exactly what he's been doing all along.
All right.
If you want to encourage him to, you know, do that, if you really think.
I'll just say this in closing.
I think to win, there is going to be a huge, huge anti-Trump movement, you know, at the polls in 2020, obviously.
There are a lot of people who absolutely hate him.
And there's no denying that, right?
So it seems clear to me that Trump, if he wants to win, he's going to need more votes than he got in 2016.
He's going to need more, not less.
And so you have to ask, has he done anything over the last two years to earn more supporters?
Do you think what he's doing now is earning more supporters?
Or is it just keeping them the same and possibly even losing people?
All right.
Let's see.
I guess we'll move on to emails.
I had a couple of things to talk about, but all right.
We'll move on to some emails and we'll wrap up for a Friday.
Matt Walsh show at gmail.com.
Matt Walsh show at gmail.com.
This is from Dennis says, Hi, Matt.
Great show as always.
Roughly 38 years ago, my little brother attempted to blow out his candles.
He managed to lodge his wad of chewing gum into the center of the cake.
I've been scarred since.
The good news is that there's an easy solution.
When the singing stops and it's time to extinguish the fire, simply clap your hands directly above the candles.
The gush of air created by a single clap is usually enough to put out every single candle.
Small children may have to clap a second time, but at least they're not spreading the plague that they most certainly would have.
Yes, well, if you watched the show a couple days ago, Dennis is referring to...
I went on a rather lengthy rant about people blowing out their birthday candles and spewing their spittle all over the cake.
So yeah, clapping.
Now that seems, especially if you had a little kid's birthday party and you intentionally clap, oh yay, over the candles to put them all out, that will get you some dirty looks.
But I do, it's better than someone blowing on the cake anyway.
This is from Tom.
Hi Matt, enjoy the show.
I listened to your recent critique of academia as a scam and had to agree with most of what you said.
As a college professor, I am often embarrassed by my profession.
I'm a 55-year-old white, straight conservative, so I don't fit the stereotypical academic profile.
I worked in industry for 25 years before I changed careers, mostly so I could spend more time with my kids.
While I have an engineering and a heavy, let's see, engineering background, I teach in a college of business.
That puts us somewhere between the STEM fields and the humanities.
While I can't disagree with the overall points you made about academia, I wanted to let you know that there are some of us who are truly trying to provide our students with important career skills.
I teach mostly MBA students and work hard to impart not only technical skills, but important practical business skills based on my prior career.
Although I am conservative, I try and keep my politics out of the classroom because that's my job.
Keep up the good work and hold the academy accountable.
Just know that we are not all left-wing intersexual ideologues trying to indoctrinate our youth.
Well, Tom, I appreciate that.
And it's always concerning.
I appreciate your email.
It's always concerning, though, when I hear someone say, I'm a college professor and I agree with you.
I wish that you wouldn't agree.
I wish that you would tell me I'm totally wrong.
But when even college professors agree that higher education has in some in many ways become a scam.
That's that's that is concerning.
But I have a lot of respect for people like yourself who stay in the thick of it to try to be at least some small glimmer of light in the midst of all this madness.
I've got a ton of respect for that.
You're doing the Lord's work and keep it up.
All right, let's see.
This is from Nathan, says, Hey Matt, I'm wondering if you could give some advice.
Me and my wife are planning to have our second child.
Congratulations.
Fortunately, we agreed to name our first daughter in honor of my grandmother, but with the upcoming children, we can't seem to come to an agreement.
I want my children to have biblical names like Peter, Noah, Delilah, Rebecca, et cetera.
But she keeps coming back with names like Maria, Maria, Leah.
Maria, Leah, Georgia, Beau, etc.
It seems to me like she's coming up with names for a dog rather than names for a child.
And I've expressed this much to her.
She repeats over and over.
I want my child to have an interesting name, not an old slash common one.
I'm not sure how much common ground can be reached here.
Any suggestions?
Nathan, I would just quote Ephesians 5 to your wife.
Wives must submit to their husbands.
And in fact, actually bring out the Bible and say, come here for a minute, honey.
Let me show you this.
Let me read you.
There's an interesting passage here.
I think St.
Paul has something to say.
Actually, maybe don't do that.
That might be counterproductive.
Just, okay, this is what I would, first of all, Maria Leah sounds like the name of a Dr. Seuss character, or maybe some sort of disease, so that's not a good one.
Georgia is as common a name as, just look at any map and it has the name Georgia on it.
And Beau is a great name for a child, if you want your child to be a cliched jock character from an early 90s high school sitcom, then yeah, go with Beau.
Otherwise, maybe stick with the biblical names.
Unless she hates the Bible, you know?
Tell her that, look, we could name our kid after a biblical... unless you hate the Bible.
Is there something you want to tell God about... that you dislike his book?
All right.
Guilt trip.
I mean, it can work sometimes.
It's worth a shot, anyway.
This is from James, speaking of the Bible, says, Hi Matt, you seem to answer emails about biblical history a lot, so I thought I'd throw this one out at you.
One claim I hear all the time that confuses me is that the Gospels are anonymous.
Last I checked though they have names at the top.
Where does this claim come from and how do you respond to it?
Hi James, yes I do talk about biblical history a lot but I should emphasize that I am not a An expert, just to be clear.
I'm interested in the subject.
I read about it a lot, but I'm not an expert.
So always, whenever I give an answer on a question like this, always check my answer.
Check my work.
Okay, go and look it up for yourself and make sure that I'm right because don't take my word for it.
Now, yes, almost any mainstream Secular scholar that you'll hear from will say that the Gospels are anonymous.
Not just scholars, but secular people in general like to say that they say, oh, it's anonymous.
Nobody knows who wrote them, etc.
Where does it come from?
Well, it doesn't come from thin air, we have to admit.
It's not like they just invented this.
The people who make this claim will point out correctly that the Gospels themselves do not claim Authorship.
The Gospels themselves, in the text, don't claim to have been written by any particular person.
So, they might say, Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, at the top, but in the text itself, it doesn't say, this is Matthew, here's my account of the life of our Lord.
And that is a noticeable fact, because the epistles do claim authorship at the very beginning.
If you read any of Paul's epistles, they always start with Paul identifying himself.
Paul, slave of Christ, so on and so forth.
This was common for people to do back in the ancient world and in today's world as well.
If people are offering an account of something, especially if it's a first-hand account.
That's the other interesting thing is that the Gospels are written in third person.
So Matthew never says, we went there, we did this, we met up with Jesus and went over there.
Even when referring to himself, he just says, he doesn't say I, he just calls himself Matthew and never hints that he is talking about himself.
So the Gospels themselves never claim authorship.
And they never claim to be eyewitness accounts, and they are not written like eyewitness accounts.
That is all true.
That can't be denied.
I mean, that's absolutely true.
And so when someone makes this claim, that's what they're basing it on.
It is not a baseless claim.
And I'll admit that I don't really understand why Matthew didn't write his gospel like an eyewitness account.
I kind of wish that he had, honestly.
It would be I wish he had, but he hadn't.
But as you point out, that's all true, but as you point out, there are names right at the top, so it's hard to overlook that part of it.
It does say the Gospel of Matthew.
Gospel of seems pretty clear-cut.
And what's really important is that we don't have any complete manuscripts that lack that identification, as far as I know.
As far as I know, and someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't have, now we have gospel fragments that are just little pieces of the gospels that obviously don't say gospel of because it's only just a little part of the page, but Of all the completed, of all the, whatever, hundreds of completed manuscripts we have, there is not a single one that does not have that identifier at the top.
And there also is not a, you know, for instance, we don't have something like the text of the Gospel of Matthew, but at the top it says Gospel of Luke or whatever, where things are mismatched.
So that's a significant fact as well.
The Gospels, as far as we can tell, have always had these identifiers.
Now, we don't have the originals, though.
We don't have the originals.
We don't have copies of the originals.
We don't have copies of copies of copies of copies, at least not in complete form.
So, strictly, historically speaking, we don't know, historically speaking, we don't know what kind of identification they had originally.
We can't say as a matter of history for an absolute fact, which means secular people, the most they can claim, is that the Gospels might be anonymous.
Or the most they can do is say, the Gospel allegedly written by Matthew, or something like that.
But when they come out and just say, oh, Matthew didn't write that Gospel, it's anonymous, they're going, and they know this, if they've read this, if they've researched the topic at all, they know that they are going far beyond where the evidence actually leads them.
Because as far as we know, It has always said, the Gospel of Matthew.
We don't have any evidence that there was ever a point when the Gospel of Matthew did not say, Gospel of Matthew.
And obviously, if we had the original document, which we don't, I wish we did, we don't, if we had it, and the original document said, Gospel of Matthew, well then that would put the whole claim to rest, wouldn't it?
If it said that on the original document, then clearly, there you go.
We can't say as a matter of history that it absolutely did say that, but we can say as a matter of history, as far as we know, in all likelihood, this, you know, Matthew wrote the Gospel of Matthew.
And so, the secular people, I think in their zeal to discredit the Bible, they often step far beyond where the evidence actually takes them.
So they're not content to just point to this or that difficulty in the scriptures.
And there are difficulties, and there are things that are difficult to understand, like why, for instance, the eyewitness accounts are not written like eyewitness accounts.
So they could point that out and just leave it there.
But no, they want to go for the certainty.
They want to prove that, oh, no, this is all just bogus.
And then they go off on that.
So in a way, ironically, they're doing what they accuse us of doing.
Which is having a sort of unfounded certainty, which they themselves often demonstrate.
All right, we'll leave it there.
Thanks for watching, everybody.
Thanks for listening and have a great weekend.
Godspeed.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
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