Frank Turek
Appearances
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
Yeah. Charlie, you took the right approach with bill. You were very kind to him. You could have said a lot more, but as you say, when you're on a podcast, somebody else's podcast, you want to give them the benefit of the doubt. You just, you want to get a few points in, but you don't want to make it a monologue as to why the guy's wrong.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
I'm going to take something that is so anti intellectual, even though I can argue like an intellect.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
No, not at all. In fact, the Bible continually tells us to give reasons for what we believe. And of course, even Yahweh in the Old Testament says, come, let us reason together. You know, Charlie, one of the things that atheists cannot answer can not actually give a cause for is reason itself.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
I mean, if we're just molecules in motion, if we're just molecular machines, if we're nothing but moist robots, which is the common view of most materialists today, most atheists today, then they shouldn't even believe anything they think. because every thought they have is the result of the laws of physics. They're not really thinking, they're reacting. And C.S.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
Lewis pointed this out brilliantly in so many of his works, that if materialism's true, there's no way to even justify thinking. There's no way to justify reason. And if you can't justify thinking, you can't call a Christian anti-intellectual, because you haven't, as an atheist, even explained our ability to think and reason.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
Well, we have a whole section, and I don't have enough faith to be an atheist about that. It's just not true. Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's true, okay? About the only dying and rising God prior to Christianity was Osiris from Egypt, and that wasn't a resurrection into a new body. That was a kind of ethereal resurrection into the underworld.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
That's not what the New Testament's talking about. In fact, almost all of these supposed dying and rising gods come after Christianity, not before. So if anyone's copying from anyone, it's not Christianity copying from pagan resurrection myths. It's the pagan resurrection myths copying from Christianity. But, you know, as C.S. Lewis also pointed out,
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
Just because you have a parallel between two stories doesn't mean one is copied from another. In fact, there was a ship, Charlie, I don't know if you heard about it. It made its maiden voyage from the UK back in the early 1900s. It hit an iceberg. A lot of people died. And of course, you're going to say, well, Frank, of course, that was the Titanic.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
Well, actually, it was actually a novel from, I think, 1898 called The Futility. And it predated the Titanic just by chance. Nobody would say, well, the Titanic story then must be copied from this novel called Futility. It just happened to be that there were parallels. So parallels don't necessarily prove that one is copying from another anyway.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
If there is one or two scholars out of many thousands, Charlie, in academia today who study this kind of material, and I'm not talking about Bible-believing Christians. There are atheists or New Testament scholars. If there's one or two out there, it's a lot who say Jesus never existed. I mean, think about this, Charlie.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
Jesus, inarguably, is the most influential human being to ever walk the earth. how could he possibly have never existed? It would be like somebody 2,000 years from now saying, Luke Skywalker is the most influential human being to ever walk the earth. Nobody 2,000 years from now is gonna take a fictitious character and say that person is the most influential human being on the earth.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
Not only that, but there are non-Christian sources, and you began to talk about this a little bit in your interview with Bill, Charlie, you didn't get a chance to complete the thought, But there are at least 10 ancient non-Christian sources within 150 years of Jesus' life that mention Jesus and or the apostles. People like Josephus, Suetonius, Thallus, Phlegon, Talmud, as you mentioned.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
Josephus lived from 37 AD to about 100 AD, and he wrote several books related to the Jews. One's called Antiquities, another is called, it's about the Jewish War, is another one. And he mentions Jesus, he mentions John the Baptist, he mentions that James, the half-brother of Jesus, is killed as a martyr. He's the pastor of the church in Jerusalem, and he's killed in 62 AD.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
The Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council, threw him off the temple mount, and then they stoned him to death. Now, this is the same guy, by the way, Charlie, who wrote that little book in the New Testament called James.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
He's also the same guy who did not believe his brother was God before the resurrection, but then James had Jesus appear to him, and that's why he converted, and that's why he was later executed by the Jews in So Josephus has a lot of great information on some of the New Testament events. But let me hasten to say this, Charlie.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
The best evidence for Jesus is in what we call the New Testament documents. And you don't have to assume that. that they are inspired to get good historical information out of them. Even atheists like Bart Ehrman, who teaches here where I am in North Carolina, UNC Chapel Hill, he admits that Jesus existed.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
He said probably one of the most attested to facts from ancient history is the crucifixion of Jesus. Of course, he doesn't believe in the resurrection, but there's virtually no scholars out there who say Jesus never rose from the dead, or I should say never existed, which is why when Bill tried to say that, it's,
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
No, because Paul makes it very clear that he's talking about a resurrected body, a body that comes out of the tomb. It would have been easy to say Jesus resurrected spiritually. Then you wouldn't have to, you know, he could, his body could still be in the tomb and you can still say, oh, He resurrected spiritually. But that wasn't the case.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
Jesus' tomb was empty, and it would have been easy to squash Christianity if it wasn't empty because both the Romans and the Jews who didn't want Christianity to succeed would have gone to the right tomb and taken out his body. They didn't do it because... His body wasn't in there, so no.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
This was a physical resurrection, and that's what made it so crazy to the Greeks because they didn't think anyone would want to have their body raised. They wanted to be liberated from the body. So when Paul is talking on Mars Hill as recorded in Acts 17, and he's bringing up a physical resurrection, these guys over there are incredulous. They're going, we don't want that.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
We want to be liberated from the body. No, this was a physical resurrection. resurrection. Christianity only makes sense if that's the case.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
Yeah, absolutely. CrossExamine.org. We go to college campuses as well, Charlie. We're nearly always talking about why I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. We're giving evidence that Christianity is true. Then we take questions. We have a YouTube channel, CrossExamine, two words, at YouTube. And we also have a podcast called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
So we're going to college campuses, high schools, churches, presenting the evidence that Christianity is true and taking a lot of questions. We have over 2,500 videos on our YouTube channel worldwide. Most of them are Q&A videos from the college campus.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
Truth to what you said, not what he said. In fact, it's all over the New Testament. And as you mentioned, even the Old Testament. I mean, the Holy Spirit comes upon the believers at Pentecost, which as one of the most accurate. I mean, I think all the books are accurate, but the one of the most verifiable books in the New Testament is the book of Acts, Charlie.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
And in our book, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. Yeah, you did, because both Luke and Acts are written by Luke, and Luke is an historian of first rank. That was even admitted by an archaeologist by the name of Sir William Ramsey, who initially was skeptical of Luke 100 years ago. Then he spent 20 years studying Luke, and he said Luke is an historian of first rank.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
And if you go through the book of Acts— There are 84 historically eyewitness confirmable details that only an eyewitness or somebody that knew an eyewitness would know. Just in the book of Acts, Charlie, we list them all, and I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. So the Holy Spirit is all over the documents.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
And as you pointed out in your rebuttal video, response video that you released earlier today, or maybe it was yesterday, with Bill Maher, even the... I mean, the date of the documents is important, but what's more important are the sources for the documents, Charlie.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
As you explain, if you were to write a book or I were to write a book about 9-11 right now, which is about 23 years ago, it's more important that I'm interviewing people who saw it. That's more important than the date I'm writing it down right now in 2025. And that's what goes on with the New Testament.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
The dates of these books are written during the lifetime of the eyewitnesses by eyewitnesses or people that knew eyewitnesses because they proved it by putting data in the text that only an eyewitness would know. But they're actually interviewing people if they weren't eyewitnesses themselves like Luke wasn't.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
They were interviewing people that were there and they're still alive when they're writing it. So this is eyewitness testimony. This material is telling us really what happened. And by the way, Charlie, they had no motive to make it up. They didn't get sex. They didn't get money. They didn't get power.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
All they got as former believers in Yahweh, just Jewish believers in Yahweh, is they got kicked out of the synagogue. They got beaten, tortured, and killed. That's why I thought your question when you asked him why would they fake the resurrection was brilliant, and he really didn't have a response because there is no answer. Why would they fake this to get themselves abused? They wouldn't.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
Well, I think both you and I try and take the approach where we don't wanna try and own people. We wanna gently correct them and ask them a lot of questions because we want them walking away going, I wanna know more. We don't want them walking away from a interaction with us to say, oh man, I hated that guy. He made me look bad. You don't wanna do that. You wanna try and win people.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
Look, Charlie, as you know, when somebody asks you a question, you're not just answering a question, you're answering a person. And so you want to provide an opening for the next conversation. And what I try and ask people is if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
And Charlie, I've had atheists stand at their microphone in front of hundreds of people on college campuses and say no, because they don't want it to be true. So I think that clears the deck of all the objections they could have. So I always ask that question. You asked a similar question to Bill. You asked him, hey, do you hope you were wrong? That kind of thing. That's what we need to take.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
We need to ask people questions, and we shouldn't expect people to agree with us. We should just ask questions, make points, and really highlight grace, Charlie, because grace is what people are looking for. Look, there's only two things you're going to get in the afterlife. You're either going to get justice or grace. There's no other category.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.