The Eric Metaxas Show - Eric Metaxas and Chris Himes

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

Eric has returned from his trip to Europe. He takes you through his adventures of Greece and gives his take on the ever changing news cycle. 

Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. Ladies and gentlemen, we ask you now to count down from 10, silently if you don't mind. And when you get to one, you'll hear one of the greatest voices on this or any other planet. Three, two, one. Eric Mattaxas! Hey there, folks. Holy cow, I'm back in the United States of America.

Chris Heims, I want you to know. I'm back. Yes, welcome back. Welcome. I can haunt you from close, quarters now. I can drive to wherever you are. I can drive to you.

And because of all your travels, your jet lag, right now it feels like you're in 1983. Okay. Just in case, yeah, this is the kind of thing. Now, first of all, today, we're going to cover the news. There's big news, big news. And I'm going to be talking probably to Larry Taunton about the big news. Might be John Smirak a little bit, not sure.

or I'll talk to John Zmirak tomorrow. But I really wanted to give an update on what I've been doing. It's kind of like what I did on my summer vacation. Do you remember that Chechen Chong thing where Sister Mary Elephant? Remind me. Sister Mary Elephant. It's like it's a Catholic school in the inner city, circa 1971. And it's Sister Mary Elephant.

And she gets one of the kids to read an essay on what I did on my summer vacation. and he says, The first day of my summer vacation, I woke up, then I went down to look for a job. Then I hung out with my friends in front of the drugstore. Like, did you remember this one? Anyway, so whenever I say what I did on my summer vacation,

I think of Cheech and Chong. But this was kind of a vacation. It was basically a work, most of it was a working vacation. So to be clear, there was no smoking involved. You're just saying the, the device of sharing your summer vacation details is similar, but that's where it stops. I think so. Okay.

I was on, first I was in Athens for about a week. And I feel like if people read my emails, in other words, if you go to Ericmataxis.com and you get the emails that I send once or twice a week. You've seen some of this stuff. If you follow me on Instagram, you've seen some of this stuff. But I spent roughly a week with my daughter in Athens. Then we flew to England where we did not quite a week. It was a Socrates in the city week in Oxford, England, which was magnificent.

And I can't wait to relate the details of that. I might not get to a lot of it today. So I just want to, but I want to kind of tee it up. Then Suzanne and I flew to Cephalonia. Cephalonia is the island where my dad is from. where my family's from, where my family still live. And it has profound meaning to me. Anybody who's read my book, Fish Out of Water, knows all about cephalonia.

So if you want to know about Cephalonia, you can read my book, Fish Out of Water, which I recommend. But so it was almost a week in Athens, almost a week in London and then Oxford, and then almost a week in Cephalonia. But most of this was, as I say, working. It was not really like vacation in the real sense. But I guess I wanted to start with saying that nothing happened while I was on my vacation, as you said. No president. I mean, I think when you were planning your trip, you said, hey, let's pick a downtime in the middle of the summer when not a lot of news will probably be happening. July is usually pretty dead.

And so that's what it was. It was dead. That's exactly what it was. there was nothing so all this news happened and so I was processing it you know from across the Atlantic but the one thing I want there's a lot actually I want to say because a lot of actually exciting stuff happened and this has no bearing on the news the news I also want to talk about but maybe I'll do that with my guests but I want to say that um the the week that we spend in Athens was kind of reconnoisseance for next year because we haven't announced it officially.

But pretty soon, I think within a month or so, we're going to announce the details of an an Eric Metaxus cruise. You know, you've heard of Dennis Prager Cruz. You've heard of, you know, the people do these cruises. We are going to do a cruise, an Eric Metaxus cruise. It'll probably have a Socrates and the city component to it. But it's going to be to the Greek islands. It's going to start in Athens June 6th, 2025.

Ladies and gentlemen, mark your calendars. We're hoping to get hundreds and hundreds of people. Now, I have no idea how many people will sign up. But it's pretty affordable. It's going to be 10 days on a ship, on a ship, you know, on one of these cruise ships. I'm not a royal a royal Caribbean ship even it's no no it's like it's a Norwegian line oh oh you're right you're right I'm sorry I'm already I'm already getting the details wrong yeah Eric metaxis is going to be teaching bazuki lessons right I heard that I heard that I'm going to be leading aerobics in

the pool and then later on join me on the water slide as we recite scripture and then take the plunge it's going to be I think Norwegian might be owned by the same conglomerate right but anyway that's where i got mixed up but anyway norwegian that'll be very nice let me just be clear i've never it's a legit but i was sucked to doing this because people on my team said eric this is going to be amazing uh people who listen to the program are going to want to come and connect you and you're going to go to the greek islands it's going to be amazing so it's going to be june uh 6th through about the 16th and it's going to go i mean my gosh it's going to stop in crete it's going to stop in Istanbul, which, by the way, used to be part of Greece in case you are scoring at home,

used to be part of Greece for, oh, I don't know, 2,000 years. And the Greeks are famously cool with that. They're like cool with it now, right? Is that right now? Yeah, not a problem. Actually, when I became a Christian, when I was born again around my 25th birthday, it was a real issue for me to realize I need to love the Turks. Because when you're raised Greek, it's like the Turks of the enemy and you're, you know, you're sort of taught like you should hate them.

Now, historically, it's kind of like the Jews hating the Nazis or hating the Germans. Like, there's a good reason to feel that way. But, you know, in terms of where my heart lies today, it's a whole different thing. But, yes, I was raised, you know, in the Greek Orthodox parochial school. And it's like the Turks of the enemy. Why? Because they were radical Muslims who tortured, killed, and oppressed my Greek Orthodox Christian. forebears. So there's a good reason to have grievance. But anyway, when I became correct,

and so to that, and you did request that Norwegian cruise lines, you know, empty the bathroom tanks in port at Istanbul. But other than that, everything's forgiven. No, I'm actually looking for, hugely looking forward to Istanbul. But the point is that we're just there, like, I think, a day and a half. And then we go to, we go to various Greek islands, probably to Santorini, probably to, I think it stops in Mekanos. I'm not a fan of Mekinos, but maybe I'll stay on the ship. but it's going to go to Creaky time. I'm so excited about this will be the most Greek Greek tour ever. All right, it's time to go there.

It's not so good. And to play the Buzuki. So anyway, so. That's amazing. I'm just saying this so people can write this down. June 6th to June 16th, 2025. It's going to be a Greek islands, Socrates, tour with Eric Metaxis.

I'm going to be every night, you know, probably on my book. or on one of my books or this. It's going to be fun. It's going to be fun. I want to mention one thing I heard is there going to be a Socrates in the city in Athens as part of this cruise experience. Okay. So this is what we may do Socrates and City on the boat. I don't know. They have a theater on the boat. But what I was going to say was it dawned on me that because the ship leaves from Athens and returns to Athens, maybe we would do like a three-day Athens thing in front of the cruise so that some people certainly won't be all, but some people might say, okay, I'll get to Athens a few days early and we will do, we may do a Socrates and city in Athens,

maybe we'll do a tour of some things around Athens. So what I was saying was that by being in Athens this time with my daughter, I was able to kind of get a sense of if we were to spend three days in Athens, what might we want to do? Now, obviously, you want to do a tour of the Acropolis. There's all kinds of stuff. But I saw lots of other stuff. I travel. I travel. I travel. with my buddy Dino Colizas. Dino and I have been friends since I was nine since we were both nine with the same age. And we grew up in the Greek Orthodox Church, Assumption, Greek Orthodox Church in Danbury, Connecticut. He's got an amazing restaurant up in New Milford called Greca. If you're in the New Milford area, go to Greca. Phenomenal Greek restaurant. But Dino and I connected in Athens. And when we come back, I'm going to tell you what I did with Dino and his friends.

and maybe next year in front of this cruise, we'll do some of that in the Athens area. But anyway, I'm back, ladies and gentlemen. Don't go away. Americans are tired and frustrated by a stalling economy, inflation, endless wars, and the relentless assault on our values. Thankfully, there are companies like Patriot Mobile that still believe in America and our Constitution. And I'm proud to partner with Patriot Mobile because they're on the front lines fighting for the First and Second Amendments, sanctity of life, and our military and first responder heroes. Take a stand for conservative causes and put America.

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com, use the code Eric for 15% off. Folks, welcome back. We're going to be talking about the news of the day a little later on. I'm just kind of giving an update on where I've been for almost three weeks. It's hard to believe. And I was talking about Athens. So we're going to do this. Greek tour next year, June 6th through 16th. It's going to be a cruise on a ship around the Greek

islands. And I thought before that, we might have a component where some people, but probably most people won't do it, but we'll make it available to do a few days in Athens. And with my friend Dino Colizas, just this is now what, two and a half weeks ago, two weeks ago, we visited Epidavros. Epidavros is an ancient theater. This is so mind-blowing. I still can't get over it. It's a theater from the 4th century BC. Let's think about this. The Greeks had the technology in the 4th century BC to create an amphitheater with spectacular sound, spectacular acoustics so that you could stand in the middle and 15,000 people could hear you talking. That's how great the acoustics were. And it was unearthed, I guess, in the...

the 1880s, and it's pretty much untouched. And so they restored whatever small parts of it were broken. And they now have theater there. So we were sitting with our rear ends in the exact same spot where fourth century Greeks would have sat listening to the theater of the day. And what was the theater of the day? Euripides, Sophocles, Escalis, Aristophanes, all of this stuff was happening way, way, way back then. The plays are still awesome after 24 centuries. So Dino and I and his family, we watched Iphigenia in Alas, which was written by Euripides in the 4th century BC.

So we were there in the same place where this would have been performed 24 centuries ago, same theater, same stones that you're sitting on. it was absolutely a transcendent cultural experience. It was so beautiful. So maybe we'll do something like that next year. We visited Mycini. Now, Chris, you know about this better than most people, but on this program over the years,

I've shared about the discovery of the tomb of Odysseus in Cephalonia. The book that I'm working on now, the new book, which will come out probably in about a year, is about the discovery of Homer's Ithaca, the real Homer's Ithaca. And that, how do I put it? Let's see. Well, it's like an Indiana Jones, a real-life Indiana Jones kind of thing. It's extraordinary.

It's nuts. And that's why I'm writing a book about it. And we made a documentary about it with our buddy Seth Ward, with Morgan Freeman's production company. That is coming out on PBS, ladies. and gentlemen, August 20-something, I don't know. So in about a month, PBS, right here in the United States, is going to air this documentary about the discovery of Homeric Ithaca. The main figure in the story, the man who discovered it, is a friend of mine. His last name is the same, but we're not

related. It's Metaxas. In Greek, it's Metaxas, Makis Metaxas, and his Dutch wife, Hetty metaxas, they were the ones that figured this out in 1990 and 91. They figured the whole thing out using the text of Homer's Odyssey and Iliad, which mentions where Ithaca is. They kind of puzzled it out. And then they said, okay, we know we got it right, but if we got it right, there must be Mycenaean ruins here. So they looked, and sure enough, exactly where they knew it had to be, they found the largest Mycenaean-era tomb in Western Greece. So I'm going to be writing about this It's kind of a big deal. But I should mention at some point, I know there's some people listening and they're not really tracking.

So let me just lay this out for a moment because this is going to be a big part of my life in the years to come. And when you see this documentary, you'll get more. But my book a year from now is going to really explain this in detail. But here are the rough details. And, Chris, I know you know some of this. But the bottom line is in the 19th century, a German archaeologist named Heinrich Schliemann was convinced that the world of holiest. Homer was real. He was convinced that Homer, writing in the 8th century BC, was not making up this world the way Tolkien made up the Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth. No, no, no, no. He was writing

about a real world. And Schleiman was convinced that it existed and he could prove it. So he went to what is today, what we now know of as Troy, and he excavated. And sure enough, he discovers a Mycenae Mycenaean-era civilization in Troy, which is in Turkey today, right? He then goes to the place where Agamemnon, the big leader of the Greeks that went to Troy for the Trojan War, he goes to the place Agamemnon is supposed to be from Miscini. And he excavates and he finds a monumental, well, gold. He finds all kinds of stuff. He proves that this world from a thousand years before classical,

Greece. So this, you've got to get the timeline. We're talking about when Moses was alive, around that time in Greece, this was the Mycenaean era. So a thousand years before classical Greece, about 1600 to 1,100 BC is what we know as the Mycenaean era. So Schleiman, this kind of amateur archaeologist, he sort of invented the world of archaeology, he decides I'm going to prove that world existed because people were scoffing at that time. People were saying, you know what, it's just this mythical world that Homer made up. He's writing in the 8th century BC, but he's writing about something that never really existed. It's kind of like, you know, writing about the Greek gods. Like it really sounds good, but it's not real.

Schleiman was convinced this German maniac named Schleman. It's like, no, no, no, this is a real world. I'm going to prove it. So he goes to what they think is Troy. He excavates. He finds a Mycenaean civilization. He goes to Mycini. That's where we get the name from. He excavates. He finds tons of stuff. Some people will remember the famous golden mask of Agamemnon. Now, it's not really the golden mask of Agamemnon. It's a funerary mask from probably before the era of Agamememnon. But the point is he finds that he says, I have looked on the face of Agamemnon. You know, he was a real P.T. Barnum showman in addition to being somebody who really uncovered this stuff for real. So he goes to all the places mentioned in Homer, in the Iliad and the Odyssey,

all these centers of civilization, according to Homer, in the poem, in the poem, the Odyssey. So he goes to Troy, he goes to Miscini. He goes to Pilos, which is the home of Nestor. If you read the Iliad and the Odyssey, you remember Nester. He goes to Orchamenos. He goes to Tirens. He goes to all these places. And in every single one of these places, he uncovers a Mycenaean civilization.

He proves that the world that Homer is writing about is real. and then he goes to Ithaca. Ithaca should be the easiest place of them all. It is where Odysseus is from. Odysseus. Odysseus, he has an entire poem named after him, The Odyssey. He is the guy who invented the Trojan horse. He's one of the biggest names in the Iliad in the Odyssey.

His kingdom is in Ithaca. Schleiman goes to Ithaca, knowing this should be, this is the layup, even though basketball hadn't been invented. and layups hadn't been invented in the 1870s. He basically says, I'm now going to, you know, I'm going to prove, this is the easiest one of all, the kingdom of Odysseus. He goes to Ithaca. Now, Ithaca is a small island right next to Cephalonia, which is the big island where my family are from. And he digs and digs and digs and he finds absolutely nothing, nothing.

So it makes no sense. Every one of these Mycenaean centers mentioned in Homer, he finds it, he proves it, it's real, you know, Nestor's world, Agamemnon's world. Every one of these places, he discovers, you know, mycenaian civilization, palaces, tombs, the whole thing. When he goes to Ithaca, he finds nothing. Long story short, because I'm going to write about this in my book, but a hundred years pass, people float different theories. Nobody can come up with it. Nobody finds Mycenaean civilization in the IOMs. in Western Greece, the Western Greek islands.

They just don't find the center. They can't figure it out. And this guy who's now a friend of mine, Makis metaxas, same last name, as I said, we're not related. He and his wife stumble on the answer. And this is Christmas of 1990. They stumble on the answer.

And they start going crazy because they're thinking, how can we be the ones to have solved this 100 year old problem, but they were. They knew they figured it out. And it's all corroborated because when you read the Iliad in the Odyssey, there's all these little things that Homer's mentioning about Ithaca, and they found every single one. The Cave of the Nymphs, the Ravens Crag, which is where Telemachus and Odysseus meet, the swineherd, Eumaeus. There are all these spots that are mentioned, this Mount Netaiton, this incredible mountain. All these things, and there are many, many more, the island of the suitors, where's that located?

Are these things real? My friend Marcus kind of finds every one of these things, and he goes, we know that it's right. And we know exactly where the harbor is. The harbor is right here on the southwestern, sorry, southeastern corner of the island of Cephalonia in what is today Poros. That's where Marcus lives. And it's one of the reasons that he stumbled on this, because he just happened to be familiar with all this stuff. So when we come back, I'm going to tell you the punchline. It's insane. It's insane. Hey, folks, you asked and my pillow listened.

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We're going to be getting to the news of the day, not that there is any news. But I'm just telling kind of what I did on my summer vacation, so to speak. And I'm talking about the story of the discovery of Homeric, Ithaca. So I was mentioning that my friend Marcus Metaxus, he and his wife know that they figured it out. And they figure out where the harbor is. Now, of course, the harbor that's mentioned in the Odyssey, where, you know, where Telemachus and where, that's the son of Odysseus, where Telemachus would have sailed from, where Odysseus would have sailed from. It's called Rethron Harbor. And he knew Rethron, the Greek word, Rethron, refers to running water or a river.

So he knew it had to be a river harbor. Anyway, he knows that he's found it. And he knows right around this harbor, we're going to find a tomb, we're going to find a poutreux. We're going to find the kingdom of Odysseus, which has skunked the archaeologist for a hundred years. And sure enough, Bada Bing, he finds exactly what he knew was there, the largest Mycenaean-era tomb in Western Greece, the whole thing. So when I found out about this way back in 1992, I said, this is such huge news. This is going to be on the cover of National Geographic like any month. well years past and every time I go back to Greece I'd ask about it and there was always reasons you can imagine the people in Ithaca are utterly hacked off they're like how dare you steal our identity from us like how do you know because it's like going to Stratford on Avon and and and telling them oh by the way no Shakespeare's not from here they're like excuse me so

it's yeah itica had been sort of claiming even though the you know they had the poem but they didn't have the the history to back it up that they were saying that's all we need anyway we have of the poem, whatever. As far as, and listen, and they have their own, and I'm going to, we go into this a little bit of the documentary, but I'm going to, I'm going to make my own documentary series because you have to kind of go into much more depth. But in my book, I'm going to talk about this because it's, yeah, they have their own theories, the Ithagans, like, no, no, no, you know, he's from here. And let me show you the cave of the nymphs.

Let me show you. But to say it's lame is being kind. I mean, they, they don't have, they don't have a leg to stand on with the theory. But you can understand. it's very emotional. This is like, as far as they're concerned, this is it. Ithaca. It's called it's called Ithaca. That's enough. So, and you know, and you do want to, you, in my book, I have to answer the question of why if Homeric Ithaca is called Ithaca, why is the island now called Ithaca, not Homeric Ethica? Why is Cephalonia? You know, you have to answer these things,

and that's where it gets into the, you really got to get into the theory of it. But it ends up being open and shut. I mean, it's, it's, it's kind of amazing. And it's, it's one of these things that when you get sucked into it. It's just so fascinating, which is why I'm so excited about it. So I just have to say that next year my book will come out on it. And it's so, it's just mind-blowing. It's mind-blowing. But PBS is airing this wonderful documentary that we made, which really just, it's the first blush of the story. But it's coming out at the end of August on PBS. Very, very exciting. Now, if that's not a... I've seen parts of it, and it is literally stunning.

It's so beautifully shot. Yeah. I'm not even a big documentary fan. So when you say, oh, a documentary on history, I'm like, oh, okay. No, but it's really vivid and beautiful. Well, it's our friend... The director is our friend Seth Ward. It's stunning.

It's really gorgeous. And Seth Ward, and Seth is a creative genius. So he has done... I mean, it's glorious. Absolutely glorious. And Morgan Freeman's voice is in. at different points. It's so evocative and beautiful and powerful. It's really stunning. It's really congratulations. It's exciting. And I think it will peak interest in it, which is why I said, I got to write

a book because, you know, in a film, you can't get into a lot of the details. And I said the details are what make it clear that this is not just another theory, but this is like they've figured it out. Okay. Speaking of which, I'm going to share something now, I think I've shared this on the program, but this is, this is freaky, actually. This is very freaky. I think I shared this last about a year ago when I came back from Greece that I had stumbled on a theory. This sounds like we're making this up. I had stumbled on a theory that Paul was not shipwrecked in Malta. Because if you read Acts 27, 28, says he's shipwrecked in Malta, right?

I mean, that's the English Bible say Malta. But I had stumbled on a theory. A guy wrote a book in 1987. His name is Heinz Varneka. and he said that Paul was not shipwrecked in Malta. The word in the actual New Testament Greek is Meliti. So people assume that's Malta, but it's not Malta. And he says Paul was shipwrecked on Cephalonia.

Again, the island where my father's from. So it's a large island in Western Greece and the Ionian. I was skeptical. I thought, okay, everybody's got these theories. Well, a year ago, I kind of tracked down a long article because this guy writes in German and I found an article that was in German, but I was able to translate it. And when I read it, I thought, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, there's no doubt that this is right. Like there's no doubt.

It's crazy. And you start thinking, how can the Bible say Malta? You know, this is one of the, it's like a translation issue. They're just like, everybody says it's Malta, right, right, right? Okay, Malta. They write down Malta. It's not Malta. The Greek says Meliti.

People don't know where Meliti is. This guy, a German scholar named Heinzavarnika, came up with this theory, and he proves that Paul was shipwrecked not on Malta, which is like way, way, way over, you know, on the western side of Italy, but in fact, was shipwrecked in Kefalonia. So I was there recently, but I've done a lot of research, and you can't track the guy down, this guy, Heinz Borneka, is he still living? Nobody knows.

You can't find him on the Internet. He wrote his book in 1987. It's kind of frustrating. So I thought this, when I read the article, I said, I know this is real. I want to follow up. I want to meet this guy. I want to interview him. And the other day, I did.

And when we come back, I'll tell you about it. It was insane. And it happened. Welcome back, folks. In hour two, we're going to talk about Kamala Harris. We're going to talk about Joe Biden. We're going to talk about Donald Trump. But right now, I'm saying what I did on my summer vacation, so to speak.

It wasn't really a vacation, as I've said a few times. But anyway, so I arrive. Okay, so I'm a week in Athens. Then we have a week in London for the Socrates thing. And I want to talk about that. That was insane. Maybe tomorrow we'll talk about that in London and in Oxford. But the last week I spent in Cephalonia.

So the first night or the second night, I'm in Cephalonia. I get together with macchis metaxis. I mentioned, he and his wife Hetty discovered the tomb of Odysseus, and they wrote a book about it in Greek. They're in the documentary coming out in PBS. And my cousin Yangos is there. Now, my cousin Yangos is about 13 years older than I am. I've always looked up to him. He's brilliant.

I love him. And he always knows everything about everything. He's just amazing, fun to talk to. So at dinner, you know, we're talking about the tomb of Odysseus, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And at some point, I said, oh, oh, by the way, I wanted to ask. you guys about this theory that Paul was shipwrecked here in Cephalonia. You know, and my cousin, being Youngos, says, oh, yes, Heinz Varneke. I have met him many times.

He's a very nice gentleman. He has a house in Pesada and Baba. I said, what? What? Like, you know this guy? Oh, yes. Yeah, we greedy. other we see each other every few years we bump into each other i think he has a holiday home here in

pasava you know in cephalonia i thought you have got to be making this up he said so yeah i think i maybe have an email for him and i i just flipped i flipped wow what are the odds of that gong goes that's crazy spends hours looking through his computer literally hours to get the guy's email now the email could be 15 years old probably old he sends me the email i email the guy boom the guy answers. I am now in touch with the 71-year-old Heinz Varneke, who put forward this thesis, again, in book form. He wrote a second book on it. And I'm in touch with him. And he says, well, I'm kind of busy. We have house guests until, you know, maybe we can get together in early August. And I said, I'm here another like two days with Seth Ward. And I said, can we possibly meet? So he says,

yes, let's meet tomorrow or tonight or something like that. So we drive to Pasava. Seth Ward and I, and you know, you don't know what this guy's going to be like. He might be a pompous, insufferable monster. Well, he was the most delightful person. And he said to me, do you be a punklish? Because he's German. And he said, you're very, you know, you're very punctual. And I said, Ishben Haute Deutsch.

I'm half German, so I'm punctual. So we met him at 8 o'clock. He takes us to his home. And we spent the whole evening talking about his thesis and talking about, this gets, it's so amazing. A Catholic publishing house published his book in German in 1987. So the German title is was Paulus Wierklish off Malta? Was Paul really on Malta? And of course the book says, no, he was not. He was in Cephalonia. But the Catholic publishing house, I guess, the hires up in the Vatican, because Malta is a very big Catholic kind of world, they don't like

the idea. It's exactly like the Ithacans being ticked off that Cephalonia is claiming to be Homeric Ithaca. So they put the kibosh on the book and refused to sell the rights to be published in English. So I think I am going to be able to publish with our new publishing imprint this book in English for the first time so everybody can read about it. And it is nuts. I think I shared about this last year on the program, but I don't assume people remember this stuff. But the thesis, once you start digging into it, it's pretty open and shut. I mean, it's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. So I'm going to, I should say this, I'm going to post the article, I took the article and translated it. Now, remember, he wrote a book, but about a year after

he wrote the book in 1988, someone wrote an article for deep-sided German magazine. I tracked that down. I cut and pasted and kind of Google translated it, and then I've been rewriting it because Google translates or whatever I use, not Google, but it's very, you know, kind of clunky. So I've translated it and is the guts of the argument. And I'm going to post it on my website, Eric Mataxis.com. So if you go to Eric Mataxis.com, probably the next couple of days, you can read it for yourself. It is insane.

So at some point, we're going to be doing a tour of Sepulonia. Maybe it'll be at the back end of this Greek cruise in June, or maybe we'll do it in other time. But it is so exciting to think that Paul was here. Paul was in Cephalonia and almost nobody knows about this. And it's just, you know, you don't expect to stumble on anything that significant like in your lifetime. Like it's pretty wild. So anyway, we spent the evening with Heinz Ivonyka and his wife, Agnes Zeppel Freke, pretty German names, right? And we got to know them and we just talked about, you know, he wrote a second book called Paulus Imschtoom, Paul in the Storm, because obviously, if you remember what happens in Acts 27, 28, they're making their way from

Jerusalem to appeal to Caesar. So it's a long journey from Jerusalem or Cessaria to under the lee of the island of Crete, and then you go up. And, you know, they were going to make their way to Rome, but they got into this huge storm, and that's what drove the boat for 14 days, and they think they're going to die. And, of course, they're shipwrecked, not on Malta in case you're tracking it home, but in Cephalonia. And he's bitten by a snake. And this all figures into how we know it was Cephalonia, all these details. So for one thing, he's bitten by a snake and all the natives say, you're going to die.

That's a poisonous snake. You're a dead man, Paul, right? Well, there have never been poisonous snakes in Malta. So why would the natives in Malta be freaking out that he's bitten by a snake when there have literally never, ever been poisonous snakes in Malta? That's just one thing. And then they say the goddess justice, the Greek goddess, Diki, has caught up with you. You must be a murderer because you survived the shipwreck, but now a snake bit you would, this poisonous snake, we know you're going to die. Why would they use the Greek goddess Diki?

If it's Malta, they would use a Roman something. And again, these are just a few of the things that, as you put it together, there's just no doubt it was not Malta and no doubt that it was Cephalonia. So this is very exciting. I'll post it on my book. So is Cephalonia crawling with poisonous snakes? Well, the poisonous snakes are crawling, but the island is not crawling with snakes. Okay. But it is, but they're definitely there and they're scary.

But it's not, it's interesting because they're rare, you know. I mean, look, it's so built up now. But it is, I mean, if you research where these poisonous snakes are, and again, it's going to be in my book. I'm going to write a book on this. It's in the article, and I'll be talking about it. All right. We'll be right back final segment. Then we're going to get to the news.

Don't go away. They dig a hero. You've got to sound your age. Welcome back, Eric. I'm back. I'm back from Europe. What I did in my European vacation. I've been mentioning it.

I got to tell you, on the plane ride home yesterday, because the beauty of Cephalonia, when you're in Cephalonia, you can fly direct from Cephalonia to London Heathrow, and then obviously from Heathrow back home. So we get on the plane yesterday in London, Heathrow, to fly home finally. And I'm putting my stuff in the bin above my head, and who's seated behind me? but Roger Kimball, the head of the new criterion, I was blown away. He was with his son James, and he has been my guest at Socrates. He's in the studio.

He's been a guest on this program. So it was so delightful to get, you know, fellowship with Roger Kimball on the plane yesterday. And, you know, we're talking about this and that. I'm telling him half of the story that I just told on this program about what I've been doing. He tells me what he's been doing. And about,

five hours into the flight, he taps me on the shoulder and shows me his computer. And I read the letter from Joe Biden saying, I'm not going to be running for president. So I was seven miles above the planet when I received the news that Joe Biden, who stole the election four years ago, will not be attempting to steal another election or anything along those lines. So it was so bizarre. And in our two, with our friend Larry Taunton, and maybe with John Zmirak, I'm going to be unpacking all of that stuff, the assassination attempt, the lunacy of what's happening in the Democratic Party. It's just too much to be, it's almost impossible to figure out, you know, what is going on. but I'm glad that I can think about Paulencephalonia.

I can think about Odysseus. There are other things to think about. And for your mental health, folks, don't become one of those people who all you think about is what's happening in the news right now because that's not, it's no way to live. Now, on the other hand, we need to care what's going on in the news. And as Americans, we need to care about what's going on in this country. We need to care about corruption. we need to care about our leaders lying to us.

We need to care about keeping the republic in my book. If you can keep it, I talk about why we need to love our country and we need to work to ensure that we stay a free self-governing people. I think in the last 50 years, said this a million times we've taken our eye off the ball and we've drifted and drifted and drifted and it's bad. It's very, very, very bad. So in hour two, I'll be unpacking with Larry Taunton some of what is going on.

But the level of, I don't know, chicanery would be a nice word, corruption that is happening in America. If we, the people, do not step up, especially if you dare call yourself a Christian, you have an obligation to step up, self-sacrificially, serve your country by doing, I don't know what, a million things, not just voting, but certainly voting. But understanding that this is for all the marbles, that if we lose this great nation to, you know, people who would rather govern us than listen to us, we the people who are supposed to be governing ourselves, it's over. And I think that, you know, the media, the complicity of the mainstream media is astonishing. It's sickening. We've got to step up. We've got to do everything we can possibly do, everything we can possibly do. Before I go, let me give a shout out to Mike Lindell.

If you are interested, go to MyPillow or MyStore.com. Use the code Eric. All of my books, the Bonhofer Post, are available at my store.com. Please tell your friends to use the code Eric. We need your help. This program is, you know, we're dependent on the kindness of strangers. And we have some wonderful sponsors, Mike Lindell being at the top of the list. Just use the code Eric.

in hour two talking to Larry Taunton.