Welcome to fight crab the ultimate game for fighting crabs Legally is this legal, but this game is fight crab. I don't ready. I guess so I guess I Welcome to the world of fight crab.  Oh my god punching. Oh boy. Oh boy Dude, this is the ultimate fighting game. You could use your little pinchers.  This is dope.  Okay Hold on wait your opponent's punch can be guarded by holding lb and rb.  Oh I get it.  I'm pulling his arms apart. Oh by pressing the left stick You can okay the controls are a little bit weird, but that's okay. Oh My god. Oh, wow.    I might give it to a fancy little meal I Dude, he's already on his cold damp back dude. Oh my god In seconds in seconds. I've bested my opponent. You think you're big, huh?   All these guys are big beefy baby boys, but I the master of all crabs Will best you any contest hand-to-hand claw-to-claw more like it. Am I right? Justin do you like editing for me is it even remotely rewarding stage one clear Easy crab. How are you feeling? Do you feel the rate? Happening what is happening to him? He's ascending dude. I thought I was a normal-sized crab Turns out I'm a big beefy boy, dude.  I have a palm tree in my hand. Oh My god I'm using trees as we pens. Oh, hold on.    Look at the arms on this guy.  I have eaten snow crab many a time. I put you in my gullet before snow crab And this time won't be any different, huh? You're not even that good by yourself.  We're climbing on buildings.   Is this the dude from Moana? Is this the dude that's obsessed with with shiny stuff? I think that's him. It would be good to grab a car What if you grab the car? Yeah? Yeah, I want I want a weapon. Give me a gun Give me a give me a gun or something. Huh? Let me just take him out as quick as possible He's almost on his back if that building wasn't in the way he'd be on his back V-quick he looks like a big spider crabs are the spider of the sea all right. I need to Use some Strategy here because the building's keeping him up, you know, so I need to get him away from that so I can get him on his back Yes, yes, it worked immediately Immediately it worked. Yes coconut crab. You have been busted, sir lobster A lobster is not a crab. He's got a knife In from him get in from him use use evasive maneuvers. Come on. Come on. Self-defense self-defense self-defense Does he have tuna? He has a gun too. He brought a knife and a gun to a claw fight, dude No, no, no, no, no Get him get him Best him you can do it. Yes. I have the knife now I have the knife cut off his arms take the gun away from him. Come on. Come on, baby. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.   They're big. They're beefy. They're blue Oh Too bad, baby too bad. Let's pod race ourselves Oh god Final round. Oh god. Yes Yes, get him get him Destroy him big beefy crab man What kind of crab is this a carrier crab? Oh my god. Get him get him. He's got flames on him My he's got flames on him. Am I doing good? I have no idea. I have no idea if I'm doing good or no My god, get up.    Get up Would you like some assistance cough? I don't need your help. Oh, I get to do it again. I don't have to redo the entire thing. Okay. Well, that's nice I don't have any weapon grab a grab a tree grab Grab him grab him.  You could do this Ethan. He's at 55. What does that mean? Back away? Get away.    Let's get into him hyper mode.  Oh, get back up get back up No No, get back up get back up little one Barely come on. He's almost there, baby. He's almost there. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes I Win I've done the ultimate crab. I have 7,000 crab points. Oh my god Okay, well first of all Buying that we could get the revolver Let's do it crab Wow, you can be different crabs. That's cool. That's cool.   How long did that take like two seconds? Oh my god. Oh my god He's got a big old axe.  Well, it's just ain't fair. Oh, wait I forgot. I'm the best in the world, baby. Yes. The god of thunder has arrived This is uh, this is pretty intense, dude. Not gonna lie ngl It's pretty intense. Oh, and I've got a hyper mode. Oh Oh, I don't even need a weapon for this. I don't even need one I've got everything I've got right here. You win. Oh, baby Ha easy. Let's buy a new crab. I have 3000. Let's do the lobster, dude My good old manor side Is coming up. Let's do the crabby walk in fire Let's do hard mode. Why not? I can take you on I can best you little crab man I am a lobster. I've got a tail.  I lost my sword. I lost my sword. I still have my gun, but I lost my sword Oh, no fear. No fear. He's on this back now. Yeah Yep, easy easy easy easy. Oh and hyper mode. Yeah, okay.  He does, doesn't he? Hey, uh friend. I'm about to explode Literally Literally, there we go.  What is this game Justin? Justin told me to play this game. He's got none chucks You didn't tell me there would be a lunch up crab. Oh, yeah.  Am I grabbing him? Am I fighting him? I don't know I have no idea what's happening. Am I about to explode?   Well, that's where you lose the fight I'm win. All right big coconut boy Let's go, baby Let's go. I need to get me a weapon. What does he have? I've got a lot of uh damage right now Like a lot get back on your feets. He's get back on your feets. He's good. Good. Good God, I'm gonna die.   Have you processed what you're looking at? I just want to I just want to ask if you process that What happens when he falls off? I win. That's what happens two crabs or runs. All right, let's go Just push him off the edge easy dub easy dub. Yes. Get him get him explode him off the map Yes, yes How did you okay? He didn't there we go. There we go. Come on. Come on, baby You can do this do it for mom do it for mom. Come on, baby There we go There we go. Oh, he almost got off the map too He almost got there. I am low Come on. Come on get back up get back up Ah, yes, yes, yes Good up on this thing All right, listen that level's hard.  We've got almost 10,000. What if we hmm a halberd halberd. That's what it is. Just get the hammer Javelin. Yeah, let's do it. All right. Now. Let's fight. Let's do it. Let's do it.  I feel like I'm not getting a single Shot off. I do have him at 60. That's good. I'm at 74 though. Which is not Not super chill Yes, got one got one.  Come on Hyper mode come on. God.    You have a you have a you have asked the size of a twizzler This doesn't even make sense because of how long this god damn it.  Yes, let's do it Level five now, baby.    You should be baby You should be I'm faster. I'm stronger.    I hate it.    Oh, yes. Okay.  Come on.       Come on. Ethan you could do this You could do this. I believe in you. I've never believed in anyone as much as I believe in you


preparation for the gospel, Greek miracle. I love this subject, like I said, I'm animated about it. But, you know, God works about this miraculous transformation, like I mentioned in my little pitch for the talk, because the Jews are supposed to be a separate and distinct people from the nations that was grown into their worldview, that's part of their identity, have nothing to do with the unclean Gentiles. Then when you get to the time of Christ, the gospel spreads throughout the Gentile world. Why? How did we get from there to here, right? And what happens is the Greek miracle.  Now the thing about the Greek miracle is this, that no one really knows about it. And that's because it's largely recorded in sources like the first century Jewish historian Josephus, or the letter of Ersteas, if you guys like reading, that's a fun read. But, I mean, how many people here read Josephus in the letter of Ersteas, right? Or the Deuteron Canon, the Old Testament Deuteron canonical books. Okay, that's what we were talking about in the previous session. There are seven Old Testament books, and the interesting thing is like no one reads these books. Why? Because the seven Old Testament books are not found in rabbinic Bibles. They're not, so they don't read it. They don't know about this. Actually, I'll touch on that in a little bit. They're not found in Protestant Bibles. Protestantism removed these books from Scripture, so they don't know about it. But these books are found in our Catholic and Orthodox Bibles. The problem is Catholics don't read them because we don't read the Bible, right? Now, that was a huge laugh line when I began ministry in the 1990s. But it's not so funny today because that's not true anymore. In the 1990s, Catholics didn't really read Scripture. It's rare you find a parish that had a Bible study, but there has been a transformation that occurred in the church last 20 years largely due to conferences like this and people like you who are going into their parish and setting the parish on fire for the Word of God. So this is what I want everybody to do right now. This is required.  You deserve it. Seriously, you deserve it. So the thing is, even parishes that do have Bible studies, Deuteron can is still neglected. It's still these books that, yeah, they're interesting. They're kind of fascinating. We really don't read them unless you're doing something really rigid like Jeff Cavan's timeline, right? Salvation history. Then he treats it. But otherwise, it's like foreign land, terra incognito. So that's why I'm really excited because it's amazing what God does during this timeframe. And if you don't have it or you don't know about it, it's almost like, you know, magic happens and presto change. Oh, Judaism is different. So what I want to do is I'm going to break down this miracle into five different sections. So we're going to talk about five different aspects of what God does for His people, starting from the time when the Jews come back from the Babylonian exile until the time of Christ. And by the way, like I said, that's roughly covered by the Deuterocanonical books, Josephus, letter of heirs to us. In fact, the Deuterocanonical books not only record things about this miracle, but in a sense, they are part of that miracle. They're part of that miracle. Now to appreciate this miracle, you have to appreciate where it's how things were before the miracle. Take, for example, a miraculous healing. You can't really truly understand the gravity of a miraculous healing unless you first understand the nature and extent of the condition before it was healed. So we read in Scripture, Jesus heals the blind man, right? And that's impressive. We're like, whoa, you healed a blind man. But let's say you lived in the village and you knew that the blind man was born blind from birth and that every day of his life that you seen him, you saw him groping, trying to find his way. Then Jesus comes and it has perfect sight. So you could appreciate that more, right? Or what happened if you found out the blind man was born without pupils? That would really be an eye-opener, so to speak. Sorry for the pun. That wasn't part of the script. See, the beautiful thing whenever I give talks is the added suffering is freeing souls and purgatory as you know it. So if you get through one of my talks, especially during Lent, I'm very popular during Lent for the added suffering. So what I want to do is, okay, let's put ourselves in the sandals of the Jews right when they come back from the Babylonian exile, because that's really the beginning of this period. And I was trying to come up with an analogy that we can relate to. It's funny that Mary Barbara brought this up in her talk. Roe versus Wade, the overturning of Roe versus Wade, I think is a good analogy. It was dropped in our lap on June 24th of this year. And what's interesting about this is, I don't know about you, but quite frankly, I knew it would be overturned. I mean, lawyers, since its inception said this is defective, this needs to change. So I knew it would be overturned, but I just didn't expect it to be overturned in my lifetime. And then out of the blue on June 24th, it's reversed, right? And I think it'll be one of those days that you'll know where you were when you learned Roe versus Wade was overturned. And like Mary pointed out, it occurred in a very interesting time in sacred time, because it's only in the year 2022 where two feasts are celebrated on the same day, the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist. It's only there that they coincide. And the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we focus on the Divine Mercy, God's love for us. And it's interesting, it's not the Feast of John the Baptist, but the Nativity of John the Baptist. And as you know from the Gospel of Luke, that he was cognizant of the Savior in front of him and leaped while he's still in the womb of Elizabeth. Wow. So talk about God's Praying of Prince. In fact, here's one that you might not know. June 24th is also the birthday of Nellie Gray, who's the co-founder of March for Life. So it's also a birthday gift from God, right? God rest her soul. So it's got God's fingerprints on it, and it's just almost out of the blue. It's overturned. Even though we knew it was coming, it happened. And so put yourself back in that moment. How did you feel at that time? I think that kind of corresponds to how the Jews felt, because there's extreme exhilaration. Yes, this finally has happened. Thank God. But there's also uneasiness and worry as well, because it's not like we're ahead of the game. We're only set back some 39 years or 49 years back in the past, right? Before we knew where the boundary lines were set. Now we don't, right? So there's a worry and uneasiness, but also joy as well. Oh, did you feel the same way? At least that's how I felt. And people I spoke to also felt that joy and uneasiness at the same time. And that, I think, corresponds roughly to how the Jews felt coming back from exile. Because they were in captivity in Babylon for 70 years, as we heard from both Mary Healy and Dr. Berg's mom. Sorry about that. Apparently my battery's not plugged in. So we heard that about that. See if I can figure out why it's not working. But Jeremiah prophesied. Camera lady, I'm not sure, but I'm not getting power to my computer. So maybe you could check if it's plugged in or sorry about that.  So we anticipated. But, you know, when it occurred, it was amazing. Because here you have the Persian nation come and basically take over Babylon, who was holding you in captivity. And then the Persians put you back in Jerusalem. And they not only do that, but they restore the implements of the temple that were taken by Nebuchadnezzar. So you're, you're returned enriched. So they're exhilarated. God has been faithful to his promise. At the same time, you're worried. Because you're not any further than you were.  Not only that, but you're also worried because now you got to rebuild everything. You returned basically this to rocks and weeds. You got to rebuild the temple. You got to build walls. We're surrounded by enemies with no fortification, no protection from them. So how in the world is God going to take us from this point to the point in which the prophets prophesied? How is that going to happen? How is he going to fulfill that? Because the prophets say that the second temple that we're building right now is going to be more glorious than Solomon's temple. How's that going to happen? It's not going to be as glorious as Solomon's. The kingdom of David consisted of 12 tribes. And if you know your Bible or done the Jeff Kevan's timeline, you know the northern 10 tribes were taken by Assyria and they're scattered throughout the nations. They're gone. But God says that there would be a Messiah of the dynasty of David who will reconstitute the kingdom. How is he going to reconstitute the kingdom when the kingdom is spread throughout the known world? And then you have another problem. I have probably a little head here. You have the problem of how is the Messiah going to be of the line of David? Okay, so this is the point in my talk where I go on a digression that probably will lose most people. So if it's helpful, great. If it's not just hit pause, wait till I come back on track, okay? Because there were plenty of sons of David around coming out of exile. So why didn't they restart the Davidic monarchy? The answer is they couldn't. Why? Because the mechanism for the dynasty ran like this. The sitting king would tell one of his queens, because he had a harem, he had many wives.  So when the son is old enough, he becomes king and the queen becomes the queen mother of the king, okay? That's how dynastic succession worked. The king and the queen, the queens went into exile and the queen mother. They never come back. So there are plenty of people with the lineage of David, but how does the Messiah come and still be in the line of David?  This is why the enunciation is so important. Because who is the true king of Israel? God, right? God is the true king of Israel and he sends Gabriel to a virgin to tell her that her son will sit on the throne of David. Hence Jesus is part of the Vinnik dynasty, because that succession has now occurred. Okay, you can take yourself off pause if that was, I know, I always throw these little tidbits. I just, I love scripture, I can't help, but here or there, it's because I'm Polish and if you're Polish and you're having people over, you make enough for 30 times the amount of people there. I don't know. So okay, so let's look at those five points that I mentioned. Okay, the first part of the miracle is that, here we are, we come back in Jerusalem, we hear distant rumors of some leader rising out of Greece who is basically conquering everything in a site. First part is Alexander the Great. All right? Lots of fascinating things about Alexander the Great. Alexander's father, Philip II, had hired a guy who was really up on philosophy to tutor Alexander that is none other than Aristotle. So from the age of 13, Aristotle was his tutor. Think about that. That's a pretty good tutor. Also, Alexander became king when he was only 20 years old and in 15 years of conquest, Alexander never lost a battle. Fifteen years of warfare, he never loses a battle. He goes from place to place, either they capitulate, they give in, or he conquers them. Never loses. And so by the time of his death, when he was only 33 years old, he conquered two million square miles. Think about that. That is amazing. Now, what about the Jews? Was Jerusalem part of the things that were squashed by Alexander? Miraculously, no. We learned this through the letter of Aristias. According to this letter, they were actually, no, this is one of those facts about history, assuming that this is historically true. No, actually, I'm sorry. This comes from Josephus' antiquities. Yeah. Okay, I'm out of power. Well, it's okay. This is one of those interesting things because Alexander is in Damascus and he's sending a letter to the high priest in Jerusalem. And he says, I need provisions. I need troops. Send them to help me. The high priest responds and says, Alexander, I would like to help you, but I sworn out to your enemy, Darius, that I would never wage arms against them. So I can't help you. Sorry. Now, needless to say, Alexander was not happy, right? So he sends a letter back and he says, I'm coming for you, high priest. I'm coming for you and I'm going to show people to whom they ought to keep their oaths, right? Pretty scary stuff if you're the high priest. So when Alexander takes Gaza, guess what he does? He turns his troops and he heads for Jerusalem to get who? The high priest. So what do you do if you're high priest? You call on God, right? I mean, who else is going to stop Alexander? So while he's offering sacrifices, he gets a vision and God tells him in this vision. He tells the high priest, this is what I want you to do. First, stop groveling, stop crying. Everything's going to be okay. Take courage. He's not going to harm you. You need to do this. You need to open the gates of Jerusalem to him. You need to have decorate the city. Everybody dresses in white and I want you to process out to him with your priest and greet him.  So the high priest does it. And what happens is the high priest does it and Alexander falls down in his feet and adores him. Yeah, not exactly what he expected, right? I thought maybe he'd take a sword and cut his head off or something like that. And one of his soldiers asked him, why are you adoring the high priest? And his response is, I did not adore him, but that God who has honored him with the high priesthood, for I saw this very person in a dream while in Macedonia. Alexander had a dream where he saw the high priest and the procession of people dressed in white coming to welcome him. And he knew that God told him he's going to conquer. So he honors the high priest. In fact, he gives him all sorts of things they don't have to pay tribute for a while. Lots of, he just passes them by. So it's at this time that the Jews bring out the book of Daniel. I mean, what else would you do, right? Book of Daniel is interesting, has lots of prophecies. One of the most interesting ones, if you ever hear Dr. Bergsmod talk about it, I highly recommend it, is this. He talks about four beasts. He's given us the Nebuchadnezzar, that there will be four beasts. The first one's Babylon. The second one's Persia. Then the third beast is very interesting. It's a leopard. And as you know, leopards are incredibly fast, incredibly fast. But it's a leopard with four heads and four wings. So imagine that. A super fast animal that has wings. So it's a leopard. Okay. I thought I'd try it. Yeah. So it's fast. Now, it had the slides been working. I'd show you those 2 million square miles, 33 years of age. Yeah, he was fast, right?  So the third of the fourth beast is Greece. And Alexander was impressed. Okay. So by the way, that's in Daniel 76, if you want to look at it. So what about the four heads and the four wings? Well, when Alexander died at the age of 33, the empire was divided into four parts because there were four generals. Interesting enough. And so the the empires divided into the Macedonians, the Ptolemaic in Egypt, the Seleucids in Judea and Pergamum in modern day Turkey. So we're gonna focus on the Seleucids because those are the people that the Jews have to deal with from Alexander onward. Okay, the Greeks, the Greeks. All right. So that's the first miracle. Alexander to great. Or first aspect in miracle. Let's go to the second point. The international language of Greek is now the lingua franca of Alexander's empire. Now, this might seem like, yeah, that's not really, you know, an eye opener, I don't know, eyebrow razor, you know, so what?  Well, what really happens is, since now everybody is speaking the same language, or at least has access to the same language. Alexander to great ushers in the super information highway, the highway of super information, the internet in antiquity, but in antiquities terms, right? Now, like the internet, when you're on the internet, you can access all sorts of information very quickly. Now, before Alexander, if you wanted to learn things about other cultures, you had to learn their language and their culture, have somebody translate it, it was very difficult, right? But now that everybody knows Greek information can flow from territory to territory, geographic location doesn't mean too much, as long as everybody speaks Greek. Everybody follow? Amen? All right, I'll do the amen. Yeah, amen. Common language. That's awesome. Praise the Lord. You know, the other thing too is the internet is also good for storing information as well, retrieving stored information. When I first started in apologetics, if I wanted to research a topic, I'd have to get in my car, drive down to Sacred Heart major seminary in Detroit, go to the library, spend several hours going through the stacks, spend a couple hours at the photocopier, copying things, bringing it back home. It was a day affair just to do research. Today with the internet, I could do all of that and more in five minutes, right? I can access all this information very quickly. And so along, since he makes the information super highway possible, guess what? Now you can store information as well. You ever hear of the library of Alexandria? There you go. That's the primitive ancient internet. Now, of course, it's not as fast as ours, but nevertheless, that's a very important development. Keep that into back pockets. Okay, let's move on to point number three. So we have the first point, Alexander, the great second point, the international language, the ancient version of the internet, third aspect, the Greek Septuagint. Now here's where the letter of Aristias comes in. A funny thing happens. After the libraries established, Ptolemy writes a letter to the high priest. Now this is from Egypt, right? And he, of course, if you have a library, what do you need to do? You need to acquire books. Otherwise you have empty shelves and that's not really a good library. So we want to fill it with wisdom from all over the place. He sends a letter to a high priest and he says, we want you to copy the Torah, the first five books of the Bible in Hebrew, into Greek so we could read it and we can have a nice copy of it in our library. Amazing thing is the high priest actually says, okay. And so according to the pseudo Aristias, you know, this letter, he sends 72 translators and they complete the first part of the translation in 72 days and miraculously the translations are identical. Pretty impressive. Especially when you think of how many Bible versions are there in Bible translations today. So Ptolemy was impressed and he considers, well let's finish the Torah and who knows, maybe we'll have more. So that's the beginning of the Septuagint which is a Greek translation of the Old Testament done about 200 years before Christ. It starts around then, it takes a while for books to be translated in a Greek. Why is this important? For the first time in salvation history, the word of God can be accessed by the nations. Before, if you didn't know Hebrew or you couldn't get somebody to translate it for you, you could not access God's wisdom. Huge, huge change. So the word of God now is open to the nations and notice, it wasn't the Jews putting this about. What was it? It was the Gentiles. They were asking, hey, can you do this for us? We want this wisdom of God that you have. Now, everything wasn't all Pop-Tarts and Coca-Cola because I know those are the two things I like the most. You can put whatever you want. Roses and you know. There was some bad things as well and this brings about our fourth point. So we have Alexander the Great. We have the common language of Greek. You have the Septuagint or the word of God. It's now accessible in Greek so everybody can access it and it's funny. I mean, it circulates very well. In fact, there comes a time where both Jews and Christians accuse the Gentiles of plagiarizing off Moses. It's very interesting that you get these charges that these Greeks are now ripping off Moses. The fourth of the five points is the Jews meet Greek philosophy. The Jews meet Greek philosophy.  And unfortunately, Greek philosophy was very good. It represents possibly the highest development of human reason. I mean, they actually get some very important points about God correct but it also is filled with error. Okay, so it's not perfect and not only that but you also get Greek culture which is pagan, right? So you have Greek culture. You have this Greek philosophy. All of this is being fed to us as Jews. It's kind of being rammed on our throat because the solucids are like be Greek, join the Greek bandwagon or get run over by it. Okay, and a lot of Jews, including high priests, jump on the bandwagon. They go Greek, right? Even though Greek culture is antithetical to God's word, God's prescription on the Torah. So Judaism is confronted by this paganism. Okay, and thank God we don't live in a culture like that, right?  That's antithetical to God's word. Okay, yeah, okay. Do you have the slide or not? Okay, yeah, I sent it to a hospitality student bill. Okay, yeah, sorry about that. We'll get it. We'll get it. So you're being confronted by culture, so we can learn a lot from this. Because here we have Greek philosophy encountering Hebrew revelation. Okay, I gotta stand for this. I can't, I'm sorry. It's time to get excited. Now you're probably thinking yourself, hold on, that doesn't make sense.  There's pagan error filled in there. In fact, Certolian says it very well. What does Jerusalem have, what does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? Right, what does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? What does Hebrew revelation have to do with pagan Greek philosophy? Well, at first glance, it seems like divine revelation really doesn't have anything to do with it. Like I said, it's filled with errors and so on. But get this, I'm going to read from Paul. First Corinthians 1-22 and 24. Paul says, for Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom. And then he goes on to say, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. What do Greeks look for? Wisdom. What is wisdom? Christ. Christ is the wisdom of God. So what the Greeks are looking for, in fact, not only are they looking for wisdom, but they love wisdom. By the way, the fancy Greek word for love of wisdom is philosophy. Okay, so they love philosophy. So what does philosophy have to do with Christianity? What does philosophy have to do with Hebrew revelation? Peanut butter, meat jelly. What you have is reason and revelation. Fides at Ratio. Faith and reason go together. And in a very interesting way, because Hebrew revelation is able able to purify the errors of pagan philosophy, and pagan philosophy is able to give us the precision to explain and expound revelation. Okay, so, all right. So in the midst of this course of Hellenization going on, the Jews react. So I think this is a good example for us in this part, because we're kind of in the same boat. And it's exemplified by two Deuteron canonical books, the Book of Sirach and the Book of Wisdom. I love Father John Lau's analogy. He says these two books are like a tree. Okay, a tree. The Book of Sirach is like the roots of the tree. When you're confronted with this pagan culture, you dive into Jewish history. You remind the people of where they were. You remind that God is faithful to those who are faithful to him, and that those who oppose God are destroyed. Okay, so Sirach goes deep in the Jewish history. He reminds the Jews where you've been, where you come from, and God is faithful. Okay, that's the roots of the tree. Okay, so Sirach buries down in history. The Book of Wisdom is like the branches of the tree. It branches out into the heavens, and it takes the Greek language, it takes Greek philosophical terms and ideas, and it takes Hebrew revelation, and it raises it up in a beautiful manifestation of wisdom that wouldn't be possible in Hebrew. So you have this tree, and those two things work together to combat this horrible Hellenization, Greekification, if you will, of the Jewish people. And like I said, since philosophy means love of wisdom, it's interesting that both Sirach and wisdom do something very interesting. They explore, get this, the relationship of God's wisdom to himself, and the relationship of God's wisdom to creation. Very interesting. So the Jews now, for the first time in salvation history, is really looking at what is the relationship of God's wisdom to himself and to his creation. Now, this might seem all academic, and maybe it is, but it has practical uses. For example, not long ago I received an email from a Jewish person in England, and I do apologetics, I defend the faith. And this Jewish person said, how in the world can you Christians believe the Trinity comes from Hebrew revelation? It's pagan, it's pure paganism, right?  You have a huge hole in the development of Hebrew revelation. See, remember how I said that Jews don't have the Deuteronical books? Their Old Testament ends like Protestant Bibles with Melachi, Esther, like around that time, and then it sips 400 years to the New Testament. But for Jews it's even worse, because then there's another century before rabbinic Judaism picks up when their oral tradition is written down, and that's really the Judaism that's today. It's a religion of the book, it's not a religion of the temple like it was in Jesus' time. So there's 500 years, half a millennia that Jews can't access, they really don't have knowledge of. So of course, when you end way back then, and then you zip to the second Christian century, it seems like, wow, paganism, the Trinity can't possibly be true. But if you have a Catholic Bible or an Orthodox Bible, guess what? You see, no, it's in the Deuteronical Canon that Jews, not Christians, start looking at the relationship of God's wisdom to himself, and some very interesting things come out of this investigation. For example, in Syrac 24 and Wisdom 7, we learned that God's wisdom was there in the beginning, from the very before the beginning. Not only that, but God's wisdom is also alongside God in Proverbs. It's very interesting. Wisdom is like his helpmate in creation. So, and then you also have passages in Syrac and wisdom where God's wisdom is God. Okay? Everybody follow me? So in the beginning, there was wisdom, and wisdom was with God, and wisdom was God. Now, in the Book of Wisdom, God's word is identified as wisdom. It makes the connection. So if you replace wisdom, and if I had slides this would be great, replace wisdom with word, guess what we get? John 1-1.  This was known by the Jews hundreds of years before Christ. They just didn't know who the word is. Christ, the word had to be incarnate in Jesus Christ. So, so you have this weird duality of personality. By the way, if you're interested in this and you're nerds like me, please don't do that. That would be very sad, but if you're nerding out, there's actually books written by Jews, modern books that explore this. I'll give you a couple of titles. There's one title called Two Powers in Heaven by Ellen Siegel. There's also Two Gods in Heaven by Peter Schaefer and the Jewish Gospels by David Boyern. I always mispronounced his last name. These are Jews today who look at Deuterachanonical texts, pseudopagraphical works, and they say, you know what? In Jewish thought, before the first century and in the first century, there seems to be a duality within God. So I told my friend, you know, you need to, you need to go old school, you need old time religion. This new fangle to knock that you're using, you got to get to the Christian Bible, the old stuff, the Septuagint. All right, so let's see. All right, so the confrontation of philosophy or reason and revelation produces this beautiful response in the Word of God. So that's the fourth point. Now let's go to the final point. The Maccabean Revolt. The Seleucid's forced Hellenization with arms. You know, this is a hot persecution of the Jews.  No, I'm just joking, but yeah, they bring Greek culture which involves the gymnasium which, by the way, involved pagan practices. It wasn't just exercise. I mean, kind of like today, you know, sports is now becoming kind of politicized, it's becoming politically correct. That's kind of how it was. So not everybody jumps on the, let's go Greek bandwagon. There was a group of Jews who said, oi, we're not going to take this. And that is the Maccabees. The Maccabees have this arm revolt against this group that's so much more powerful than them, there's really no way they could succeed outside of God's help. It's during this that this confrontation produces some very interesting fruit. And by the way, you could read about the Maccabee and revolt in 1st and 2nd Maccabees, aptly titled. For example, in 2nd Maccabees 6 and 7, now if you, we find Jews who were willing to be tortured, refused release in order for the better resurrection. In other words, it's better to be faithful to God and be raised again and live forever with God than to eat pork, violate the law, and be condemned forever. For the first time in Jewish history, you have Jews who are willing to lay down their lives, that their faithfulness to God would lead to the resurrection, and although their bodies die, they will live on earth again. You find that in 2nd Maccabees 6 and 7, with the Maccabee and martyrs. By the way, I mean, that was, I was basically quoting Hebrews 1135 about the torture of refusing release for the sake of better resurrection. So God's people has reached a point in development where they're willing to die rather than eat pork. Now there are plenty of people who are willing to die, but not to the extent of fidelity to God. You also have another interesting development because the book of Maccabees, especially 2nd Maccabees, focuses in on the afterlife. And since 2nd Maccabees, we find all sorts of interesting things about those who die, where before death was in Shio, it was a kind of shadowy place that we didn't really know much about. There's comfort for the righteous, there's suffering for the wicked. That's about it. In 2nd Maccabees, we find out that they're part of our community still, even though they died.  They weren't allowed by the law to have. So Judas takes up a collection and sends it to Jerusalem for expatriate sacrifice to be made for the dead soldiers and he offers prayers. And it concludes saying it's a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins. So death, according to this development, now this is maybe 100, maybe 50 years before Christ, this development that the dead aren't cut off from us, the dead still part of our community, we could offer prayers and sufferings for their souls in order to atone for their transgressions. Very interesting. By the way, Jews today pray for the dead. I don't know if you know that. There's a famous photo shop in New York that's run by Hasidic Jews, right? Those are the Jews with the beards and everything. This fellow told me this after one of my talks. I thought it was so funny. So they sell appliances, right? And camera equipment. And he is a Catholic. Apologize. He was really fired up. So he wanted to evangelize the Hasidic Jews. He called them up and he's talking to them about things and he's talking about purgatory. He didn't know that they don't believe in purgatory or they believe in purgatory, excuse me. They have a rough approximation of what we understand as purgatory. So he says, you know, but you guys don't have purgatories. Yeah, we do. Actually, here's this. This is the actual words from the Hasidic Jew. He says, yeah, we have a washer and dryer as well. I love that response. So the time of Christ, they were praying for the dead. They were offering suffragists for the dead. The afterlife now is visible. In fact, in 2nd Maccabees 15, you learn that the high priest Onias and the prophet Jeremiah, even though they died, they appeared to Judas in a vision where it says that Jeremiah is continually praying for the people of God. So we even see in the Old Testament the prayers of the saints, right? Except this is the Old Testament righteous. So the afterlife now is like it becomes more and more clear. And you can see how that clarity gives the Jews the confidence to be faithful and actually suffer and die rather than disobey the law. There's also other things as well. You know, in the Maccabees you find a feast of the dedication, Hanukkah being established. The festival of lights, you find this in 1st Maccabees 556-59. Hanukkah celebrates the rededication of the temple that was defiled by the Greeks. It's an eight-day celebration and it's known as the festival of lights. You guys have seen menorahs, right? Are you familiar with Hanukkah? Yeah, festival of lights. That's a fascinating feast, isn't it? Because Christ, what's his body likened to? A temple. When was Christ raised from the dead on the eighth day, Sunday? So it's eight days. The temple of Christ's body is raised and what is the light of the world? So Hanukkah fits perfectly with Jesus. By the way, it's also one of those Jewish feasts that the Jewish Bible doesn't have any recollection of, since it doesn't have Maccabees, Jews celebrate Hanukkah but there's nothing in their Bible to establish it. Okay, also you find in Maccabees, enter to the theme of Jaws, the Romans. The Romans begin to appear. The Romans are the fourth beast in Daniel, the ones who overtake the Seleucids, the ones who are the last and the most terrible of the fourth beast, or the four beast. So you see the Romans and actually if you read Maccabees, it's kind of scary because the Maccabees are like, hey, these are nice chaps. They enter into alliances and so on. We should ally with them. Yeah, that's going to work out really well, right? And it ultimately ends up with King Herod, okay? So you have this interesting phenomenon of all these trials during this period bearing fruit and preparing the way for Jesus because it's because of this false king of the Jews, Herod, by the way, the Roman Senate in 40 BC proclaims Herod the king of the Jews. Who's supposed to be the king of the Jews? Son of David, right? Herod's an Edomite.  So Herod sets the stage for the true Son of David, the true Messiah, Jesus, right? And if you think about it, you look around, it seems like something else amazing happens. I had slides, I'm sorry, but I would have shown you this. It's amazing. On the map as you go through starting with the first Judas Maccabees and going through the successors of the Maccabees, what happens is it starts off with a little patch of land and it begins to grow and it begins to grow and it grows more until finally you get to almost the time of Christ and amazingly the land that's under Jewish control is almost identical to the kingdom of David. It's truly amazing. So out of nowhere we're in the land where David was ruling, but we have this false king. Things aren't kosher, it's not good. So you can see where the Greek miracle starts paying dividends because it's not by accident that the earliest copies of the Gospels are written in Greek, right? Do you know that? Why? Because that plugs into the information superhighway of antiquity. Now everybody can read about the words and deeds of Jesus no matter where you are because of the Greek miracle. It's not by accident that the New Testament quotes the substitution, that Greek translation of the Old Testament as its preferred text. Why? Because now since God's Word has gone out to the Greek-speaking people, guess what? The apostles and those who followed the apostles now have a text that they can show the Old Testament prophecies that the Gentiles have access to. That would not be possible if it wasn't for the Septuagint. It would not be possible if Alexander did not spread the Greek language. It would not be possible without Alexander. It's not by accident that when the early Church Fathers are approaching the Gentiles with the Gospel that they proclaim Christ to the Gentiles by introducing them to wisdom, right? Because the Greeks love wisdom, they're philosophers. All they have to say is you know that thing that you love? You love this wisdom? Let me tell you his name because his it's not an it. It's a him. It's a person and this person came to us. He conversed with us. He lived with us. He worked miracles and he wants you to be part of his covenant family. It's not by accident that the people of God reached the point where their faithfulness that they're willing to endure suffering, torture, and death in hopes of the resurrection. Why? Because wisdom incarnate demonstrates his faithfulness by suffering and dying and being raised from the dead. So in a way the Maccabees foreshadow the Christ that they're being faithful to God and ultimately await the resurrection. What Christ resurrection proves it's already here. What you hope for will happen. Why? Because I have been raised from the dead. So that's the Greek miracle folks. It took centuries and like I said nobody knows about it. I shouldn't say nobody. Now you guys know about it and a few other people outside of the group. So let's change that, right? We've changed the way parishes have Bible studies. We changed how Catholics now love the word of God. Let's fill them in on this Greek miracle. Right? Let's take the stuff that we learned and apply it to this culture that in many different ways. I mean in many ways it really does mirror what we're going on today. People need to hear about the faithfulness of God in the midst of trials and how those trials produce the fruit by which the gospel spreads throughout the entire world. So why don't we close with a Hail Mary. Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.  So Lord's with you. Blessed are thou on the fruit of thy one Jesus. Holy Mary, Father of God, pray for us sinners. Amen. The Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.


Take one man with an iron sense of justice. Put him in a lonesome canyon with a desperate killer. That's our story. Trail's End. Taken from the files of John Steele. Adventurer. Hello, friends. This is John Steele. If you like stories of suspense and action, you've come to the right place. Because our specialty is curling hair and wearing out the edges of seats. This week's tale takes us out to the empty prairies of the Far West, where a good friend of mine lived a very absorbing story. I first met George Brennan when I was managing the White Swan Cafe out in Silverton. But here he is to tell you about it himself. George? I guess being sheriff's about the most thankless job a man could ask for. Don't make no difference how good you are at it. Seems there's always someone talking behind your back or taking offense at something you don't. At least that's the way it was in my county. I've been sheriff at Dawson County for 15 years. Good one, too. I always believed there was a right and a wrong to everything, and all you had to do was recognize them as was good and them as was bad. That's the way I ran things. Seems strange, though, that for all my years as sheriff, there wasn't a man in the county I could call a friend. You take that night a while back. I dropped into the White Swan just to check up before calling it a day. Hello, John. Oh, hello, George. Everything quiet? Yeah, all under control. I just thought I knew. I know. Well, this is where most the trouble starts in the town, you know? Oh, I wouldn't go that far. Take my word for it. I know. Okay, have it your way. Care for a drink? Yeah, I guess I got time. May? May, want to get the sheriff a drink? Sure, Mr. Steele. Hello, George. Hello, May. What'll it be? Whiskey. Coming up. Excuse me, George. May'll take care of him. Sure, thanks. Any thoughts? Thanks. Where have you been? Didn't see you for a couple of days. Just busy, I guess. Another woman? You know that's not true, May. I was just kidding. Oh. You're always so serious. Sheriff has to be. I know, I know. Say, when are you going to start enjoying life, George? Now, May. Okay, okay. But it seems to be... We've been all over this. Sheriff doesn't have time to... I know, George. Maybe if you would... No, don't start that either. Well, I mean it. Of course you wouldn't. It's all life for you. George.  Please. You'll never listen to me. It isn't that. Yes, it is. You're a fine man in lots of ways, George, but...  Okay, May. What's going on down there? Oh, just that young Reynolds kid. Have you been drinking again? No, George. Looks like I'm going to have to teach that pup a lesson. They'll settle it by themselves. What's going on here? It's nothing, George. Come on, what happened? I saw him. I saw him do it. You're crazy. Do what? He took one off the bottom of the deck. I was dealt that. Wait a minute, wait a minute.  You first, Harry.  I heard that. Yeah, well, he had a four and a three shown and he drew another three off the bottom of the deck. We can settle this, George. What do you got to say, Reynolds? Oh, he's crazy. I was dealt that.  I'm telling you. You think you know all the answers? I've been watching you, Reynolds. Yeah, but... What do you mean? When a kid's got bad blood... Now, wait a minute. Take it easy, Tommy. He can't say that about me. Let me handle it. You stay out of this, John. Tommy just had one too many, George. I know his kind. This can be settled among ourselves. When they're bad, they're bad. What are you going to do? A couple of months in jail... That's not the way. Don't give me any more arguments, John. I'm the law in this county and I know what's right and what's wrong. Okay, Sheriff. Come along, Reynolds. I didn't want to get the kid into trouble. Come on. Over here, Sam. Hey, it's been a shoot. Where? Over at the Post Office. When? A couple of minutes ago. I ran all the way. Anyone hurt? Yeah, Mr. Parsons. Bad? He's dead. I was just walking by and I heard the shot. The time I got to him, he was dead. Did you see the killer? No. Had his horse out back and he just took off. Well, come on. Get up a posse and we go after him. Yeah. Any of you men want to go along? I'm sure it was the Montana Kid. Who? The Montana Kid. What makes you say that? I saw his horse. Same pinot puny always rides. You sure? Positive. Headed up into Canyon Country? Never find him up there. We can try. No, it's suicide to go up there at night. Come on, Sheriff. Better wait a morning. He'll be gone by then. Chance we have to take. Can't let him get away again. I'm not going to lead a posse up there and have a lot of men get hurt. Maybe not even get her man. Maybe the Sheriff's right. Well, I don't think so. Me neither. Now listen to me. I'm for going without the sheep. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I can't stop you men from going. I can only tell you that I think you're making a mistake. And I don't want any part of two or three men getting killed. Okay, okay. Go ahead. But don't say I didn't warn you. Where do you think you're going? You're going with me. You heard me. You're going to get one criminal locked up tonight anyway. You going to sleep all day? Good day, Missy. Six o'clock. Here's your chow. The law prescribes that I feed you. That's all. All I want you through. Problems through right now. Good enough for the likes of you. Tastes all right when you hear a couple of months. Pussy get back yet? Pussy get back yet? Be quiet. I'm working. It's not. Would you go, Sheriff? Would you? It was common sense. You'll see. What? Morning, George. May, what are you doing up there early? Brought some food over for the boy. He's getting fed.  Good enough for him. Morning, Tommy. Morning, May. How'd you sleep? You're okay, Gaston.  That's what I'm doing. Well, I'm not going to let you. You're not going to stop me. Well, whoever heard of... Won't do no harm. He's just a kid.  May... Now, open up that door before this gets cold. Women ought to stay in their house where they belong. Thank you, George. Here, our son. Oh, thank you, May. Mr. Steele said to tell you he was going to see your mother this morning. Didn't he go with the Pussy last night? No. Why not? I don't know. Guess he thought you were right. I was. He said he dropped by to see you before he went, Tommy. Well, thanks, May. Well, don't stand there with the door open. Your criminal might escape. Nothing to make light of, May. I'm just trying to show you how wrong you are. You don't know about these things. I know a good boy when I see one. They're either bad or they're good. George. This one's bad. When are you going to learn? I've been in this business too long not to know them when I see them. I'm not thinking so much of the boy. It is more. I can't think of things like that. Well, you ought to. You sure have had to think of that. There wouldn't be any justice done. I'm telling you one thing, George Brennan. What? If you don't let that boy go, you needn't speak to me again. You've got no right to it. Right or wrong, that's the way I feel. I'm sorry, May. I am too. I've got to do what I know is right. Excuse me, May. That's all right, Mr. Steele. I was just leaving, anyway. Morning, George. Hello, John. I just want to see Tommy a minute. All right. Don't know why everybody has to make such a fuss. Rather, I come back later. Thanks. Hello, Tom. Hello, Mr. Steele. Thought I'd drop out to see your mother. Me, too. Me, thanks. Anything you want me to tell her? Oh, just I'm okay. Don't worry. Sure, sir. And what, Tommy? Well, if you'd take a look in her wood box. I understand. Must be the posse coming back. We followed him up to Pendleton's bluff. Yeah? He made a fight of it. Did you get him? He got away. Jed Carver's dead. And Davey Hart's got a slug in his hip. We waited till Sun up and combed those canyons. We couldn't find him. What are you going to do about it? Looks like you've done all we can. Oh, we have. What do you mean? One of us hit him. What? One of us stuck a bullet in him. How do you know? We found a place where he made his stand.  Why there? Maybe it was his horse. No hoof march around? You can't get very far. No. What are you going to do? After him. Good. We'll get some... No, this is a job for the sheriff. You can't go home. No one else getting hurt. But sheriff... You hurt me. Oh, right. Go along, George. Huh? You might need some help. I'd like to go along. Okay. But no more. That's all right with me. Have to use horses. Meet you in front of White Swan in five minutes. I'll be there. I deputized Sam Taylor out there and told him to look after the Reynolds kid. Then I met Steele and we took off. We were out at Pendleton's bluff by midday and sure enough we found the pool of blood and some empty cartridges up with the table rock, just like Sam and Harry said. We figured the Montana kid had head south along the Canyon Trail. That'd be in the shortest way to the border. He had a day start on us, but he has hurt bad and he wouldn't be moving fast. We followed the trail all the next day. There wasn't a sign of him. It was the middle of the third day we were getting down to the big canyon country. It was hot and dry, not a living thing in sight. What do you think, George? Huh? I said, what do you think? Oh. He could have gone north. There hasn't been a trace of him for two days. I know. But it seems to me... He had to come this way. Find water soon. We will. Canteens are almost empty. Just as tough on him. Yeah, I guess so. As soon as we get up to that shadow, let's take a rest. Oh, it's the time. Horses can't keep this up. Never catch him sitting in the shade. Lad, there's an inch thick on him now. You're right about him heading south. I know what I'm doing. Yeah? What if he's sitting up north, getting patched up? The only way he could have come. This is good of places, isn't he? Yeah. Oh, boy. Hold him steady. Yeah. Just listen in the cinch. No. Why not? If we have to get out of here in a hurry, give me the canteen. Take it easy. Yeah. Swallow a piece. I know. Even the water's hot. Go ahead. Thanks. I gotta sit down. Come on, George. Relax while you can. Don't need to. I want to sit down. That's your worry. That's right.  What do you mean? The law man. Why? Can't figure you out. Don't try. Everything's all black and white for you. I don't get you. Well, the Reynolds boys... Leave him out of this. Okay. Now this. What? A couple of days ago, you wouldn't go after Montana. Now you won't even sit down... We better get going. But we just... We're wasting time. All right, George. I'll get the horse. Well, what's the matter? Hurry up. Well, what's got into you? Guess you were right. Fire. Yeah. That's just still warm. Must have been here this morning. Yeah. He doesn't know he's being followed. Never would have made a fire if he'd have known. Can't be far ahead. No. Here's go. Easy, boy. Easy, boy. Here, boy. Stick close to the canyon wall. Yeah. Knew I was right. Just hope it's Montana. It's him all right. I don't know who else would be out in this country. So dry you can see our dust from miles. You ought to take that chance. You better ease up. Horses will never stand this pace. Can't let him get away. We lose a horse. He'll never catch him. Can't let him get away. Dawn soon. Yeah. He streaks a light in the east already. Yeah. Let's stop and rest. No. You can't keep on like this. If he can, so can I. That's crazy. Can't let him get away. I don't know about you, but I'm going to stop. No.  It's either him or us, and I'm not going to break first. It's common sense to pace yourself. It's longer in the long run. He's not stopping. We don't catch him today. We'll catch him tomorrow when he's through. And we've still got some strength. You've got to keep going. I'm stopping. No. Sit down and relax. Any water left? No. Use a drink. Sit down. Yeah. I must have seen our dust yesterday. Well, I didn't see no fire during the night. I guess you're right. That means he'll keep moving. He can't last forever. Maybe we passed him in the dark. No. Why? If he knows we're after him, he'll move fast as he can. Yeah. Getting light. Yeah. Soon as we... George, huh? What's the matter with the horses? Why? They're restless about something. Yeah. He's got them nervous. Look on that rock. Where? Over by the lion. Yeah. Put that gun down. What? Don't shoot. You're crazy. Don't shoot, John. If you think I'm not... Start working over to the horses. I'll cover you. Yeah, but you... If I have to shoot, I will.  Get going. Okay. You're there yet? Give me time, will ya? I can make it. Don't shoot. Don't. What did you do that for? I'm sorry. Get a hold of yourself. Now he knows where we are. George. If he gets away, it's your fault. Got a hold of yourself. Sorry. I hit you, George. It's okay. I waited as long as I could. I know. Our lives are worth more than cats in Montana. You all right now? I'm okay. Let's get out of here then. I haven't seen a sign of him since that dust cloud this morning. Yeah, I know. What do you think? He's up front somewhere. But where? We'll find him. We're close now. Yeah. He can't hold out much longer. Must be made of iron. I guess so. As soon as we get up over this rise, ought to have a clear look down the valley. Yeah. He asked for it. I knew it was going to be tough. You knew? I've been on him before. Oh. Shouldn't have let you come. I wanted to. Yeah. Forget it. Almost to the top. Uh-huh. Oh, steady, steady. Nothing. You? No. He's got to be out there. That's him. Get out. Behind those rocks. Yeah. Did you get hit? Nick me in the arm. You okay? Yeah. He's going out again. What? Got to draw his fire. You're crazy. He won't let me get far. Can't shoot at him till we know where he is. Yeah. You watch the hills. Right. Come on, boy. Yeah. Did you see him? He's up on that ridge. Where? I've got that big boulder. Yeah. Wait a minute. What? Something's moving up there. Yeah. There he goes. He's going to run for it. Don't shoot, John. Huh? Want to take him alive if we can. Yeah, but we got... Come on. I'm not shocked. Got him now.  You can't do it alone. I got it. Forget that law business. Huh? This isn't a Reynolds boy. This man's a killer. Got to be this way. You'll never learn. Cover me. Come in, kid. If you got any shooting to do, do it now. What do you say, kid? Want to throw your gun out? Yeah, you ask for it. Go ahead. Don't shoot. You couldn't pull that trigger any more than I could. Me and George. Let's see. I thought you'd take me in. Remember what my used to say?  Take me in. Oh, I'm doing it, kid. You know why? I was letting you go. I was making an evil man out of me. I guess I was making up for it by taking it out on every little center in the county. I'd never have made up my mind except I heard you was hit. Then I was afraid I wouldn't have a chance to square the record. I don't reckon I have to now. Right, George? Yeah. Dead? Yeah. Put him over my saddle. No. I'll carry him. Still the law man. Was he alive when you went in? Yeah. Didn't even shoot? I guess. I guess he ran out of ammunition. About that Reynolds kid. What? What do you think of him? Seems like a good boy. Yeah. Maybe we better forget all about him, huh? May he'll be very happy. I guess so. I guess so. Fails end. And if you like George's story, friends, why not come back next week? I'll have a boy who knew the loneliness of the unwanted but didn't have the courage to escape. I like to call it bleak furrows. So until next week, this is John Steele saying, a life of adventure is yours for the asking wherever you find it. Only don't look for it. It may find you. Well, goodbye and good hunting. This is the Mutual Broadcasting System.


Business majors are tenacious. You guys are like Kobe Bryant going after a loose ball trying to get me to do this business to your list. Now I really do appreciate you guys hounding me about this. I feel your passion, but I just wanted to take my time and do a ton of research to give you guys the best possible information. Seriously, this is probably one of the most requested videos I've ever had. Is a man of focus. Commitment.  Now I just wanna say really quickly if you disagree with me on any of these, don't get mad, go down into the comments and just tell me why. The main purpose of my videos besides helping you guys out is to start a conversation. That way if I'm wrong about something we can all learn from this and everybody wins. Interesting. And this is just my opinion based off of my own experience and research so always make sure that you do your own research. But anyways, if you appreciate me listening to the fans and making videos like this, make sure to tap the like button to smash the evil YouTube algorithm. All right, so let's get started. Number one on the list, the first one up is going to be accounting. Now accounting is a really solid choice because not only do you learn business skills but you also learn a lot of math as well. This is something that bosses and hiring managers love and there's a ton of demand for this one. Now I'm not gonna spend too much time explaining why I put them in different tiers. If you wanna know that you can check out my other videos. If I spent too much time explaining this the tier list videos would be way too long and nobody would wanna watch them. But accounting has some of the best stats out of all the business degrees and you're almost guaranteed to get a decent job. Now, one of the downsides of accounting is there's a very good chance that some of the lower level jobs are going to be automated. In fact, it's estimated that there's a 98% chance that some of the accounting jobs will be automated. But the good thing in my opinion is that this is such a flexible degree that as long as you get past some of the lower level easy jobs, you should be safe. So for these reasons, accounting is gonna go into A tier. Next on the list is going to be business administration. Now I'm just gonna say right now this is a very popular degree and it's not gonna rank very well. But that's just compared to other business degrees. Compared to all degrees, this is still a pretty solid choice. Now when polled business degrees came in second as having the least regret about the major that they chose. However, the ones that did regret the business degree regretted it because it was too general. Nice. And the business administration degree in my opinion does fall under this category of being too general. Think about it, when you get a business degree you can already work for pretty much any company in the world and any industry and you can also work in pretty much any country. So business degrees are already extremely flexible in general. Now usually being flexible is a good thing but with business degrees it's easy to fall into the trap of being too general. In case you haven't noticed, you've fallen right into my trap. And for that reason, business administration goes in F tier. Next on the list is going to be economics and I can already see the comments now. Yes, I realize economics is technically not a business degree but they're generally bunched with business degrees and they end up competing with business majors for the same job. So I just decided to include it on the list. Now economics is one of those degrees where you might have trouble finding a job but when you do find a job it pays really, really well. Now this is a degree where you wanna make sure to take extra math classes and maybe even some programming or statistics or finance classes as well because let's just face it, having these skills is gonna make you a lot more marketable to a business owner or a hiring manager. And modern problems require modern solutions. Overall the stats for this major are pretty good. I'm gonna put this one in A tier. Next on the list is gonna be entrepreneurship and this is one of those degrees that's really interesting because you have to ask yourself what kind of job are you gonna get studying entrepreneurship? I think that entrepreneurship is one of those skills where the only way you're gonna learn about it is by just doing it. It's kind of like riding a bike. You can read all the books in the world on riding a bike. You can consult with the world's top experts on riding a bike but until you actually do it you're not gonna know how to. So in my opinion, the best education you can get when it comes to learning entrepreneurship is to just start a business. And I remember taking a class on entrepreneurship in college and it was a cool class when it comes to theory and stuff but I remember I asked the professor if he'd ever started a successful business and he told me no. In fact, he'd never even started a business at all. And it was hard for me to take a lot of his advice seriously because he's never done it himself. But with that being said, the stats for this one are actually pretty good so for that reason I'll go ahead and put it in D tier. All right, so next on the list is gonna be finance and this is another one where you can learn a lot about business but you also get a good dose of the math side of things as well. Now finance is similar to accounting and a lot of them actually end up going for the same jobs but in my opinion, finance is a little more flexible than accounting and it also pays really well. I can see this one being really useful for learning personal finance like investing, managing your money as well. So for all those reasons I'm gonna go ahead and put this one in A tier. Next on the list is going to be a general business degree. Now you might be able to guess where this one is going. It's another one that's extremely common but it also has the problem of being too general. And like I said before, when it comes to business degrees they're already so flexible and so general that it's best to try to be a specialist. But on the other hand, this is a very good one if you're majoring in something else and you wanna tack this one on as a minor or even a double major. But overall just by itself, it's not that great. I'm gonna go ahead and put this one in D tier. Next on the list is going to be a human resources degree. Now you might think that an HR degree specializes you in something but actually it really doesn't. And the reason for this is because you can get into HR with a bunch of different degrees. You don't necessarily have to get an HR degree to become a human resource manager. There are a lot of people with humanities and social science degrees that can't get a job in those fields and so they end up becoming HR managers. So this is one of those majors where you're gonna have a ton of competition from other degrees. Now the stats are still okay for this one but overall when it comes to business degrees it's one of the worst on the list. And I hate to do this because it's still a great option compared to a lot of non-business degrees but this one is gonna have to go into F tier. Sorry Toby. All right, next on the list is going to be international business. And I was actually pleasantly surprised with this one when I was researching it. The stats on this one are actually pretty good. It's got good pay, flexibility and there's a lot of job openings. This is also a great one if you plan on double majoring in something or minoring. You see some really great combinations out there like international business and finance that'll open up a lot of opportunities and nobody can predict the future but business is becoming more and more international so this could be a huge opportunity for you.  I'm gonna go ahead and put it in V tier. Next on the list is going to be management information systems. So in layman's terms this one is all about integrating business with technology. Now if you've been watching my videos on this channel you know that something in the future that you really wanna look out for and keep in mind is automation. And maybe the two most important skills that you can learn in the age of automation is going to be business and technology. Companies love hiring people that graduate with this degree because it checks both of those boxes. And overall this one has excellent stats as well. It ranks as one of the top ones on the list and on top of all that it's extremely flexible. This is a really good one if you think you might want to become an entrepreneur in the future for instance. And the reason for that is because you're gonna have an insider's understanding on a company's business and technology needs. To me this one is clearly S tier. All right so next on the list is going to be management and this is another one that has that problem of being a little bit too general. But the thing that makes this one a little bit better is the fact that people generally go into management because they want to become leaders. And I think companies really covet this leadership skill set. They want to hire as many good managers as possible. And I think it's pretty simple here. Management and leadership positions pay better than non-management positions. And because of that when you look at the stats for this one they are pretty good. It's also really flexible and it's a good one that you could double major in or minor in. So for that reason this one is going to go into B tier. Next on the list is going to be marketing and this one might surprise a few people. So this is a really popular one. A lot of people want to go into marketing but when I was doing research on this the stats on it were honestly not the best but they also weren't that bad. Now I think as a skill marketing might be one of the most important things that you can learn but as a degree there are better options out there. And I've been told by people who graduate with a marketing degree that what they teach you in school is not really applicable to the real world. And a lot of marketing graduates actually end up working in sales cause there's a lot more sales jobs available. Overall this is still a really solid option if you compare it to all degrees but when you compare it to other business degrees this one goes in C tier. Okay so the next one on the list is going to be sales and business marketing and this is very similar to just marketing. To me sales is another one of those skills where it's kind of like riding a bike where you just have to do it in order to learn. So the best sales education is just going out and getting a job in sales. But if you do get good at sales it might be the single most important skill that you could ever learn. And one of my favorite quotes is learn sales so well that you can sell a bat soup to a vegan and you'll never be poor. Actually I just made that quote up on the spot but I think you get the point. But marketing and sales are considered to be fun and the job satisfaction does seem to be a little bit higher. And it's a really good one for you to double major in or minor in but overall I think these are gonna go in C tier as well. Next on the list is going to be supply chain management. Now this one is not too general it's actually pretty specific and specialized which is not that common when it comes to the business majors. And it has some really good stats in fact this one has some of the best stats on the entire list. And it makes sense because the skill sets that you learn with supply chain management are becoming more and more important. Businesses are moving towards optimizing processes and automation and you've seen businesses like Amazon that have basically taken over entire markets just by mastering supply chain management. And this is a very highly coveted skill right now so I think if you're interested in it this is one that I highly recommend. Supply chain management goes in A tier. All right guys that's the list. Go ahead, check my videos out right here. I made them just for you. 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