April 2024: Solving Mysteries of the Egyptian Pyramids

Jennifer:
​Putting things in the right time frame in the biblical record and then lining that up with things like when the pyramids were built and an amazing story, a unified story emerges about what was going on in ancient Egypt.

Steve:
Hello and welcome to the BC Messenger Podcast. This is April 2024 and episode #21, and we’re glad you are here for real science, real Bible, real history, and real world.

This is Bible science research results that you are not going to hear anywhere else and why it matters to you. These are research results we give you on this podcast, and I guarantee you you’re not going to hear them anywhere else.

Jennifer:
And why it matters for you in your life where you are today, doing whatever it is God has given you to do. So thanks for joining us and glad to have you on board for episode 21.

Steve:
And again, my name is Steve Hall and you just heard my wife, Jennifer Hall. We host this podcast each month and we are glad you are here.

So as we do each month, Jennifer, give us the rundown of what we’re going to be talking about today.

Jennifer:
All right, our featured topic is understanding mysteries of the Egyptian pyramids. And what we can learn when we get a unified view of the secular and the biblical history and what we can understand about mysteries of the pyramids. And then going from there into a research update on a very unexpected and fascinating topic: breaking research from Dr. Aardsma that we have just ourselves even found out very recently about. And then a Truth in Time update on our itinerary for the summer and how God is growing that ministry. And then an aging research update. And finally, Helen’s View, which many of our listeners tell us they enjoy. She will be sharing something that Dr. Aardsma wrote in March of 2007 after he had been ill for quite a few years with an incurable autoimmune disease and something he wrote about what he had learned and what he had been through in that.

Steve:
So Jen, wouldn’t it be foolish if, let’s say, some archaeologists in our world today dug up something that contained a document that was written down, say 5-6 thousand years ago and were able to translate it to figure out what it says and were able to read what these people in this world who lived in this world 5, 6, 7 thousand years ago had written down and they were writing information about things they had observed and seen and done in the world and it was broadcast, it was given, it was, you know, shared with others. And yet it was just completely laughed at, ignored, mocked. People would think, you know, this is interesting, but yet didn’t take it seriously, went on with their life. Would that be foolish?

Jennifer:
That would be extremely foolish. And it doesn’t even seem really possible. I mean, as humans, we are so curious about the past and about our ancestors and what’s happened in this world thousands and thousands of years ago. Archaeologists can dig up a little scrap of a stone that’s got little writing descriptions on it and you know, it’ll be passed into the hands of the experts, of the experts, and it’ll be carefully handled and it’ll be deciphered. And because that’s our nature, we want to know. We want to discover and learn about the past.
Steve:
We need to not just want to, but we need to. Anybody who has any wisdom about them will understand that would be very foolish not to take the information given to us.

Jennifer:
To toss it. And say, well, that can’t be true.

Steve:
Well, and why would people do that? Well, I can think of a few reasons right off the top of my head. It’s dealing with things that we can’t see, maybe with our own eyes. That they saw. Maybe it’s not believed because they’re just these stories that are are crazy sounding; they’re too big. Or maybe it’s what CS Lewis called chronological snobbery. You know the idea that if it didn’t happen in our own day and it happened to people who lived a long time ago, it’s discredited because the intellectual climate, as Lewis said, of our own age is so much greater and so much higher. We don’t even pay attention to things people said a long time ago. Well, that’s crazy.

Jennifer:
Of course, you can probably sense that we’re referring here to the attitude in our world today towards what we call the Bible, which is in fact the world’s most ancient history. And we do not have to dig it up out of the ground on fragments of stone or broken tablets or broken inscriptions. We have it preserved. We have it passed down. We have it translated. We have it and translated into different versions and different languages. I mean, it is there. It is staring us in the face and it is detailed observations going back thousands of years about our planet, about the history. And yet as an advanced civilization today, the Bible is laughed out of the halls of science, laughed out of the halls of academia,

Steve:
Right. And why? Well, because it is not seen as real world history.

Jennifer:
Definitely not.

Steve:
It is seen as fables. Just like if you pulled out a Greek mythological story about, you know, Medusa and, I can’t remember the name…

Jennifer:
Zeus or something… Titan.

Steve:
And read that. Of course we wouldn’t take that as real world history and benefit from it because it’s not telling us true stories. And so it’s ignored. It’s laughed at. It’s mocked that these things could have never happened.

And well, what about the Christians? Are they also taking it seriously?

Jennifer:
Well, I think, of course, as Christians, we do take it very seriously as a spiritual book. But as far as historical observations go, no, I don’t think so. We’re not really looking for the real world history. We don’t have the brilliant minds of science who are Christians saying, “what do we need to learn from this ancient history? How can it change our lives today? How can it help us solve problems today?” Because there’s information here that we can’t get anywhere else.

Steve:
Right. And we need to take it seriously. We must take it seriously. It is part of our burden here in what we are doing in communicating the work that’s here at the Biblical Chronologist to delve into these things in order that Bible history may be connected to the real world. Completely doing away with this heavenly separation, the separation of the heavenly and the earthly, that all the heavenly stuff is good, all the earthly stuff is bad. It all belongs to God. And that this book, this collection of books that, like you said a minute ago called the Bible, we have this given to us as a huge gift, as a great benefit. Not just in the giving of information for our souls, which is vitally, vitally important, not just in teaching us about God, which is vitally important, but also in information from ancient people who lived thousands of years ago who have recorded.

Jennifer:
Who observed things, wrote it down, saying here is what I saw, here is what happened. And maybe we’ve never seen anything like it in our in our time, in our civilization and in recent centuries. But how foolish we are right to turn away, to disregard, to toss it onto the pile of myth

Steve:
We are and that’s what we hope that part of our podcast can help us all in understanding is that we need to stop doing that. And we need to take the Bible seriously, even in those accounts, historical accounts that they really did happen.

For instance, did people live to be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years old before the flood?

Jennifer:
Is that true history of our planet? Because if it is.

Steve:
Would we not have a lot to learn from that?

Jennifer:
And not just that, but did a globe sweeping catastrophe really wipe out almost everybody? And Noah tried to record it the best he could so he could tell coming generations, “this is what happened.”

Steve:
In the real world? Or are these just stories of what we hear, “biblical proportions?” You know, so they’re just really fables. And you know, even as Christians, we have to be careful because we say we believe these things. But…

Jennifer:
But we’re really not interested in the real world aspect. And I hate to say it, but you can read Little Red Riding Hood and get spiritual lessons from it too. So if you don’t have the real world aspect, the spiritual lessons begin to lose their impact

Steve:
And you have lost your really defense of the Bible.

Jennifer:
So this foolish ignoring of the historical record given to us in Genesis, Exodus, other ancient books of the Bible. It brings to mind this well-known statement by the philosopher Hegel:

“The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.”

Why are we this way? Why do we think that we know better? And that we are going to be able to toss aside valuable information, because it’s obviously not true. Why do we do this? And why do we not learn and grow and gain and continue to take dominion of the world that God’s given us based upon all that has been learned from the history in the past?

So we want to invite our listeners to come along with us again this month on this amazing journey. We’re hoping to learn from history. As we see once again all that can be gained when we put the Bible back into its rightful category of true, real world history.

Steve:
And so yes, we want to today to give another illustration in our podcast of connecting the real world—things that we see today with our own eyes in certain places we know today that happened a long, long, long time ago—connecting that with biblical history and showing the reality of these things. What the Bible tells us, what the world is showing us, bringing them together when you get the chronology corrected and understanding that these things really did take place.

Jennifer:
We have covered a lot of territory on this podcast already in the first 20 episodes, so many things we’ve discussed and talked about. But the truth is we’re really just dipping our toe in the water. There is so much more to come, information that does pertain to our world today and findings that do verify the historicity of the ancient Old Testament. It’s just incredible all that God is doing through the work of taking the Bible at face value.

Steve:
That’s right. Not just a spiritual book: it is in fact a written record of past events in this present world. Historical events. So much to teach us, so much to inform us on.

Now we want to talk about. Something very interesting today, I hope you find interesting. What about the pyramids?

When you think of Egypt, if someone were to mention the country of Egypt to you, especially of ancient Egypt, what is one of the first things that would come to your mind? Well, of course, many people would immediately begin to think about the massive pyramids. Maybe some of you have had the opportunity to actually travel over to that part of the world and see the pyramids with your own eyes. But of course we’ve all seen pictures of them built during Egypt’s great Old Kingdom.

There is so much mystery that surrounds these ancient monuments. How were these great structures ever built in such ancient times? Where did the ancient Egyptians get the construction techniques that were used to build these monuments, these pyramids? Where did the Egyptians obtain—and this is a big question here—where in the world did they get the wealth to build such structures, these pyramids? I mean the mass of people that it would have taken the to to do this.

Jennifer:
I saw one fact saying that one of the pyramids alone would have involved 100,000 laborers. So, yeah, this is huge for the ancient civilization of Egypt. And if you understand the Bible or read the Bible, you know that there’s not really any talk of pyramids in the Bible. So how can we learn anything about the pyramids from the biblical records would be a question I could see somebody asking, and that’s a good question.

But once you get the chronology straightened out, some of the mysteries about the pyramids begin to become very clear. It’s nothing, nothing magical about it. It’s just putting things in the right time frame, right in the biblical record, and then lining that up with things like when the pyramids were built and an amazing story, a unified story emerges about what was going on in Ancient Egypt.

Steve:
And we want to hear the beginning of this section continue to stress. I mean this isn’t just one thing that we’re pulling out here. Through these 20 some episodes of our podcast we have been building and I hope you’ve seen this one discovery after another. That once this chronological correction is made in the scriptures, the unification, as you said, of the biblical accounts and real world history just come together unbelievably.

And in this episode we are going to tell you the story of the building of the first pyramid found in ancient history and then connect the dots to a well-known account in the Bible that I’m sure you have heard of before. With correct biblical chronology, the mysteries begin to unravel.

Jennifer:
So, without the correct biblical chronology, you have, as usual, a muddled up mess, even when it comes to something like the pyramids. Because you know that the pyramids were built something like 2500 to 2900 BC, and yet the flood was supposed to have happened around 2500 BC at the time of like the building, you know, of some of the last of the great pyramids. And so you immediately have to ask that question like, OK, these structures seemed to make it through the flood OK. And then there were more pyramids built after that, even during the Middle Kingdom. And then you have to wonder, where did the laborers come from to build those pyramids if everybody had just been wiped out during the flood?

So you have a muddled up mess.

And going back to what we were talking about at the beginning, this is the reason why the world tosses aside the history in the Bible. They have not solved the problems, addressed the problems. Instead, they have said it’s just legend and we move on. So you have the muddled up mess. When you get the chronology corrected, you have so much clarity. So here’s really what we have to get adjusted in our minds is the proper dates for the history of Egypt that’s given to us in the book of Genesis.

Of course, when we think of Egypt, who’s the main guy that we think of when it comes to ancient Egypt in the Bible? Well, one might say Moses. If you go back farther, you would say Joseph.

Steve:
Joseph. That’s right. So we go to the Bible and we find the story of a young man who was sold into slavery in this nation called Egypt. His name was Joseph. We won’t take the time to tell the whole Bible story here, but the question we have is when did that happen? When was Joseph in the Bible sold into slavery? And if you get the chronology correct, you begin to understand that Joseph came into Egypt in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, not in the intermediate period or in the New Kingdom of Egypt, but in that Old Kingdom, the same Kingdom where all but one of the pyramids were built. So here’s our connection.

Jennifer:
There were some pyramids built in the Middle Kingdom, but they didn’t last. They were poorly built and so they they don’t stand as any kind of structure today. But Joseph was born, according to the corrected modern biblical chronology, he was born 2916 BC.

So then he entered Egypt when he was approximately 17, which would be 2899 BC. And then we know of something that happened on the scene of history. Which was kind of a world shaking event in its day, and Joseph was very influential during this time period. So what would that be?

Steve:
Well, it’s an event that if it had actually taken place in the real world, you would think we might have some kind of record of it because it was so huge. It was a famine, not just any kind of famine you and I have ever experienced or heard about even really. It was a seven-year famine. That’s what the Bible talks about.

Jennifer:
And it was widespread.

Steve:
Yes, the whole known world of the day, really. It was a famine that went on for seven years that Joseph found himself in the middle of in Egypt.

Jennifer:
So the dates of the of Joseph’s famine, according to the biblical chronology with our corrected dates at this ancient time, which we’ve talked about the missing Millennium, and so all of these dates are 1000 years earlier than what you would traditionally see in biblical chronology. The new dates for Joseph’s famine are going to be 2879 to 2872, something like that.

The Bible tells us that Joseph was 30 when he was first brought in before Pharaoh. Quickly he earns Pharaoh’s trust. Pharaoh starts turning over to him all kinds of power. They have these seven years of amazing plenty to the point where they can’t even keep track of how much grain is coming in. He tried to measure it, then he wasn’t even able to measure all of it. They stored it in all of the different places where it was being grown. And then the famine, 7 years of famine following the seven years of plenty. And during that time, Joseph had two sons born, the Bible tells us. So all of this is pretty close back to 3000 BC in the couple centuries there following.

Steve:
We have to remember that Joseph is, I mean, he’s key in the story because he is suddenly this character who has come into this nation of Egypt and knows things. Of course we understand God gave him these abilities, but, he knows how to solve problems. To the Pharaoh, he’s invaluable and Pharaoh makes him second in command to himself in the whole nation.

Jennifer:
It’s really incredible. I encourage our listeners to go back and read those like chapter 40 of Genesis and forward because the story of Joseph is amazing and also humorous in spots. And really to think about all of this detail being written down about this ancient history transpiring in this family, in this nation, it’s amazing. But I did see where Pharaoh trusted him so much that even when his family finally came into Egypt, and they brought all their flocks and everything. You know, Pharaoh, just he wanted Joseph to take care of everything. And he said, Joseph, if any of those guys are good enough, have them watch over my livestock too.

You know, it’s like, Joseph, here’s one more thing you can do for me. Get some of your family members who are so good with this. Cattle and sheep to come over here and oversee mine, you know, just help me, help me with all this stuff. And people bowed down, you know, when he when he went out into Egypt after the Pharaoh gave him all this power, people bowed down to him. And I guess that’s called a a vizier. A vizier is the title that’s used for these guys who are like the right-hand man of the of the Pharaoh himself, who is almost a deity. Pretty much is considered like one with the sun god, you know, right?

Steve:
I know some may be thinking, what does this have to do with the pyramids? We’re going to get there. And remember this, when Joseph comes into the nation of Egypt, according to the new chronology, there are no pyramids yet. That’s important. Remember that. There aren’t any pyramids when Joseph shows up, sold into slavery and he’s in Potiphar’s house, you know that whole story. He didn’t walk by any pyramids. They had not been built yet.

Jennifer:
This had not yet taken place in the Old Kingdom, and that’s why it’s so important to get these the story correct by getting the dates correct. So of course his whole family comes down because of the famine. The famine is severe. I mean, this is a very bad catastrophe that these people are dealing with and everybody’s being driven to Egypt to get food. His family shows up and then eventually they all move there. Jacob and all of his descendants at the time, which was a a nice, you know, entourage of a large family clan kind of a thing coming into Egypt there.

And then they’re there for the Bible tells us exactly 430 years. And then they go out and we’ve talked about that. Now the date of the Exodus, 2450 is the date that they come out of Egypt.

I hope you can get a hold of a timeline or sketch this on a piece of paper and just get this in your head how this all went down at these ancient dates.

Steve:
And it’s important to remember that this is taking place, according to the corrected chronology, during the Old Kingdom. Joseph coming in, as we’ve already said, it’s in the Old Kingdom of Egypt. He comes in as a slave. Israel grows as a nation in the Old Kingdom, and it’s during the time that the pyramids are being built.

Jennifer:
It’s that 430 years that Jacob and all of his descendants, they came into Egypt and then they grew into this mighty nation, that’s the time when the pyramids were being built.

Steve:
And it is at the end of the Old Kingdom, this very unified Kingdom, obviously wealthy in its day. It’s at the end of the Old Kingdom that the Exodus takes place and is what ends that period in Egypt’s history.

Jennifer:
Yeah, the Old Kingdom is known to have just basically collapsed. And historians say they don’t really know why. It could have been climate change or who knows what. We know why. When you get the dates right, it’s very obvious why.

Jennifer:
The Bible gives us a detailed account of exactly why the Old Kingdom of Egypt collapsed. And it went from glory days, I mean building monuments that still stand today, which would have required enormous amounts of wealth and power and manpower. And then at the time of the Exodus, they never, you know, in the centuries that followed, they never really got back to the glory days that they had in the Old Kingdom. In the New Kingdom, there was one Pharaoh who built one pyramid that we still have today. And you can kind of just sense, you know, that it was like one last attempt. I mean, this was like at 1400 BC. So you’re talking 1000 years later, “we’re going to bring it back.” You know, “we’re going to go back to the way it used to be in Egypt.” And so there’s that one last pyramid that went up then.

Steve:
Well, and there ought to be, if when the Bible and history connect, then there are some certain events that if they really did happen, we need to be able to see them in the real world. And the Exodus certainly is that. If the Exodus really took place, as the Bible said, we have got to be able to see it, and we do. It is the collapse of that great Old Kingdom, the Kingdom that built the pyramids.

Jennifer:
I just, I got to say something right here that just came back to me. I remember, you know, of course Dr. Aardsma is my dad, and I remember as a a young person, as a older teen when he was beginning to make some of these early discoveries with the missing millennium, and I just remember him one day saying, “they say they can’t find the Exodus!” But it was like, it had just dawned on him. “But for heaven’s sake, it’s the collapse of the old Kingdom!” Like, Oh my goodness, it’s so obvious you can. I mean, how could you miss this when you get the chronology correct? Stop, you know, looking under every rock and in every corner it is right there, you know? And I just remember that dawning on him for the first time and him being so thrilled and excited with exactly what the Bible’s describing being exactly there in history.

Steve:
You have to make that leap out-of-the-box of the thousand years in chronology that that you have to be able to insert there that’s missing. And once you do, it is the key.

It is the key that unlocks everything and as we have shown just on the podcast over and over and over again: unlocks the dates to show the events that in the real world took place match what the Bible is telling us.

Jennifer:
So again, our listeners might be wondering, well, OK, that’s all really interesting, but I don’t see the connection with the pyramids. So we want to help you see that through the light of what the Bible is telling us.

Steve:
Yes. So let’s go back. We just talked about the Exodus a little bit. We talked about the pyramids being built in the Old Kingdom and all of that. Joseph in the Old Kingdom. Now. Let’s go to Egypt. Back in this time, from the biblical account of this period of time, we are going to try to find in history—we need to find a united Egypt ruled by a single Pharaoh.

We need to find an administrative assistant, if we could, that is very potentially famous. I mean, he’s well-known, usually called a vizier, looks like “viz-ee-air”.

And I mean, I would think there would be some record of a seven-year famine if this actually happened in the real world. I mean, have you ever thought of a seven-year famine? I mean, you know, you go one year and it’s real dry, things get pretty bad. But can you imagine 7 consecutive years of famine and what that would have done to an ancient civilization?

Possibly some surviving material evidence of this particular Pharaoh and his newly acquired wealth that would have come from such an event that Joseph is known to have, you know, orchestrated. What happened? Remember the story with Joseph? I mean, there was seven years of plenty. Joseph tells everybody what’s coming. Of course, God revealed it to him, according to the Bible. And you were talking about this earlier today, all of the things that Joseph began to implement for this Pharaoh accumulating this wealth for this man.

Jennifer:
You mean during the famine you’re talking about?

Steve:
Yes, during the famine.

Jennifer:
Yeah, I mean, it says, you know, everybody brought all their money and bought grain with their money. Then they came back and said, “we’re out of money. We’ll give you our livestock.” And so Egypt, the Pharaoh, through Joseph, claimed all the livestock in exchange for grain. Then they came back and said, “we’re out of livestock. We will give you our land and we’ll become your servants.” And these are Egyptian people. This is nothing to do with the Israelites, really. Although they were also coming and buying grain, but they weren’t a huge nation or anything at that point. But the Egyptian people, you know, “we’ll sell you all of our land and we’ll become your servants”

Steve:
For the nations around Egypt.

Jennifer:
So they, the Pharaoh claimed all of that and continued to provide food for these people. And then even after the famine was over, they began to grow crops on this land that now belonged to the Pharaoh and they would, I think it said 1/5 of everything grown was given back to the Pharaoh. So he was making taxes on them you know, even after the famine was over, going into the many years to come, the wealth that came upon Egypt during that famine.

Steve:
So what we’re trying, what we’re trying to say is we’re looking for a a Pharaoh that would have gotten really, really wealthy in real world history due to the seven-year famine. You know, it it reminds me a little bit of COVID. And who who got real wealthy? A modern day Pharaoh during COVID.

Jennifer:
Where did everybody give all their money?

Steve:
A place called Amazon: now, that’s not in Egypt, the Amazon.

Jennifer:
But it’s the same principle. You know, you’re having a crisis and everybody flocks to one place to or, you know, maybe one of many in in our day. But somebody who can rise up and say, here, I’ve got what you need!

Steve:
Well, that’s what we’re looking for and what would be something that would give us evidence of a nation and of a Pharaoh that had accrued such wealth in the world? Now, I hope you’re already connecting the dots in your own mind, but let’s go ahead and talk about it.

Jennifer:
Now, we’re not looking all up and down the timeline of Egyptian history through hundreds or thousands of years. We know the time frame we’re looking in. Now it is ancient history and some of the ancient Egyptian chronology is a little bit tricky to deal with, but Dr. Aardsma has talked about that—

Steve:
It had to be corrected—

Jennifer:
—and some of the newer radiocarbon and things. And so we know the time frame we’re looking in to see if there’s anything in Egyptian chronology, in Egyptian history that can match up, you know, with this time frame now of Joseph and shed some light on on this history.

Steve:
So when we go to that time frame of Egypt, do we see? That’s the question we’re now asking. Let’s tie it together now, let’s tie and put all the dots together. When we go to that particular time in history, what we know of Egypt, some of the best recorded ancient history we have in the world, do we see anything that would match the biblical account that we have? And sure enough, we do.

These expectations that we are looking for, these things we are looking for are all realized in one king. In the Third Dynasty of Egypt, this is a man by the name or a pharaoh by the name of Djoser, and that begins with a “D”. It’s kinda funny, a silent “D”-J-O-S-E-R, sometimes called Zoser.

But Djoser, who ruled with the aid, now listen, of his well-known and historically revered vizier named, Imhotep. Now in a late Egyptian text, we understand that there is an Egyptian tradition, an Egyptian account, told that during the reign of Djoser, there was a seven-year famine. Now, during this very time period that the corrected chronology, now that alone, Ought to be just a huge piece of evidence for all of us to understand that when this chronology is corrected, we find a Pharaoh living during the very time he’s that we expect to find him where there’s a seven-year famine. How often are there seven-year famines? How many Pharaohs in Egypt were ruling during seven-year famines? I would venture to say this is the only one and the Bible happens to mention it in that very time

Jennifer:
And, guess who the guy was who built the first of the pyramids? This is called the step pyramid. Who is the Pharaoh of the step pyramid?

Steve:
It is Djoser. It is the very same Pharaoh who went through the seven-year famine.

Jennifer:
And through that became very unbelievably wealthy.

Steve:
So where did? Here’s the question that we had earlier about one of the questions of the pyramid. Where did all the wealth come from that this structure could have even been built, this very first one, and even the ones thereafter?

Jennifer:
Yeah, in the few 100 years following.

Steve:
What gave the Old Kingdom such wealth? Well, I believe the Bible’s telling us! The historical accounts given to us in the Bible, written down by these ancient people, are telling us and solving for us some of the mysteries that we’ve had about the pyramids. If these dates are correct in the corrected chronology, and I mean at this point is beyond any doubt with the evidence that just continues to mount that the step pyramid built for Djoser was the first pyramid. And this is the Pharaoh that we find in the biblical account of Joseph.

Jennifer:
So you have this Pharaoh who through Joseph and Joseph’s God, brings his country through the famine, becomes so wealthy, has all of this money, but the Pharaoh himself sees himself almost as a deity. And now he has all of the Egyptian people who basically have signed themselves over to be his servants so that they could stay alive (and this is in the biblical text). So he has all these workers and all this money and he thinks of himself as an undying monument for all of history to come. So what is he going to do with his money and with all of these workers?

Well, it appears to be very likely that what he did with all of his money and all of his workers was built a huge monument to himself where he would eventually be buried and rise to become one with the sun god, whatever his beliefs were. But but he had all this money, he had all these workers. And he decides, I’m going to build this monument. And then who’s the guy that builds the monument? Actually, history tells us it was his vizier called Imhotep, who is known to be an amazing architect. Very interesting.

Steve:
So then the question is, is Imhotep Joseph? Now really the biggest mystery, we’ve already said it and touched on it, of the pyramids is, where did Egypt get the wealth to build, to be able to afford to build these huge structures?

And the answer is Joseph’s famine. That’s that’s where they got it. That’s where the wealth came from. The main impediment to building big pyramids is the cost of pyramids.

Jennifer:
Egypt has so many pyramids, big and small and many people assume, you know, the big pyramids came later, the small ones were first, and then there was this long development process and they built the big ones later. But actually it’s the opposite, right? The big ones came first and the smaller ones later. And it makes sense that with all of this wealth early on, they did the biggest ones first. And then as they continued to tax the people and the after effects of the wealth of the famine went on for some centuries, they continued on.

I even read where there were villages all surrounding the building of the pyramids and it was farming families that were farming the land and were building the pyramids for the Pharaoh in between or in the off season or whatever. So you can just picture that following this time of crisis. And then this is what was going on.

Steve:
So then, of course, the question is, as we’ve already said, of whether or not Imhotep of Egyptian history is the same as Joseph in the Bible. And really, there’s no way to definitely answer that question. That’s a that’s a great question. It’s up for debate, and really it ought to be studied.

Jennifer:
And, I don’t think this we’re the first ones to propose this idea.

Steve:
Well, I think the big stumbling block for many people is the dates.

Jennifer:
Imhotep sure does look like Joseph, but he lived way too early.

Steve:
No, he didn’t. No, he’s not.

Jennifer:
He’s actually at the exactly the right time.

Steve:
So it sure does look like it, and it sure can be argued for it, and Dr. Aardsma on his website has some newsletters and things that delve into this a little bit, but it’s very interesting. That here’s this man in history who’s known. And of course a lot of things probably were written about him that weren’t true. He was deified himself because of the great things that he did and the power that he had in Egypt. An interesting aspect of Imhotep is they’ve never been able to find his bones

Jennifer:
That just amazes me.

Steve:
I mean, cause if if the guy really was second to Pharaoh, I mean they they deified these people, they put them in pyramids!

Jennifer:
And I think I read that in Djoser’s pyramid and in the inscriptions and tomb and whatever, Imhotep’s name is right beside his.

Steve:
Sure, but his bones aren’t there. Well, what could be the reason?

Jennifer:
What happened to Joseph’s bones? We know.

Steve:
We know. The Bible tells us Joseph told those people when they came before he died. “When you leave,” somehow he knew Israel would not be there forever, that they were going to be brought out as a nation. And he told them, “when you leave, take my bones with you and bury them with my fathers.” And they did.

So, we want again, just to open these things up to you, just as again, another piece of the puzzle that when you get the dates right, you begin to understand that these accounts happened in the real world and we do have evidence of them right there for the taking, right there for the seeing.

Jennifer:
So when you read the account of Joseph and all that God did through him, and it was God, you know, I—earlier, as I was reading the accounts, Pharaoh brings Joseph to stand before him and he says “you can tell the meaning of dreams.” And in the NASB, Joseph literally says, “it has nothing to do with me. It is God.”

So he worshiped the true and living God. But there he was. God used him at that time in history to do these incredible things. And now we, you know, looking back these many thousands of years, can understand the bigger, fuller picture in a greater way.

And as far as that famine goes too, there is some very interesting evidence for it archaeologically and historically, and I think geophysically, is that the word? Dr. Aardsma shows some very interesting patterns with the sun. And a period of quiescence right at the time of the new date for Joseph’s famine and how that lines up even in the charting of these types of patterns that are very rare with the sun in history and how that famine could have come about through that.

Steve:
Of course there’s also that the Famine Stela, I think you pronounce “Stela.” That tells of the seven-year period of drought and famine. During the reign of Pharaoh Djoser in the Third Dynasty.

Jennifer:
Yeah. And I think that the famine Stela, it’s telling how Imhotep went in and like pleaded before the gods and the gods told him you have to do this and tell Pharaoh to to come restore my temple and then I will stop the famine. And then Imhotep goes and talks to the Pharaoh. So—

Steve:
It’s a mythology mixed in, but…

Jennifer:
Yet how amazing that is, the correlation with what the Bible is telling us. And people have said, you know, this seven-year, this Famine Stela about the seven years sure does sound like the famine in, you know, in the latter part of Genesis and Joseph’s famine. But of course, again, there’s the chronological problems and so it has never been solidified.

Steve:
It sort of reminds me of Gilgamesh and the story of Noah, which, by the way, guess what? Noah happened before Gilgamesh, when you get the dates right. These things just all come together when you understand that this one chronological correction needs to be made.

Well, we need to get off this topic, but I hope that we’ve at least wet your appetite on that particular account, that story. You can understand a little bit more now about the pyramids. And I’m sure if you’re thinking through this, there’s all kinds of questions that come up into your mind.

Jennifer:
Now here’s a question. I think we should probably address this.

Were the Israelites making the bricks for the pyramids?

Probably not, because—

Steve:
you’re talking about in the in the story of the Exodus?

Jennifer:
Right, because we know that before they came out of Egypt they were slaves and they were making bricks. And so it’s easy to connect that in your mind to think, oh, they must have been making bricks and being slaves to build the pyramids.

But actually the pyramids were built out of huge blocks of rock and limestone and granite and not the mud and straw bricks that the Israelites were making. And really the pyramids being built back, you know, 2800, that time period was before Israel had really grown into such a mighty nation.

Steve:
You’re talking about over 400 year span of time.

Jennifer:
And they also were not used to store grain. That’s another thing that you hear talks about. But no, that’s not what they were used for. The chambers inside of them were just not big enough for grain storage, and it really was just a way for the Pharaoh to be buried and then show his connection to the sun god in some way.

Steve:
The Bible is not just a spiritual book. It is a written record of past events that happened in this world. It is in that way a book of history, and we can believe it. It’s real. It actually happened. And there’s so much information in the Bible that can be a help to us today in 2024. We’ll be getting into more of that in future podcasts, very practical things. And I hope again that this whet your appetite and study up on it, think about it, read, go to Dr. Aardsma’s website, read up more on it.

And there you go, a little bit more about the pyramids from the Bible.

Jennifer:
And the beautiful unified story that emerges when we get these things into their rightful place.

Steve:
Well, the Bible does have a lot to inform us about in this world that we live in, and maybe more than we even thought. We need to give you a research update. And I never thought I’d be saying this, but here we go.

Jennifer:
All right.

Steve:
A research update on climate change. Climate change.

Jennifer:
Global warming.

Steve:
Why don’t we bring up something controversial?

Jennifer:
It’s making its way into the BC Messenger podcast. Yes, this is just a research update, so we will not delve into any details. But we do have a brand new article out for you that you will want to read. And then future episodes we are going to be talking about climate change from an angle you have never heard before.

Steve:
Dr. Aardsma has written a 20 page newsletter. I don’t know that he’s ever written anything in the newsletter quite this lengthy and he’s broached many big topics over the past decades, but this one may be the biggest one yet, with many paradigm shifting global implications.

Jennifer:
And this isn’t him pulling climate change out of a hat of something he’d like to just talk about. It once again goes back to the ancient biblical record, and you may be wondering, how in the world could that be? Get the article. Download it, read it, it’s all right there.

Steve:
We put a link in the show notes. There are graphics in there and it’s not that hard to figure out what’s being said in that article. And then we will be bringing this to you in more detail in episodes to come.

Steve:
Well, I think again, it’s not something he was researching. It just popped out as he was researching something.

Jennifer:
Yes, he was on a track of something to do with the climate in the central Negev at the time of the exodus, and that very quickly led him into some very unexpected territory.

Steve:
As we’ve said before, when you have the truth, it just keeps blossoming and growing. It’s not like just one thing. And that’s what’s happening here. And if you’ve been listening to the podcast, you’re on the front lines. I mean, this is the first this stuff’s being heard. It’s the first that’s being put out there. As we said at the beginning of the podcast, research results that you’re not going to hear anywhere else and why it does matter to you.

Steve:
All right, we need to give a Truth in Time update. Our itinerary also keeps blossoming this this year. Our summer has pretty much filled up to be at churches for our family as much as we’re able to be out, and that’s a blessing. We are very thankful for that.

Jennifer:
Some of our new newer listeners might be wondering what is a “Truth in Time update?” What is truth in time?

Well, it is our family’s speaking and singing ministry flowing out of the work here at the Biblical Chronologist. But when we go and minister at events and talk about the biblical research here and then we usually provide music along with our five children that are living at home still with us. We have three children that are grown and then we have 5 still at home. We go out and minister at whatever events the Lord will open up for us and take the message of the truth of God’s Word wherever we can, and it’s called Truth in Time.

So yes, our itinerary has gotten really busy this year and hey, go to the link there in the show notes, look at the itinerary. If you’re anywhere nearby, we would sure love to have you stop in and see us and we’d love to meet you.

One of the places we’re going to be this summer is at the Homeschool Iowa Conference in West Des Moines, IA in the middle of June. And Steve is going to be giving a session at that homeschool conference called “How to Keep Your Kids from Saying ‘I Don’t Believe Those Bible Stories Anymore.’” It’s a prevalent thing among our young people to just walk away from what they begin to see as a book of fairy tales. And I’m just so excited to have a Truth in Time display table there, meet the people there, give out our information and give this session.

Steve:
I’m looking forward to that very much. We’re also going to be at the Pun’kin Vine Fair in Newton County, Indiana. And I’m looking forward to that.

Jennifer:
Yeah, I’m excited. The Pun’kin Vine County Fair. Can’t wait for that. That’s going to be awesome.

Steve:
We’re mainly we’re going to be singing and then sharing about our ministry. Truth in Time there.

Jennifer:
That’s in July.

Steve:
In July. That’s right.

Jennifer:
And the coordinator said share, share the word, sing gospel music. And so that’s what we’ll be doing.

Steve:
Yeah. So we’re looking forward to those things. Again, as Jennifer said, if you can come and see us, we would love to see you at one of these events.

Well, let’s have a quick aging research update. Dr. Aardsma’s third edition of Aging Cause and Cure has been printed. We have the book in hand now. If you would like a copy of that, we’ll put the link in the show notes. You can get your own copy of the 3rd edition of Aging Cause and Cure. This aging research is an ongoing, evolving science research.

Jennifer:
He’s very open and transparent with all of his research results, that’s why we have a third edition. And also he wants to make all of his materials available for free. So any of his books, writings, newsletters you can download as Open Access PDF. There’s never any charge for the download edition, but if you’re like me, I like a hard copy in my hand on my bookshelf with bookmarks in it and highlights and notes in the margins and color illustrations and things I can open up and look in the index and I just don’t want to have to have everything on a screen all the time. And really this book is so just mind blowing. And although there may be parts of it that kind of fly over your head, if you’re not a science person, there are many parts that you can perfectly understand and grasp and will really give you a lot to think about.

Steve:
And if you have someone in your circle of influence you could share it with, you take this book and say, man, check this out. This is real research. This is not junk science whatsoever. And it’s all documented in this third edition of Aging Cause and Cure by Dr. Gerald Aardsma.

Jennifer:
And of course it’s giving the underlying theory for why we have the two newly discovered anti-aging vitamins. How did we arrive? How did Dr. Aardsma arrive at these conclusions? And I can order this product, you know, today, and I can take these vitamin drops. How did this all come about? And that’s what’s in this book.

Steve:
And it came from the historicity of the Bible, the information found in the Bible on, as we mentioned earlier in the podcast, of people living these kinds of ages. How did that happen in this world? And that’s what this book talks about.

Jennifer:
It’s like Genesis is giving us this window. Into the ancient past. And it’s telling us that there were real people who really lived hundreds and hundreds of years and they raised families and they built cities and they grew farms and they lived and laughed and loved and played. And they’re there in Genesis and the data is there and it tells us this ancient history. And we can pick that up today and we can go places with that. And that’s what that book is telling us.

Steve:
And you may say this is just too hard to believe. This is just too fantastical. I got news for you, folks. That’s the way the truth is. That’s the way the truth is. Truth always seems crazy. It always looks too fantastical. It always seems nuts.

Jennifer:
It’s always surprising—

Steve:
Until it’s not anymore. And it’s normal. That’s truth. And so we challenge you. Check it out yourself.

All right, moving into our last section for today, we have Helen’s View, and she wants to bring to us something reaching back a number of years. And again, this does relate in with the aging research and the amazing story that God has written here with all that has happened over the years. So, let’s listen in again for Helen’s view.

Gerald wrote this article in March of 2007, after he had been very ill for several years.

“By far our greatest challenge in 2006 was my health. Beginning early in 2005, I began to experience loss of strength in my limbs. This seemed to be resolving on several occasions during the next two years, but symptoms returned again each time after a brief respite. By late 2006, I was in a severely weakened state and had lost over 20 pounds. I was unable to do most things for myself, such as getting dressed or even typing at the computer keyboard. Fortunately, mental processes were not affected, and progress on the theoretical side of the research was not hindered.

But by early 2007, I required constant assistance from family members to carry the laboratory side of the project forward. Thanks to the effort of one friend who is a medical professional, I went to see a neurologist early in 2007, our personal family doctor being clearly out of ideas. There I was diagnosed with CIDP, Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy, a rare autoimmune disease. Treatment aimed at relief of symptoms, has proven to be quite effective in my case so far. Presently, I am nearly back to normal strength and able to prosecute our research program unhindered in the laboratory once again.

There is no cure for CIDP at present, and progress of the disease varies from individual to individual. However, the general prognosis for a normal length of life with somewhat decreased quality of life. Frequently, symptoms return at intervals of one to two years, requiring another round of treatment. Overall, it presently appears that my work with and for ARP should not be significantly hindered by CIDP in the future.

I feel I have now experienced first-hand what it is like to be aged. Helen said she felt like she was living with a 100-year-old man. A senior friend some years ago said to me, ‘aging isn’t for sissies.’ I think I know more of what my friend was referring to.

CIDP, like so many diseases, increases in incidence with increasing age. Thus, it is natural to wonder whether vitamin X, the cure for aging, might also cure CIDP.”

And as a personal aside from me, we called the unknown anti-aging vitamin vitamin X at this point, since the vitamin still had not yet been discovered.

“Be that as it may, my personal motivation with this research as a result of this overall experience is higher than ever, and as you know, it was pretty high to begin with.”

And that is the end of the article.

It is very sobering to read and relive this difficult trial in our lives. Next time I will share what happened in 2016 in regard to Gerald’s incurable CIDP.

Steve:
If you go to the show notes, we have there a link to a free PDF download where you can read Dr. Aardsma’s story about his situation with CIDP and unexpected healing of this terrible disease. And we hope that you’ll go to the show notes and find that link. Go to that page there and get that free PDF download.

Also, you can see photos. I believe Helen has four or five different photos from back during that time that Dr. Aardsma was really suffering with the CIDP. And you can go see those photos again.

We want to always encourage you to go to the show notes if you don’t get our podcasts from our e-mail. You may not even realize that we have this online. We put it together every month when we put the podcast out, this online HTML document that’s right there on the computer that has photos for all of our sections on our podcast links that you can go to.

Jennifer:
I think our podcast is kind of unique in this because… the written version, you know, the newsletter version is very enjoyable to scan down and look at and it gives you a visual representation of everything that we’ve just talked about. And some of us are more visual learners, you know, and we might remember it better if we scan down through and see the pictures. We have pictures on almost every section and we have links leading out to explore more on these topics.

So we hope you’ll take a few minutes to go over there and look at that.

Steve:
We did it this way because originally we were going to a newsletter. An online newsletter. We didn’t have podcast in mind.

Jennifer:
It was a newsletter for one month.

Steve:
And then we had the idea, you know what? Let’s read the newsletter on to a microphone… and wait a minute, that’s a podcast, isn’t it?

Jennifer:
Yeah, because we started reading it and then we started making comments about what we were reading, and then very quickly it turned into there’s a lot here to talk about.

Steve:
Let’s make a podcast out of this.

So thank you for joining us this month and we hope you have a great month. Check out these things we’ve talked about. We so much appreciate you listening to our podcast. Share it with other people and let them know about this information.

Jennifer:
We surely enjoy bringing you these Bible science research results you will not hear anywhere else and why it matters for you.

See you next month!

Steve:
We’ll see you in May.