Imhotep, Joseph, and a Cure for Cancer?

Jennifer:
Many people have pointed out the similarities between Imhotep and Joseph, which we're going to give you those correlations here in just a moment. So I searched on Google, was Imhotep Joseph? And listen to this, just basically an AI summary of that question: "Imhotep is too early. He predated Joseph by 1,000 years."

Steve:
Welcome to the BC Messenger podcast. It is January 2025. This is episode number 30 in our podcast, season three, episode six. Thank you for joining us. It is a brand new year. I am thankful to be here with my wife, Jennifer. My name is Steve, and we are the hosts of the BC Messenger podcast.

Jennifer:
Happy New Year to all of our listeners. And we've come through the Christmas season, turning our attention to 2025, hanging up a new calendar and thinking ahead with hopes and dreams and goals for the new year.

Steve:
Yes, hope, goals and dreams in the new year. And here at the BC Messenger and at The Biblical Chronologist, we also have brand new research that has come on the scene. And we're going to be sharing some of that with you today, at least beginning to share it with you. And we're excited about that.

Jennifer:
We know we have some brand new research to share, as you just said. And we don't know what this new year is going to hold with the ongoing work here at the biblical chronologist or for our individual lives. But God has created us to be full of hope as we look to the future. And the Bible says he is the God of hope. So if you go to the show notes, you will see there a picture of a sunrise, which is, of course, very symbolic, maybe a little bit trite, but symbolic for the new year, because a new horizon, a new day figuratively lies ahead of us. And we don't know what all God has planned. But we're going to talk about some things today on our episode that go along with this idea of hopefulness for the future.

Steve:
And in our own family, we, Jennifer and I, this year have become, I can't even believe I'm saying this, grandparents for the first time. So there is a little baby in our life now that, well, it's a picture of hope, right?

Jennifer:
Yes. By the time this goes out, it will be last year that we became grandparents. But in the very end of 2024, God blessed us with a beautiful little granddaughter. And so now Steve and Jennifer Hall have new title, Poppy and Mimi.

Steve:
Wow.

Jennifer:
Poppy and Mimi have a little grand baby and we are thrilled, thrilled to be grandparents. And yes, a new baby, a new life is so symbolic of hope for the future and promise of what lies ahead and what God may have in store for that little life, and for how that life is going to impact the world for God's glory.

Steve:
That's right. Well, Jennifer, give us the rundown for our podcast this month.

Jennifer:
Okay. Our featured topic... are you ready for this?... Imhotep, Joseph and a cure for cancer? That's all I'm going to say. We'll get into that in just a moment on that one. Then after that, we have a quote of note to share. Then we have an aging research update along with a new recommendation just out last week from Dr. Aardsma. So you will want to stay tuned and hear that. And then we move into our section as a matter of fact. Perhaps you've heard it said that there was a vapor canopy surrounding the earth before the time of Noah's flood. We're going to address that question. And then Helen's view and she shares something on the climate change and some action that she is taking that God has put on her heart with the climate change research here. And so there you go.

FEATURED TOPIC

Steve:
Imhotep, Joseph and a cure for cancer. There is in history, in Egyptian history, a very notable and intriguing figure from the ancient Egyptian historical records that we have access to. And many of you may have heard of this figure, this character, and many of you may not have. His name is Imhotep. Imhotep is known to have been the trusted closest advisor or what would have been called a vizier to a certain Pharaoh in Egyptian history named Djoser. It starts with a D, D-J-O-S-E-R, Pharaoh Djoser. And this character Imhotep, his skills included apparently that of an architect. He was a poet. He was apparently a high priest of sorts. He even acted as a physician, and as a builder, a carpenter. And, let me mention again, he is considered to be history's first physician known by name today, with two ancient medical documents attributed to him from such ancient history.

Now as you know, if you've been listening to our podcast, we are presenting the fact that once you get the chronology correct in biblical history, which we have not had correct for all of these years when you put back into the chronology the missing 1000 years, the puzzle pieces have fallen into place and we are presenting another piece to that puzzle today. Proper chronology places Imhotep at exactly the same time as the biblical character of Joseph. Joseph, who the Bible portrays as having extraordinary leadership skills and acting as the closest advisor to a certain Pharaoh. Was the biblical Joseph, this is our question today, was the biblical Joseph the same person as the Egyptian Imhotep? Well on this podcast episode, we're going to consider the correlations between these two individuals, Imhotep and Joseph from several different angles.

Jennifer:
And then after we consider the correlations between these two figures in biblical history, secular history, then we're going to talk to you about something where Imhotep's name has actually been coming up in modern news in connection with, of all things, a possible cure for cancer. Now this is not Dr. Aardsma's research on cancer or anything like that, he hasn't researched cancer, but this is something that he actually brought to our attention that he had seen in news. And so we're going to share that with you. What in the world would Imhotep, who is possibly even likely the biblical Joseph, what in the world would that have to do with cancer research going on today? And so we're going in kind of a different direction, but very fascinating and getting the chronology right helps us to put the pieces more into place as to what might have been going on. I mean, we're talking ancient, ancient history here, over, well close to 5,000 years ago.

Steve:
And we are also wanting to mention that we are not making sensational claims here, and we are also not giving any definitive conclusions on this topic. We realize that there are unanswered questions that present themselves with all of this, but there are very good reasons that would lead us to believe that these two were the same, in fact, the same person. And a very strong case can certainly be made for that, and that's what we want to present to you here today on this episode.

Jennifer:
And more research can definitely be done. If you go to the section on The Biblical Chronologist website that we give a link in the show notes, you can read all the discussion on the site there between correspondence that has happened on this topic and questions that have been raised and research directions that could be pursued to further narrow down what is the truth here. But there's a lot that can be talked about that is established as far as these possible correlations. And so we're going to share that with you and let you be thinking about it and maybe do some research of your own.

Steve:
Well let's discuss what we know about the biblical account of Joseph. All right. Most of us understand and remember the story of this character in the Bible. Of course, I think many would associate Joseph with the code of many colors, right? And the story of Joseph getting into Egypt and all those things that transpired that happened to him. And maybe some aren't as familiar with the things that transpired when Joseph was in Egypt and the events that took place. Of course, these are accounts from the Bible that are presented as real world history, not a fairy tale and talking about some major world events that took place like you said a minute ago, nearly 5000 years ago.

Jennifer:
And detailed ancient history we have here that you can get from no other source, in the story of the life of Joseph, which is one of my favorite Old Testament accounts. And most of our listeners probably are familiar with Joseph in the Old Testament. And he was the son of Jacob and Rachel, right? He would have been raised to know the true and living God, Jehovah, had a lot of brothers, was not favored by the brothers. They were very jealous over him. You can imagine that maybe they were jealous over his abilities, over his favored status with his father. We don't know. Anyway, he was thrown into a pit by his brothers. He was sold into slavery, ended up in Egypt. So I think we could safely say it was a dysfunctional family situation there.

Steve:
Sure was.

Jennifer:
But yet look how God used him. And look at the heartbreak, you know, the trauma that the poor kid suffered when he was like 17 and was cast into this pit and then taken to Egypt.

Steve:
And yet we see as we continue to fast forward through that story that this boy had some ability. And some of it, of course, according to the biblical account, you know, visions given to him by God and understanding of things that only God could have given to him. But then at the same time, ability to work through some serious problems of events of massive proportions. For instance, a seven year famine, right? I mean, suddenly Egypt is going through this great big famine that nobody knew was coming, except this young man who seemed to know it was coming. 

Jennifer:
Well, and don't skip, you know, the part of the story. He ends up in Egypt. He ends up in prison because he's trying to get away from Potiphar's wife who has her eye on him. He doesn't want to sin before Jehovah. So then Potiphar cast him in prison. He spends seven years, I think it is, in prison. Then he's taken out of prison, put before Pharaoh to interpret the dream of incoming prosperity and then destruction upon the nation of Egypt. And then eventually he rises up as an assistant to Pharaoh. He administrates Egypt's great prosperity and great ability to save lives during the famine. In fact, Joseph says, you know, that pretty much that's why God brought me here to save much people alive. Then he's reunited with his family, all these things. And so that's what the Bible tells us about Joseph. He lived to be 110 years old and he was greatly used by God in the nation of Egypt as the right hand man to the Pharaoh who the Bible tells us pretty much the Pharaoh gave him control over pretty much everything. Ask Joseph, you know, go ask Joseph.

Steve:
And Joseph made this Pharaoh very wealthy through the actions of Joseph in this time in history in this Pharaoh's reign. Now it's so interesting because here we have the Bible that's presenting to us from the aspect of the Hebrews, right, from the aspect of Joseph coming into Egypt. And we don't even have the name of the Pharaoh. We don't know the Egyptian history much at all here except what little bit is given to us in the Bible. However, when we look at Egyptian history, it's the opposite. Now we have names of Pharaohs. We have names of Egyptian characters, but we don't have clear names of biblical characters. And so we have this problem to work through. And so we have to put together events, events that match up biblical historical data and secular historical data.

Jennifer:
Of course, the Bible is given from a Hebrew perspective, a God fearing Jehovah perspective. And Egyptian secular history is not from that perspective at all. And we're only getting little snapshots. I mean, today we can read entire biographies of people's lives, you know, but try to imagine if you just had like three pages out of chapter one and then, you know, two pages out of chapter five and then, a little bit towards the end. And you're trying to fill in all these gaps and trying to match up. Well, how did they get from here to here? So with Imhotep, we have just snapshots, you know, just inscriptions and things that have been found, used together about him. But yes.

Steve:
So the problem again, we've had with biblical historical data is that in this Old Testament things don't match up. We look at the historical data and we look at the biblical data and they're not making any sense, even though it's presented in a real world place and it's presented with real world situations. The timing doesn't work. And what we have been presenting from Dr. Aardsma research is that it's 1000 years off. When you get the 1000 years back in, the puzzle pieces keep falling into place. Well, what about in this instance?

Jennifer:
Well, I did a search because many people have pointed out the similarities between Imhotep and Joseph, which we're going to give you those correlations here in just a moment. So I searched, you know, on Google, "was Imhotep Joseph?" and listen to this just basically AI summary of that question. "Imhotep is too early. He predated Joseph by 1000 years."

Steve:
Right. So how many years? How many years did it say?

Jennifer:
By 1000 years.

Steve:
It didn't say 200 years. It didn't say 2000 years. It didn't say 500 years. It says 1000 years. This keeps happening! And the fact to me that we, you know, we present these things and that nobody has seen this before. It's just like what?

Jennifer:
Okay. Well, here at the biblical chronologist, we have modern biblical chronology and we have that missing 1000 years put back into place as it properly should be based on so much evidence. And so no longer do we have to say Imhotep is too early. He predated Joseph by 1000 years. In fact, here is the first and foremost correlation between these two men. Our chronology places Joseph at exactly the same time in Egyptian history as Imhotep. And so that's what we base everything on here as far as the scientific basis of the biblical and secular correlations that we make here is always based on proper chronology. And so if Imhotep in modern biblical chronology was separated from the time of Joseph by any real length of time, then nobody over here would be trying to say these were the same two people. We're saying this because first and foremost, along with many other reasons, these guys go back to the exact same time in history actually. So then let's discuss this character known as Imhotep in real world history. As you said, it's all about chronology. Imhotep, we are claiming lines up with Joseph. What were the dates of Imhotep? The dates for Joseph, first of all, 2850 BC. It's interesting to notice to remember, you know, he was only third generation from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. 

Steve:
And the dates you're giving are...

Jennifer:
And the new date for Abraham is 3000 BC, and that's the corrected chronology. So then Imhotep in Egyptian history, which a lot of the established dates for Egyptian history do have to be pushed back a couple centuries according to the most modern radiocarbon dating and stuff on that. And of course, when you get to be this ancient 100 years or so of uncertainty is quite exceptional. Expected and normal. So if you Google Imhotep, you will get 2667 as his date, I guess, of birth or life, 2667. So the new chronology places Joseph at 2850. And as I said, the Egyptian chronology is being pushed back a couple hundred years. So there's no doubt that there is a definite time correlation between these two guys looking on the timeline with everything that we currently know.

Steve:
All right. So we reviewed Joseph a little bit there a minute ago, what we know about him from the Bible. Well, let's talk about Imhotep and what we know about him from the data that we have in secular history. Imhotep was an ancient Egyptian scholar. He was an architect, apparently a physician and a priest who lived during the third dynasty of the old kingdom. And does that put us in the same timeframe as Joseph? Yes, yes, it does. Architecture. Here's this Imhotep, who history tells us designed and built the world's first known monumental stone building. What was that? It was the steppe pyramid of Joseph. Now we did a whole podcast episode on the pyramids and actually we brought Imhotep into that episode. You can go back and listen to this. This Imhotep invented the method of stone dressed building in his day and he used columns in his architecture. So this is part of who Imhotep is. He's huge in history.

Jennifer:
And his legacy lasted on and on in Egyptian history. I mean, the Egyptian culture went on for so long, old kingdom, middle kingdom, new kingdom. And the legacy of Imhotep, I mean, he was basically deified after his death and poetry was written about him and tales were told about him. And some of the history we have on Imhotep was written down much closer to the time of Christ than it was during the actual time that Imhotep lived. But I think if you're any student at all of Egyptian history, Imhotep is going to be very large on the scheme of things there. He was just somebody that, you know, you go on YouTube, you can watch videos about him and all that he did to influence Egyptian life and culture and in the medicine. I mean, it's fascinating that he would have written down his observations and treatments of different ailments. I'm seeing where he was known to have treated over 200 medical conditions, including appendicitis, gout and arthritis. And he extracted medicines from plants. So you know, it just, my mind goes in a lot of directions as I think about these two men. And so we're going to get into these strong points of correlation are reasons for believing that is very likely that Imhotep and Joseph were in fact the same person.

Steve:
So what are some of these correlations between these two men?

Jennifer:
We have seven points down here and there are more that we could go into. And then of course there are arguments on the other side as to why they are not the same person. So we'll get into a few of those things as well.

Steve:
But I think you'll see that the arguments, at least we believe that these arguments we have make a pretty strong case that for these guys being the same person living at the same time in history that they're supposed to be living.

Well here we go. First of all, we have again, as we mentioned, the chronological alignment. The backbone of history is chronology, right? And that's so important. And we wouldn't be talking about this if they did not line up, these two characters in history, in mid-2000s BC. Joseph around 2850 BC, you already went into all of that in the dates. So that's a very, very strong piece of evidence. And then the fact that both of these men were administrative assistants to a Pharaoh, right? A Pharaoh in Egypt at the right time. They were both administrative assistants.

Jennifer:
The Bible very plainly tells us that and secular history as well.

Okay, next correlation is that both of these men are associated with a seven-year famine.

Steve:
Yeah, that's no big deal, really.

Jennifer:
Yeah, I mean, take it or leave it. But, you know, Imhotep and Joseph both, well, okay, we know from the Bible that Joseph was extremely instrumental during the seven-year famine. And that all the surrounding nations had to come and get their grain from Egypt. And then the Pharaoh became very wealthy because Joseph started doing heavy taxes and getting all of their property from them in return for keeping them alive. But anyway, we have the very clear correlation in the Bible of this seven-year famine and Joseph. Now in Egyptian history, you have Imhotep written down many, many years later on this inscription about a seven-year famine and Imhotep and something to do with the gods. And Imhotep prayed to the gods and they told him what to do and he was supposed to do this, this and this. And it does not all match the biblical account, but the seven-year famine does. Right. And it was thousands of years later written down as a legendized form, probably of the history. But what's interesting is that this inscription makes no mention of the seven years of plenty and the Bible said those years would be forgotten. And then sure enough, you have this inscription that's mentioning the seven-year famine in connection, which is our main point here, in connection with Imhotep.

Steve:
Right. And let's go forward because not only, let's just make this more complicated, not only do we have the correlation of the seven years of famine, but association with a time of great wealth and prosperity coming out of the seven years of famine. Now humanly speaking, you don't typically have great wealth and prosperity after famines, especially seven-year famines. And we have both of these accounts. Okay. The Bible is very clear that this Pharaoh got very wealthy and continued to get wealthy from the taxation and all of these things that happened during that time. And in secular history, we suddenly see this Imhotep building these step pyramids. Well, these step pyramids. Right. The step pyramid in great, you know, it would have taken great wealth to be able to do the things that he did coming out of a famine.

Jennifer:
And everybody knows that the old kingdom of Egypt, at least if you've studied up on Egypt at all, that those were the glory days of Egypt. I mean, those were just the time when it was expanding and growing and building. And the step pyramid was beautiful. I mean, it was far outshined any of the tombs that had been built before it. And Joseph was so pleased with Imhotep's work on the step pyramid that he put Imhotep's name in it as an inscription. But you can't build a step pyramid as glorious as it would have been without money.

Steve:
And so in our podcast on the pyramids, we went into this. Where would Egypt have gotten that kind of wealth in that day, unheard of, to be able to do those projects? Well, it would make complete sense that the Bible is giving us that answer. Joseph's famine is where the wealth came from.

Jennifer:
Because they became the world power. We have food and nobody else does.

Steve:
It's due to the work of Joseph, giving that information to Pharaoh, taking advantage of the years of wealth and prosperity and being able to survive, and taxing people, bringing people's wealth to this Pharaoh, and then being able to build those pyramids. It makes complete sense.

Jennifer:
So we have two guys that lived at the same time, both very notable in history, both administrative assistance, both associated with a seven year famine, and both associated with a time of great prosperity in ancient Egypt.

Okay. Now, number five, we have not talked about on the podcast at all ever.

Steve:
But it's a very good piece of evidence. The phonetic similarity between the two names of these individuals. And this is interesting. We are going to go to a little bit of information that was given to Dr. Aardsma years ago now from a gentleman named Tom.

Jennifer:
Tom is a good friend of Dr. Aardsma. They have worked together, labored together in some of the efforts here at The Biblical Chronologist. Tom has performed many roles of support to Dr. Aardsma, and of feedback, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but he's one of those friends who sticks by you. So Tom is trained in linguistics. And so he is definitely a guy to give information on phonetic similarity between names. And I do believe Tom's a listener to the podcast. So, hi there Tom! And thank you for your contribution on this point of the phonetic similarity between Imhotep and Joseph. So let's see if we can explain that a little bit.

Steve:
Now we're going to focus on the name Joseph. Of course, let's just mention here. We do have in the biblical account that the Pharaoh gave to Joseph a name, Zaphnath-paneah. And that is a complete mystery when it comes to trying to put these two guys together because we don't have anything that we know of in the historical records of that particular name.

Jennifer:
Zaphnath-paneah does not show up anywhere in secular Egyptian history. So we don't know anything about that. So it would be wonderful if the Bible would have said the Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Imhotep, but it doesn't say that.

Steve:
Oh but life is not so simple.

Jennifer:
Again, these are just snapshots, little pieces of information. And so is it possible that he ended up adopting a different name? Yes, it's entirely possible. And it definitely doesn't falsify the fact that if he would have gone by a different name such as Imhotep, which does seem to be very closely aligned with the Hebrew name Joseph.

Steve:
And we see this in the Bible a number of times where a foreign nation brings in Hebrews and changes their names in order to integrate them into their pagan culture, and to help them forget their Hebrew background. We see that with Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, all of that. And so that's what's happened in the story of Joseph. But right. What about this name Joseph and the phonetic similarities between that Hebrew name and the name Imhotep?

Jennifer:
This linguist, Tom, has aligned the lettering of Imhotep and Joseph. And initially you can see that several of the letters line up. And then you can notice that in Psalm 81, an additional H is inserted into the name Joseph, J-H-O-S-E-P-H, which it says in a concordance that this is the fuller form of the name Joseph with a J-H at the beginning. And if you put that extra H in there, then you are left with only one letter that does not have a correlation between Imhotep, however they would have said that, Imhotep. Yoseph. Yes. So we tried to look up, you know, how do Egyptians pronounce Imhotep? And I can't do it the way they would have done it. And then the Hebrew pronunciation, Yoseph, we can hear that.

Steve:
So the point here is that there's a strong correlation.

Jennifer:
Strong phonetic similarity. Yeah.

Steve:
And it's really interesting. We're looking at it here in an old article, but Dr. Aardsma that Tom wrote and showing it lining up. And there's some description here on the pronunciation of these terms in those languages. It's hard for us with English, right? To understand all of the phonetic details. But it's just another great piece of evidence here in bringing these two men together.

Jennifer:
Just the M is left without the correlating letter. Tom correlates the I and the J and then H O is the same. And then he correlates the T with the S and I'm not a linguist, so I don't understand all these things. And then the E is the same. The P is the same with the H there connected in with the final P of Joseph, Imhotep. So I think that's fascinating. And the meaning of the names is also fascinating, because Zaphnath-paneah, which the Pharaoh apparently gave that to him, this is your new Egyptian name Joseph, Zaphnath-paneah, apparently was correlating with several foreign gods, including Bael-Zephon and others. So perhaps Joseph chose for himself as he grew in fame and notoriety to be called Imhotep, which means, what does Imhotep mean?

Steve:
I believe it means, "He who comes in peace." He who comes in peace. So perhaps Joseph didn't want to be called something that was associated with these other gods.

Steve:
And here's a name that's entirely Egyptian, potentially, that sounds like phonetically his name his mother gave him. And yet also means "he who comes in peace." And so yeah, all those things coming together.

Jennifer:
And I mean, even with being reunited with his family, you know, he who comes in peace, how meaningful that would have been to Joseph as he welcomed back his brothers after the history that they had had.

Steve:
All this is speculation. It's nothing solid, you know, here that we're pulling out of history, but very interesting, just another correlation that's, to me, quite strong in bringing these two men together.

Jennifer:
Right. And that is a very interesting piece of correlation there. And you know, we see those kind of things today where somebody gets in another culture. I have met Asians who have an Asian name, and a young lady will choose to go by like Suzanne or something, sounds similar to her Asian name, but it's an American name that she can easily write down and tell people that's her name. Because, you know, in America, we can't even properly pronounce an Asian name, but she wants something that feels comfortable and familiar to her. So it's not hard to see how that could have happened.

And I should insert here too that Egyptian history tells us that they are unclear of Imhotep's origins.

Steve:
They don't know where he really came from. He seems like almost he was a commoner that came on the scene somewhere out like out of nowhere. Again, we're speaking, you know, from not a whole lot of knowledge here, but from what we've read and what we've seen.

Jennifer:
He definitely did not originate in Pharaoh's house. He did not originate from nobility. And they will say that he was from a common family.

Steve:
Can we also say this? We said this on our other podcast about this, but they have never been able to find Imhotep's bones. They found his name inscribed in the tomb of Joseph and others, but not his own bones. Well, we know what happened to Joseph's bones. They were, according to the Bible, taken out of Egypt when Israel left in the Exodus. So another interesting correlation right there.

Obviously, both of these men were very brilliant.

Jennifer:
Yes. So here's the next point of correlation. Yes. The brilliance of these guys.

Steve:
Yeah. And God, of course, giving Joseph information miraculously, but at the same time, this man obviously had great talent, great abilities, and a brilliant mind to be able to organize the things that he was able to organize within the world of his day.

Jennifer:
Yeah. And when we were discussing having this topic on the podcast and because of the cancer news that we're going to get to in a minute, Dr. Aardsma said to us as we were chatting about this, he said, "Well, these types of people, the Imhotep types, the Joseph types, they only come along once in a generation at the most. You don't have people like this just rising up all over the place." Right. So even in our own times, of course, we know who the extraordinary leaders are. We know who they are. They live on in history, and there's not that many of them. So I think Dad's point in saying that was, you know, they're at the same time in history and they were both extraordinarily brilliant men in the same place. And so it's not hard to understand that this is a rare type of person that comes on the scene that God uses in a way. 

And I just have to say this. I think if Joseph could be diagnosed by modern psychologists and psychiatrists and whatever, he would be labeled probably with more than one label. We're very good at labeling things today in our world, and there's advantages to that. There's also possibly some disadvantages to it. But I just think that Joseph was a very unusual person. We can see how he struggled. We can see where he excelled...

Steve:
What is he doing telling these dreams to everybody? That just seems obvious to most of us. You probably shouldn't be doing that.

Jennifer:
That's the thing not to do. Right. Don't tell your brothers who already don't like you that you have these amazing dreams. So he didn't have common sense in some areas, but yet he was so brilliant. And like I said, we have diagnoses for different things today, but yet, no matter what label, you could put on somebody. You can't deny that God had his hand on this man in a special way and used him. His name lives on today and his story impacts us today.

Steve:
And how it matches up with this Imhotep, who history tells us, just the brilliance of this guy and the things that he was able to do and accomplish.

Jennifer:
One thing I think, you know, Joseph, I think I said earlier he was in prison for seven years, but actually I think as I look this up here, it's more known that it was like 13 years from the time that he came into Egypt until he stood before the Pharaoh to tell the dream. So I mean, 13 years in prison. And of course he rose up and became the leader of the prison. But I just wonder, what was he doing? Did he have access to all of the Egyptian records and knowledge of the day? And was he studying and was he analyzing and figuring out and solving puzzles in his own mind and getting his hands on everything he could to educate himself? Because how, if he was Imhotep, and he did all these amazing things in medicine and stuff, then maybe he used those years to just fill his brilliant mind with a whole bunch of information.

Steve:
Sure. And of course we have the spiritual aspect as well. What did God just put into this man's mind and give him knowledge about, which of course you see the dreams and all of that. We don't know. But yeah, it's interesting to consider and to think about in the correlation between these two men.

Very good. Well, here's another one. Dr. Aardsma mentions in his article about this, there are there's so much more that could be studied. We need to delve into this more. We need young people to come up and take an interest in these things and study more deeply into it and find out. Do these things keep correlating? One thing that Dr. Aardsma brings up is the taxation that the Bible talks about with Joseph and the Pharaoh, and how Joseph taxes the people. It gives numbers. There apparently was instituted, according to the Bible, a 20% tax, and that carried on throughout years and years after Joseph within Egypt.

Jennifer:
It says in Genesis that that tax was in place to this day to the writing of Genesis. It was one-fifth of everybody's harvest, and that's 20% tax. You know, okay, so we're getting ready for this podcast...

Steve:
Just a little bit ago, we thought, you know what, let's just quickly Google that and see if we can find anything about ancient Egypt and 20% taxation. Is this a thing? What did you find?

Jennifer:
I typed into the search, "When did Egypt have a 20% tax?" Here is the AI-generated answer. "About 5,000 years ago, we see the first record of taxation in ancient Egypt where the Pharaoh collected a tax equivalent to 20% of all grain harvest."

Steve:
Is that the right time frame?

Jennifer:
About 5,000 years ago, yes.

Steve:
That's about right, approximately. The correlations just keep rolling in.

Jennifer:
I mean, that could really be researched much more detailed, of course. One Google search is not a conclusive piece of evidence at all, but this is just demonstrating the correlations do seem to line up so well.

Steve:
Right, and of course, the taxation you're reading about there is talking about grains, you know, goods grown in fields in these ancient times and so very interesting. Well, Joseph, the Bible tells us died at 110 years of age, and I don't think we have information on what age Imhotep was when he died, but we do have indication, according to many historians, that he lived a long life. They believe he lived a long life.So another correlation there between the two.

Jennifer:
Now a few objections, and if you go to the link in the show notes you can read a discussion on these topics, one objection is that Imhotep's parents are listed in some Egyptian inscriptions, and again, inscriptions that were made even thousands of years after Imhotep lived, but yet the name of his father, and it says his father was an architect, and the name of his mother is given on another inscription, and they don't match Jacob and Rachel, and Jacob was not an architect. Jacob was a shepherd, a Hebrew. So that does not line up, although there would be explanations for as to why they may not line up, but that is something to give pause and consider. And then what's the other big point that is brought up there?

Steve:
Well, Imhotep, some say, well, he served pagan gods, obviously, so it couldn't be that this is Joseph. Joseph never would have served a pagan god. Well, that seems to be, to me, a bit of a weak argument. I understand that argument, but we are dealing with very ancient times. What would you do under the thumb of a very ruthless Pharaoh? Of course, this is back before the law was given to Moses or anything, so there's a lot of answers that could be given to that particular question, but sure, that is an objection.

Jennifer:
Right. I mean, Imhotep is credited with building temples to pagan gods and these kind of things, and to us as evangelical Christians in 2024, that seems unacceptable for a Christian. Why would you participate in pagan worship of false deities? But again, like Steve's saying, we didn't live then. And we have a lot more revealed truth than Joseph would have had, as we said. He was only third generation down from Abraham, who was the beginning of this.

Steve:
And had just met the true and living God. Right.

Jennifer:
I thought this was interesting pointed out there in that correspondence that Joseph knew his mission. Apparently, he believed his mission was to save lives during the famine. I mean, he says that. So he did not enter Egypt on a crusade to overthrow the foreign gods. I mean, he knew that wasn't what God had sent him there to do.

Steve:
He wasn't there to spread the gospel to the Egyptians of his day and bring in the truth of the true and living God. I mean, maybe he did want to do that inside of his heart, but that's not what he said.

Jennifer:
That wasn't what he saw as his mission from God.

Steve:
He said to his brothers, "The Lord meant it unto me for good and to save many people alive." 

Jennifer:
But who can deny he knew God? I mean, God revealed things to him. How God did that? We probably will never know, but Joseph had a connection to the true and living God. There is no doubt. But in a very pagan foreign culture. And he accepted a foreign pagan wife whose father was like the high priest of On, or something. So he was very integrated into that pagan culture. And you know, that's encouraging to me on a personal level too, because sometimes we bring up a quote between ourselves here. It's from the Lord of the Rings, and I think it's Aragorn. He sees something as he's passing through an area in the story, and he sees something that's disturbing and upsetting to him. And he turns away and he says, "But that is not my errand." And we talk about that sometimes. You know, there's so many things you could do for the cause of Christ and the cause of truth, but you know what mission God has given you. And you have to stay true to that and realize that many other things are not your errand. And in this case with Joseph, you know, God gave him a mission that was huge to save people's lives and to preserve that civilization.

Steve:
Through that famine. But that naturally leads us into this question of what is this deal with cancer and this Imhotep? And if it is Imhotep, if Imhotep is Joseph, was Joseph being used of God to preserve life in ways we don't even know about from the Bible, I mean?

Jennifer:
Yeah. All right. So what about this thing about Imhotep's name coming up in news? I mean, this is why we're doing this podcast, because this came up and was so intriguing. So now we've given you all these correlations, and now we're going to tell you what is in current news and Imhotep's name being brought up.

Steve:
Very recently, Dr. Aardsma pointed us to an article on a website called Real Clear Health. It's from, you may have heard, Real Clear Politics, but their health section of their publication. And it's an article called "The Cure for Cancer? From Imhotep to Immunotherapy" by J.P. Errico, written in October of this past year. And the whole account, the whole story here is a tale of a private company, biosciences, some company, and the idea that their founder of this company got from ancient history, a certain character in ancient history, that might actually be a cure for cancer. And Jennifer, give us some more details about this.

Jennifer:
Right. So if that doesn't get your attention, I don't know what would, as far as this is being reported as a legitimate possible hope for cure for cancer and of all things, tying it back to Imhotep. So what is this brilliant idea that this founder of this private company had? Well, surviving papyrus writings describe Imhotep inducing infections in cancer patients to activate their immune systems to treat tumors. And all signs are that it worked. And then this article goes down through a history of cancer and other things happening down through history, where a cancer patient got an infection and then the body was able to fight off the cancer. Now I'm no doctor, so I'm trying to put this in layman's terms, but this is the basic idea is being able to activate the body's own immune system against the cancer cells. And apparently there is some record of Imhotep doing this in cancer patients. Now if you search Imhotep in cancer, you're going to get something saying that he said there was no cure. But then this article and others that I found do reference him as doing this treatment of basically introducing an infection into the cancer site.

Steve:
So the idea here is that Imhotep did this and recorded it. And then throughout history, these others took from that information and...

Jennifer:
Well, especially this guy back in the 90s. And then he started to put forth this idea, which is also traced in other places in history as well, but Imhotep's the earliest. But Dr. Aardsma with, you know, his broad knowledge on many topics said to us as we were chatting about this, "I'm telling you, this is the right way to go about it with cancer." And this research with this private company is at the FDA level and is doing an enormous trial of some sort with this. But at the risk of misstating how this works, it's something to do with getting some of those cancer cells, attaching viruses or something to the cancer cells that the body knows is bad. The body knows those that is bad and it's going to go after it. But in so doing, the body is trained to then go after those cancer cells and get rid of it itself. And so this is tremendous hope, you know, going back to our theme of hope at the, at the start of a new year, but what could be coming on the horizon? Listen to the way that this article concludes on real clear health.

Steve:
It concludes by saying, "We stand at the figurative precipice of a new world with optimism that we will soon say, yes, we just cured cancer." And all of us today long to hear that phrase, "we just cured cancer." We've all been touched by it. We all know people who have died from it or who are today suffering from cancer. And wouldn't it be something to be able to say, and its roots go back to a man named Imhotep... who actually happens to be Joseph. From the Bible.

Jennifer:
It's just amazing to think about. And I just believe that we will get more and more pieces of evidence to weigh in on these questions, but we are so blessed. Of course, any way that Imhotep had of introducing infection into the cancer site would have been very primitive to us today. We are so blessed in all the advancements in biosciences where we can very specifically tag, do genetic tagging and these things that they can do now to very specifically get the response out of the body. And according to what Dr. Aardsma had read on it, they have had success with these cancer treatments in mice. So to me, from a lay person's vantage point, and again, not ever wanting to be sensational on our podcast, trying to just give the facts. But to me, this is a very hopeful and exciting piece of news. And when I heard it a couple months ago, I mean, I was on cloud nine for several days because I thought this is the best news I have heard in a long, long time. And it's even better, it's the icing on the cake if it goes back into this ancient Egyptian time period when Joseph lived and God was at work in such amazing ways.

Steve:
And of course, Dr. Aardsma is very up on this cells research and all of these things with the anti-aging vitamins with his many years of research into that field. And so of course, that piqued his interest when he saw that, and why he would say this is the way to go. It takes us into that, the cells of the body and how that works, and aging even, and the diseases that come from it. So yes, very, very interesting.

QUOTE OF NOTE

Jennifer:
So a quote of note goes right along here. We just saw this quote and inserted it into the podcast in the nick of time, but it was of the Lord. Here is a quote from Helen Keller.

Steve:
Helen Keller said, "Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it." That's a great quote. And that is such a hopeful and encouraging statement.

Jennifer:
And from someone who suffered greatly herself, for sure, but was able to see the overcoming that's happening. And I mean, we just celebrated Christmas and this is why Jesus came in a very broad sense was to overcome suffering in the world.

Steve:
Yes. The spiritual aspect, he came to save us from our sins, and in the process, also overcoming the physical suffering. That's exactly what he did when he was here. Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. And we have never seen such overcoming of suffering since Jesus came.

Jennifer:
Here's a theological statement from an eight year old to go right along with this. Just yesterday, one of my daughters was bemoaning all of her trials and tribulations in life, which we all can do, and we do have many very real trials and tribulations, but out of the mouth of babes here, we have this conversation. So my daughter was just bemoaning, I have this, I have that, I'm so tired and this, and why is my life so miserable? And I heard my eight year old respond to her and he said, "Because of sin." And I thought, well, yes, he came to save his people from their sins, and all of the misery and suffering that flows out of that, and the lifting of the curse as he is making all things new, and we can participate in that and the hope that we have in that.

AGING RESEARCH

Steve:
Yes. Amen. Well, let's now enter into our section on aging research. And we have an important update that we want to mention to you on this podcast. And in the very near future, we are going to do an entire episode on this topic because it is so very vital for everyone to understand. Dr. Aardsma's theory of aging has progressed to a new level in recent weeks. Some of you have kept up with this all along and for many of you, this might be brand new information, but a new level in recent weeks.

Jennifer:
So we have a new practical recommendation for our listeners in the aging research. So please pay attention to this and take action on this if you feel it would be the right thing to do for yourself.

Steve:
The anti-aging vitamins, newly discovered, two newly discovered vitamins, are showing themselves to be, through the research, the root cause of aging. That's hard to even wrap your brain around that.

Jennifer:
If you don't have those two vitamins, that's what's triggering the aging process.

Steve:
All of this research stemming from the understanding of the biblical account of those way back in history who lived much, much longer than we do today. And so that's the underlying idea behind the anti-aging vitamins. But what we deal with in the body, even in taking the vitamins, is the residual damage that remains, that your body has suffered so much from the aging disease. And is it going to be able to heal in time to be able to save lives, those that have already gone through so many years of aging? So what we are finding in the research is that the healing of damage in the body appears to happen very, very slowly, if at all. So due to the damage of aging, the body's cells still do not have all of the energy that they need to perform all their functions. So Dr. Aardsma is now recommending that the body be supplemented also with a supplement that is called NR in order to address this problem. Now this particular supplement is not unknown in the realm of scientific research into aging today. This is a very well-known supplement, something that's very highly recommended actually by those that are researching aging and anti-aging. The anti-aging vitamins along with this NR supplement may provide the body with all that it needs to turn back the clock on aging.

Jennifer:
There was a brand new research article published December the 12th. So just a week ago, as we record this episode, not even a week ago. And by the time you listen to it, it'll be three, four weeks old. Now Dr. Aardsma does not hesitate to publish his findings on the aging because of the moral implications. So all of you are just trekking right along with him as he makes progress. And he's very careful, of course, in what he recommends. And I remember him some years ago saying, "You know, eventually I may add additional recommendations to the fact of supplementing these two newly discovered vitamins." And so now he has. And we're going to go into this into a future episode in a lot more detail. But for those of you who want to take action immediately, you can go and read the article he published. I'll just give these two caveats. He's only recommending the NR supplement for people age 40 and up. Although the anti-aging vitamins are recommended for everyone. And also, he does not recommend NR without the Dr. Aardsma's anti-aging vitamins.

Steve:
Right. I was going to make that point too.

Jennifer:
Do not go and get NR and say, "Well, I'm going to stop the anti-aging vitamins." Because he believes that the protection of the anti-aging vitamins is absolutely necessary. And then the NR as giving the body something that it can't do on its own anymore. But you've got to have both together. You cannot get the NR from us. We don't currently offer that, but we are giving you links where you can obtain it. Go to the link provided because there are many forms of NR out there. Do not just get any form. Different ones have different byproducts in them and he is only recommending the pure NR. So, again, we have so much more we could share on this. But for now, just know this information and you may be like Dr. Aardsma and Helen or Steve and I and feel like, you know what? Time is going by, the clock is ticking and we don't want to allow the disease of aging to progress any more than it has to. So we're going to take very quick action on these new research findings. So again, just in summary, the idea being, yes, the anti-aging vitamins are absolutely necessary. It's the root cause of aging, but your body may not be able to heal itself even if you're taking the vitamins and this supplement may be able to give your body what it needs to actually begin to turn the clock back to begin to heal itself. So to bring the cells back to a healthier state, cells that are not healthy cannot perform all the functions that they're supposed to. So that's what this is all about. And again, you can go onto our show notes and find those links there to direct you right to where the recommended form of NR can be purchased.

AS A MATTER OF FACT

Steve:
Well, in our as a matter of fact section today, we are going to deal with the topic of a vapor canopy. You may have heard it said that a vapor canopy surrounded the earth before the time of Noah, and this caused the earth to stay moistened. It says in Genesis that a mist came up and covered the ground. This vapor canopy collapsed at the time of Noah's flood, which caused all the rain that we read about during the flood. The collapse of this canopy also triggered the decline in human lifespans after the flood because it exposed humans to harmful radiation from outer space from which humans had previously been protected.

Jenifer:
Okay. So there we have what you may have heard. And as we go through life, we often find out that things we've always heard actually are not true.

Steve:
Well, some of them.

Jennifer:
Right. So we learn as we go along, right? So we're here to help you with some of these things which go right along with the many years of detailed work that Dr. Aardsma has done. And so he addressed this question on page 82 and 83 of Aging: Cause and Cure because the vapor canopy is often brought up as a reason for hypothetically, you know, why the lifespans declined. So that's why he addresses it in that book. Now it is the case that this theory of the vapor canopy is generally discredited today, but it was popular a few generations ago and it is amazing how false narratives can hang around for a long time. And so we don't want that. We want the truth. Telling fairy tales, telling hypothetical ideas is not helpful unless they are supported in the real world. So the vapor canopy theory is generally discredited today. It lacks any scientific support such as answering these questions. How was it kept in place? Why didn't it mix with the rest of the atmosphere? You will notice that the atmosphere today does a very good job of mixing everything together. How was the canopy prevented from overheating the earth and the atmosphere? And so these and other questions have never been answered. So it is not considered a valid scientific theory. So as far as the lifespans themselves, is this a valid theory to explain the decline of the lifespans?

Steve:
Well, we can see from the biblical data that lifespans declined. How? How did the lifespans actually decline within the world? Was it immediate? Were people suddenly not living long, as long as they used to live? Well, no, it was a gradual decline after the flood. So, therefore this idea of this collapsing canopy as the cause of modern human aging is just simply falsified. Such a thing would have caused an immediate drop in the lifespans, not a gradual decline over a thousand year period.

Jennifer:
Yeah, even Joseph, we noted earlier, lived to be 110 and he was on the very end. I say the very end. Actually Moses was on the very end. But Joseph was getting towards the very end. The last few hundred years of extended lifespans. And so we can see that Joseph was quite far removed from the time of the flood. I mean, six, seven hundred years after the flood.

Steve:
Well, if you would like to know the truth about the flood and where all that rain came from and where it all went, get Dr. Aardsma's book, "Noah's Flood Happened, 3520 BC". You can order that book on his website or even get a downloaded free copy of it. And if you'd like to know the truth about aging and the lifespans, you can get "Aging: Cause and Cure", another one of Dr. Aardsma's books. We're in the third edition of that book and read some amazing research that has gone into that and how it all just makes sense.

Jennifer:
If you go to our podcast website, www.thebcmessenger.com, you can click the button that says shop or store there in the corner. And that's where you can see all of the books and the anti-aging vitamins and the different products we offer here. And the books are available for free download or for purchase as a hard copy. But there's a summary for you on the vapor canopy theory and why it is not scientifically supported.

HELEN'S VIEW

Steve:
Well, around here, one of the things we're trying to do is get people's attention concerning what has been discovered, what has been researched and found out. And one of the items that we are now trying to get people's attention concerning is the climate change research that has been done. And Helen, Dr. Aardsma's wife, has been putting some letters out, and one that she actually wrote to the incoming president, President Trump and some others as well. And in today's Helen's view, Helen is going to present the letter that she wrote to President Trump.

Helen:
I am already filling up my 2025 calendar and getting used to the fact that 2024 is almost over. I have been pondering and praying the last several months about the use of my time and the things I want and need to change starting now. I don't need to wait until January 1st. My resolution for the last several weeks and for this coming year has three points. One, simplify. Two, simplify. And three, simplify. But in order to show my resolve right now, I will simply say my motto for this year is... simplify.

I want to simplify in several areas. Number one, my outside activities, which include social events, cutting back on shopping, which is also garage sales and thrifting. I hate to give that up. Number two, no more gift giving from my stored garage sale and thrift store finds. I have been doing this for over 50 years. I'm going to be switching to gift cards for birthdays and holidays. Number three, my time running our various businesses. And number four, my time cooking and doing household tasks. Regarding number three and my time running our various businesses, I have hired another employee who started this week. He is doing the many daily routine tasks that I used to do. This has been a wonderful help to me already.

Why am I working on simplifying? I want to free up my mind and physical space so I can think more creatively and productively. Business, clutter and heavy workload keep that from happening. And what will I do with the time and the freedom gained? Well, I'm not going to be sitting here, putting my feet up, taking it easy with my bags packed and waiting for Jesus to come back. I want to be actively working for the kingdom now, today, this minute. Millions of people are dying of aging disease. Thousands of people are living in poverty because of money wasted on reducing carbon emissions. Sixteen million Jews have had their biblical historical roots stolen from them. Millions of people would die should another no egg event happen. 

Proverbs 24 verses 11 to 12 says, "Rescue those being led away to death. Hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, 'But we knew nothing about this!' Does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?" God has laid upon my heart to take up the task of communicating Gerald's various discoveries, especially the exciting new ones that have happened in 2024. Jennifer and Steve are already doing a great job communicating as this podcast illustrates. My efforts are being added to theirs. The need is to get the word out about what God is doing in the area of Bible science. I am working on spreading the word of Gerald's work by commenting and posting on X, Facebook, Instagram, news outlets, blogs, and contacting influencers, etc. I have much to learn, but my goal is to spend several hours per day on this. I am already seeing some response to my small efforts, and it is encouraging. Sometimes it feels like how can little old me make a difference in this great big world? But I know and have faith that God can take my meager loaves and fishes and feed a multitude. I am starting with our humble local newspaper, which is a great newspaper, by the way, and also going all the way up to the top to the most important political figure in the world, Donald J. Trump.

I have written to President-elect Donald Trump regarding Gerald's climate change discoveries. Here is what I wrote on November 23, 2024.

"Dear President Trump, Congratulations on becoming the 47th President of the United States. In March 2024, my husband, Dr. Gerald E. Aardsma, wrote you the following email. 'You were right to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Accord. Its underlying science is wrong. The correct science has recently been shown here.' (Related to Gerald's work.) According to this correct science, there is a real existential threat to civilization, but it is not due to global warming. When God willing, you become president once again. Please halt the wasteful spending on currently mistaken and ineffectual climate change, mitigation measures, and without delay, initiate action against the real threat.'"

So that's the end of the email that Gerald sent Donald Trump. So back to my letter.

"Gerald is very busy with his research, so I am following up on his previous contact with you to let you know that Gerald has continued on with his research in climate change, adding a second article to the topic 'Bible Science Corrects Mistaken Climate Change Science Forecasts.' These show that the present global warming mitigation strategy is mistaken and ineffective, and is in fact exacerbating global warming and its related extreme weather events. The IPCC has the science wrong, the diagnosis wrong, and the proposed remedies wrong. It is actually doing harm to the planet and its inhabitants and needs to be stopped. Gerald is an American citizen and a PhD scientist, University of Toronto Physics 1984. He has been doing private research for decades at the interface of the Bible and science. There is extreme bias and hostility against the Bible, making publication in mainstream science journals near impossible. But this has made him totally independent of both the academic climate change industrial complex and the fossil fuel industries, leaving him free to pursue the truth wherever it may lead. I know you are not a scientist, but I am encouraged to reach out to you by the example of Winston Churchill. In his volumes on World War II he has a chapter called 'The Wizard War,' where he describes how he embraced the latest scientific breakthroughs, radar and split radio beams, despite his own limited mathematical and scientific background, and how this was essential to winning the war in which he was engaged. I have taken the liberty of forwarding this correspondence to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy because of the role you have assigned them in doge of reducing wasteful government spending. The US is currently spending $11 billion annually on climate change, and the climate change theory all this expenditure is based on is wrong. Sincerely, Helen E. Aardsma, Loda, Illinois."

And that's the end of the letter that I wrote to Donald Trump. I believe a new, fresh, and much needed breeze at this time in history is gaining strength all across America. If you would like to add to the breeze and my meagre efforts, you may contact Donald J. Trump at 45office.com. Feel free to suggest to him that he take note of Gerald Aardsma's work on climate change and ask him to take action on it. I will close with a quote by Warren Wiersbe, one of my favorite preachers. This is from his book, The Bumps Are What You Climb On. "You may think that you are insignificant in the great plan of God, but you are not. You are tremendously important to God, so much so that Jesus died for you, and the Holy Spirit lives in you. You may seem small in your own eyes. And this is good because God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. However, don't let your humility become sin by making you believe you can do nothing for God. God can use you to help him accomplish his will on this earth." I look forward to sharing with you more on my communication efforts in the coming days. Thanks for sharing on my adventurous journey. Blessings to you and yours in 2025.

CLOSING

Jennifer:
The climate change research that she is writing about there is pretty overwhelming, and we've shared some of that on the podcast before. But I'm thankful that we serve a God who gives us hope for the future, as we've touched on numerous times in this episode, even with the new advances in the aging research. That's giving us renewed hope that the story is not over yet. And when you're serving the true and living God, the story is never over for the follower of Christ. And those of us who know that God has given us a mission to fulfill in this world. And I believe each person who serves and follows the true and living God has a unique role to fill. 

Steve:
Well, Romans 15-13 says, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." We hope and pray you have a happy and wonderful new year, and that you are filled with the hope, joy and peace that only comes from believing in the true and living God that we read in the Bible. And may the Son Jesus Christ. Happy New Year. We will see you in February.