July 2024: Where the Bitter Water Became Sweet, The Location of Marah

Introduction and Welcome

Jennifer:
God showed Moses a tree. Moses threw the tree into the bitter water, and the bitter water became sweet. Today, you will learn where this happened and how a tree could cause undrinkable water to become drinkable.

Steve:
Welcome to the BC Messenger Podcast. This is July 2024 with real science, real Bible, real history, and real world. This is season two, episode 12. We're glad you're here today.

It's July. It's summertime, and in the heat of the summer, there's nothing more refreshing than cool, inviting water. That's our topic today. Jennifer, you just mentioned a minute ago about a very well-known story that's found in the Bible about water and about people who were thirsty in a hot place needing water to drink. Water itself is a mystery. Water itself is a paradox. In some situations, it's wonderful. In other situations, it's downright fearful. As you enjoy God's amazing creation of water this summer, we hope this podcast episode is going to give you some new thoughts to ponder about a very familiar story in the Scriptures.

Jennifer:
In the accounts of the route of the Exodus, of course, water comes up so often. If you are traveling with millions of people through the desert, water is top, top priority. And of course, it was somewhat scarce there in the areas where the Israelites were traveling.

And so today, we're going to cover that story of Marah. We've been waiting a year to talk about this on the podcast. This is one of my favorite research articles that has come out. But we have had a number of other things take priority over the past year. And so this article was published in June of 2023. And we are recording it here a year later, getting ready to share it with our listeners. Very excited to do that.

And thinking about water, one of our sons learned recently, our youngest son, that the human body can only survive three days without water. He heard that on a kid's show somewhere. And he has brought that up to me numerous times. Obviously that struck him in his mind, that if I didn't have water, I would only be able to live three days.

Steve:
Right, only three days. Wow. And you think about the children of Israel going through that wilderness with their livestock and children and families. Well, hey, we're going to get into that. That's our featured topic today. Where the bitter water became sweet. The location of Marah.

Jennifer:
The other items that we have for you today after the featured topic include a music segment. This will be our second time airing a song from the Truth in Time Ministry that fits with our theme today. And a quote of note. And then a section called "In the News." Something to do with biblical chronology and archeology that has been in the news lately. I think our listeners will find this very interesting, having to do with the time of King David, actually. And then our aging research section and our Helen's view today are combined. We will be hearing a conversation that happened between a gentleman and Dr. Aardsma and Helen. The three of them talking about the discovery of the anti-aging vitamins. I won't give away any more on that. So we have quite a bit for you today and we need to get right into it.


Where the Bitter Water Became Sweet: The Location of Marah

Steve:
As we get into our featured topic today where the bitter water became sweet at Marah, I just wanted to give a few comments here at the very beginning. For those of you who are new to the podcast, as you listen through our discussion today, keep in mind that this is just another piece to this puzzle with the research at the biblical chronologist. And as you hear things referenced, places like Mount Sinai or other places you are familiar with, from the Bible, be aware that the corrected biblical chronology has led in a very different direction for the route of the Exodus. And this has opened up a whole new world of discovery. We challenge you to go back to our past podcast episodes and listen through some of the things that we've talked about, the newsletters that are at biblicalchronologist.org. We've talked about a lot of these discoveries, and some we have not talked about yet.

All of this being based on knowing the Exodus from Egypt was at 2450 BC, the collapse of that great Old Kingdom of Egypt.

By the way, I was just at a conference and a young girl came up to the table, an older teen girl, at this conference who was quite familiar with Egyptian history. And I was talking to her about the collapse of the Old Kingdom being the Exodus that we are seeing in real world history. And she was really quite fascinated by that correlation, had never heard that before and was really taking that in. That was really cool.

But we are always very careful to work within proper chronology, because that is the backbone of history. And, by the way, any group that wants to give you information about biblical history and they do not emphasize proper dates or proper chronology, they are likely not going to be a very good source of information. They're not starting with the foundation. If anybody is trashing chronology, they don't think it's an important part of history. They're probably not going to be a good source of information. You can paint any picture you want about history without proper chronology. It's very important.

So as we go through this information today, Jennifer and I are just going to be talking through it in a discussion style format as we typically do on our podcast. And the conversation is just gonna lead us right along. Hopefully, as you listen, your scope of understanding about Marah, about the bitter water being made sweet is going to expand. We are starting with a Bible story that we all know but we're going to end up with a whole lot of new information and a much more expanded understanding of what happened, where it happened, and how it happened. As Jennifer and I talked through this account, I hope you'll follow along with our discussion and I think you're going to be surprised and encouraged in the reality of this biblical story.

I remember being in Sunday school and hearing this story when I was a child and it was just, as a kid you hear these stories and you think about them, but you hear them many times as children in different ways from what actually the Bible is recording, what actually might have transpired. And that's what we're learning through this series of articles, Dr. Aardsma's writing on the route of the Exodus and finding out that, wow, when you see these accounts in the real world, how different you can see them, how real you see them. They're really true stories that really happened.

Well, what is this story? Maybe you aren't familiar with it.

Jennifer:
It is in Exodus, chapter 15, right on the heels of the Red Sea Crossing and the people are celebrating. We've talked extensively about this account there at Pi-hahiroth, which was their third stop coming out of Egypt, and they are singing. There's a song recorded there in Exodus 15, "Sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider, he has thrown into the sea."

Okay, right after that, next verse, we go into this account. "Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Mara, they could not drink the water of Mara because it was bitter. Therefore it was named Mara. And the people grumbled against Moses saying, "What shall we drink?" And he cried to the Lord and the Lord showed him a log or tree, some translations say tree, most do, and he threw it into the water and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule and there he tested them saying, 'If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God and do that which is right in his eyes and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians for I am the Lord your healer.' Then they came to Elim where there were 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees and they encamped there by the water."

Steve:
When you think about that account and you think about what Israel had just come away from, that dramatic event of watching God destroy their enemy in the red or reed sea, and then they are free. I mean, they truly are now free from their enemy, from Pharaoh and from becoming slaves again. However, they are truly free, and sometimes when you're free, that can also be scary because now you really are on your own. I mean, they're in a massive crowd of millions of people in livestock, but they are out of Egypt. And again, they've been slaves all their life. That's all their parents and grandparents and great grandparents knew, was life underneath this nation.

And so now they're free, now they're out in the wilderness. Now they're wandering. God has done great things for them. They'll never forget it. God will bring it up over and over, but it only takes a few days and they realize just how free they are.

Jennifer:
And we see, once we explain to you where Marah is, that they basically set out across the wilderness just as the crow flies straight. Later in the route of the Exodus, we quite often see them traveling on known roadways. And that would be a lot more advantageous in being able to obtain things like water if you're traveling on a road, as opposed to just literally straight across the desert.

And in fact, I was questioning as I was studying for this episode, did the pillar of cloud lead them? Just straight through the wilderness like this? The text isn't specific, but it does seem to indicate that the pillar of cloud did lead them in some other references that you can apply to this. And so, if that's the case, we know the pillar of cloud was definitely there at Sinai and from Sinai on, but if the pillar of cloud was leading them, God was directly leading them out into the wilderness where there was no water.

Steve:
Right, boy, there's a lesson there that we can learn. And yet He was leading them to water in the end, and they were learning that they can trust.

So yeah, this is an interesting story and Jennifer read the account again in the Scripture. So three days later, they do get to water, but another plot twist, right? What happens when they find the water? Well, it's not even drinkable. It's been three days, we just mentioned a minute ago, you can't go along without water. You know, maybe they still had some water, but the supply was obviously getting low and my kids need water, my sheep need water. I mean, a lot of water is needed for a crowd this big. They finally get to a place where there is water and they cannot drink it because as the Bible says, it is bitter.

So now what happens? What does God do in this situation? Well, God tells Moses to take a tree. Now, this is one of those times where you're scratching your head thinking, take a what? A tree. Take a tree and he shows Moses the location where there is this tree, and he tells him to throw it into the water and Moses obeys and the water becomes drinkable. The water becomes sweet.

Now, I have to say, when I was a kid, when I pictured this, I pictured Moses taking a stick. And I think, actually, I Googled it just now, and sure enough, when you look up pictures of the story, you see Moses holding the stick in his hand or this stick floating in the top of the water. And so the idea comes across that this is some magic, or a miracle, of course. And if God wants to take a stick and make water sweet, he can do it. But we're going to give you an answer today you've never heard

Jennifer:
I also had a totally different mental picture as a child did not picture a large tree or log. I pictured more of like a bush, you know, like Moses kind of got ahold of this spindly little bush and threw it in there and then stirred it around. OK, now drink the water. And Dr. Aardsma says in the article that as a boy, he thought somehow the tree must have soaked up the saline water.

In a desert environment, if you come to pools of water that are fed during parts of the year and then are not fed other parts of the year, that pool, I guess I would call it is going to become stagnant, right? Water is going to evaporate, but leaving behind all the salts and things gathered from the soil as the water flows in during those times of the year. And so then, what's going to happen? If it's being fed by fresh water, you'd be able to drink it. If it's been sitting there and the water has been evaporating and it's not getting any fresh supply, it is definitely going to become bitter, brackish, salty, not drinkable at all. And that appears to be what is going on here when they arrive at Marah.

Steve:
So how would you take a tree, and turn bitter water or brackish water sweet? Is there a way that could happen in the real world, God leading a nation, God leading a man to a place like this? Is there a good explanation that we could say, "Aha, due to this location that we see, due to the circumstances here, this is how that could have transpired and taken place!" Well, there sure is. There's a very good answer to this, and that's what we want to give you right now.

Jennifer:
Right. And we're thankful for people who have an analytical mind like Dr. Aardsma that a lot of us don't think this way. But he theorized that a tree could be used to freshen a pool of bitter water in a certain way. And that would be if the tree or log, you think of it as a very large log, or tree, was used almost as a torpedo to be dropped into the pool. A battering ram of sorts. And crack the bottom of that spring-fed pool. Spring-fed water pool.

Steve:
That's exactly right. So you have to picture the water of Marah. What are we talking about here? Well, again, we've mentioned this in our podcast before, one of the downfalls of a podcast is it's all audio. It's very hard to show you pictures and get a view like we have in the newsletter, which we encourage you always to go to the newsletters on Dr. Aardsma's website, biblicalchronologist.org. And then we'll also have some pictures in the show notes as well. But yes, you have to picture a pool that is spring-fed, say about three feet deep with the spring at the bottom of the pool. The pool's being fed by a spring coming up from the bottom.

Jennifer:
Any excess water can flow away from the pool, just as a small little stream or so. But this particular pool is slow. It's the spring that's feeding into it. That's not much. That's why the water is becoming stagnant.

So let's talk about where is this? Where is Marah? We know where the Red or Reed Sea Crossing happened at Pi-hahiroth. And we know where Sinai is. And that is the general direction that the Israelites are headed, Mount Yeroham.

Now, here's something really cool that we haven't covered on the podcast. We also know where Elim is, right? Which is their next stop right after Mara. Elim is very easily identified because the Bible says there were 70 date palms and 12 springs of water. And you don't have that all over the Sinai. Date palms are not indigenous plants to that region. But there is a place close to Sinai, close to where we believe Marah is that today is a large grove of date palms. So, you know, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that that is most likely the biblical Elim. And these places are also at the proper distances that the Bible describes. There's numerous checks here to show that we are on the right track in these particular locations. I mean, the Red Sea to Marah has to be three days, no more than four days journey, because the Bible says they went three days and found no water.

So, sure enough, the distance checks out perfectly. So, where is this? Before Steve tells us exactly where this is, I will mention that the text actually says the waters of Marah in the NASB, which is the most literal translation of the original languages, I was reading out of the ESV earlier, which says the water of Marah, but the waters of Marah gives us more of a picture of a series of pools or continuation of water supply. And sure enough, that is what we find close to Elim on the way to Sinai.

Steve:
Right. So, if you were to fire up your Google Maps and look over in that part of the world, Dr. Aardsma points out a place called Ein Avdat. Now, the word Ein, E-I-N, is the Hebrew word for spring. When you see that word, Ein, in front of a name, it means that that is a spring, the spring Avdat. Ein Avdat is one of a series of pools that are located along what today is called the Wadi Zin. Now, Wadi is a riverbed and it dries up in the dry season. In the rainy season, it floods. So, this Wadi Zinn is a seasonal river in the desert. And again, yes, for most of the year, it is a dry riverbed. But during the rainy season, it floods and it floods spectacularly. So, there is this Ein Avdat, which is a series of pools.

I have a hiking map here in front of me that you can go and hike this area and visit the pools and see some different interesting things that historically happened in this area. But for what we're talking about on this episode, there is this series of pools and you get up to the very top, to the spring fed pool at the top. And the name of it is today, Ein Ma’arif which we may not even need to point out, definitely correlates to the biblical Marah. The phonetic similarity between Marah and Ma’arif to the name of this pool, that's what it's called today, is pretty striking.

Now, it's unlikely that the Israelites, the millions of Israelites and all of their animals came up to that top spring. Right. But it's called the waters of Mara and they most likely would have camped in the dried up waddy bed. That's a flat area, an open area. And we're coming up to those different pools there to try to feed or try to water their livestock and for their families. But it was all bitter.

Steve:
So you have this Ein Avdat and other pools that are being fed by this Ein Ma’arif, which phonetically seems a lot like Marah. And so when the Israelites get to this point in the Sinai, there's water, but it's not fresh water. It's not the rainy season, obviously. It's been sitting here a while. It's brackish and it's undrinkable. The word in the Bible is it's bitter.

Jennifer:
We know they were not there during the rainy season. I saw some pictures of Ein Ma’arif during the rainy season. And I mean, you're talking about like Niagara Falls is kind of what it reminded me of. So they certainly were not there during that time of the year. They were there during the dry time when you just had these pools drying up.

Steve:
So that's also interesting because it's hard for us to picture again this many people with this many animals. You're going to need large water supplies. So that shows the potential in this area for that kind of water that can be available here.

Jennifer:
So, yes, so they're here, the water is brackish and they can't drink it. And what are they going to do? How is the water going to be made sweet, going to be made clean? And that takes us back to what we were talking about a minute ago. And what I picture, I mean, the text doesn't tell us this. I picture Moses and maybe a couple other guys, they're traveling on up. They're trying to figure out what do we have here for water? Do we have any decent water higher up? Let's keep going. And so they get on up to the top, the original spring. And that's where, which is today called Ein Ma’arif. It's where God shows him this tree and which there are trees growing around this area today. There are very few pictures of this particular spring that we've been able to find, which really motivates me all the more to get over to Israel and go to these places. But if Moses got a very tall, straight tree log, as my version says, stripped it down and got it ready to try to blast open the bottom of that spring, where the water is being fed into the spring, and you can understand what this is leading to, right? If it's water that's sitting stagnant, what you want to do is open up the source. You want to bring the fresh water flowing in very fast to clean it out. Make it drinkable.

The rock around this area is limestone on top of chalk. And you can read online, that is how these springs are fed. The water soaks into the surrounding areas through the limestone, gets to the chalk layer and runs in between those layers of rock and feeds things like this pool Ein Ma’arif.

Steve:
Right. So if you had in your head that this story was saying that Moses had a stick and he tossed it into the water, made it sweet, it's probably not right. If you had it in your head that he had a big log or a tree and he rolled it into the water and somehow, you know, God made the water fresh, God could do that, but that's probably not right. But think about this. This was to be a battering ram. This was to be like a missile, like a projectile, very large, very big. It was going to be cast down into this shallow three foot or so pool of water to break the bottom of it, to bring the fresh water up.

Jennifer:
The bottom of the pool would have been chalk because the water would have worn away the permeable limestone. And so the log launched straight down, would have cracked the bottom, the chalk bottom of that pool.

Now here's something really cool. And I just saw some pictures of this yesterday. So around this Ein Ma’arif are kind of like cliffs made out of layers of rock. I don't know how to describe it very well. But if Moses and his guys got up to a higher level, up above that pool, where they were looking down on it, kind of like we went to Wisconsin and some of the guys went cliff diving or whatever you call that. And they jumped into these pools of water off of surrounding cliffs. That's kind of what that makes me think of. But they're looking down. They have this giant tree and they just drop it straight down to the bottom of the pool. Right off that higher altitude above it, that giant heavy tree is dropped straight into that water and the force of that breaks open the bottom.

Steve:
Dr. Aardsma goes into some detail about the science behind this and the type of wood, if they had actually cut it in a certain way at the one tip, taking off all the twigs and the bark and all of that to make this thing do what it was supposed to do. So that's just fascinating to think about that.

Jennifer:
So what would have transpired? Well, I mean, if you get, you know, if all of a sudden it's like you've turned on a powerful garden hose at the bottom of that pool. And it begins to overflow. Then it's going to bubble up. It's going to push the water out down to the lower pools. And each pool is going to feed the next pool. And of course, we don't know how fast that would have happened if it was a giant crack. If it was a giant opening, it could have happened very fast. But anyhow, as a result, the layers down below, the areas would have all become fresh, what the Bible calls sweet, and the people are able to bring their livestock and drink.

Now, interestingly enough, the area there, Ein Avdat, is known today as kind of a saline environment. That the waters are slightly saline, it says, and the plants there are adapted to growing in those conditions. So we know that it goes that direction. Now, today it may still even be freshened because of what Moses did there. And it may not ever get as saline as it was back at that time. But we see that it tends that way. And they didn't stay there. That's so fascinating to me. Maybe the water became drinkable, but they still didn't really want to stay there. It wasn't the best. And so they moved on and went to Elim where there were 12 springs of water.

Steve:
It's important to know that the Bible account in Exodus 15 says that he, the Lord showed him a tree and he threw it. It says he threw it into the water. I mean, you can certainly picture there a trajectory being thrown into that spring fed pool.

Jennifer:
Another thing to notice is that Moses was 80 years old when he did this. Now, we know about the aging work here and that an 80 year old, Moses lived to be 120. And he was at the tail end of the life spans dropping off after the flood. But we think of somebody who's 80 today. Moses was much more youthful at 80 than what we would be today. He had 40 more years to live. And the Bible doesn't say anybody was helping him. Maybe it was just him, or him and some other guys, but he was able to launch that trajectory into that pool of water. It's incredible.

Steve:
Right. It is. It is amazing. So we've established this, and hopefully you've understood what we're trying to say here, that it sure does appear that God had in mind for Moses to take a large tree, Moses and his men, and use it as a projectile, as a ramming device to shatter the chalk bottom of the pool to increase the flow of water into the pool from the surrounding limestone. Okay. That's an amazing thought to think about, the Bible in real world history. God is in the leading. God has led them. God showed them this tree and God works through his real world, through his real creation.

But we can check this, as we mentioned a minute ago, with the distance? What about that? Is this place in a proper location according to the Bible as to how far they traveled? It was three days approximately that they came to this place.

Jennifer:
It's about three and a half, I think, with the amount of miles they would have covered there, which certainly goes along with the narrative they went three days and found no water. And then you can read into that on the fourth day. They found water.

Steve:
Right. So you have them at the Sea of Reeds or the Reed Sea, which with the new chronology and with the new understanding, this is at Ar Ruwaj, which is right near our sub lake of Lake Bardawil. And from there to this location, Ain Ma'arif, the text says that the Israelites walked for three days, and found no water. But if you use Google Maps, and Dr. Aardsma talks about this in his newsletter, he finds that a straight line distance between that location of that body of water and Ein Ma'arif is approximately 105 miles. If you were to travel at 30 miles per day, which is maximal walking distance per day that Dr. Aardsma used in previous newsletters, this comes to three and a half days. So approximately three and a half days, that is then satisfied, that requirement.

Jennifer:
Of course, the name similarity is so cool. We don't always see that. And I mean, that's not proof positive, of course. But it's certainly a very good clue and a very weird coincidence. If this isn't Marah, but it fits all of the distance and the type of thing we're looking for around these other areas that we know, then that's an odd coincidence. If it's not Marah. The pieces of the puzzle, they keep coming together. It's kind of like Resisim. We have Resisim, the well today, which correlates to the biblical Rephidim. So at times we see that. Now, of course, other names are not at all similar. And who can say how and why through history, some names would be retained, others would be changed. We're talking thousands and thousands of years ago, four and a half thousand years ago, to the proper dates for these things. And so sometimes some names are lost to history and some are retained. And this is one of those cases where it's very exciting to see how somehow through history, that spring is still called Ma’arif.

Steve:
Well, you're right. If all you had was a phonetically similar name, which we see that you can make such big mistakes just pulling something out, and say, well, it must be this because it sounds like it. That's not what we're saying. That's just part of the puzzle here. I mean, it's the proper distance from the Red Sea. It's the proper distance to Elim and Mount Sinai ahead of it. So there's multiple things here, it's going in the right direction is what I'm saying too, right? It's not something with a similar name that's nowhere near where other things should be as well.

And even at Elim, there's some evidence of some pottery that we don't have a whole lot of information on right now. So another piece of the puzzle.

Jennifer:
Yes. And pottery in this particular location would have, you know, if they camped in the wadi bed, would have been washed out by those seasonal rains. My goodness, seeing those pictures and even the land form itself has probably changed somewhat since the time of Moses, not the basic springs and pools and all, but waterfalls and things can push things back a number of feet and over thousands of years.

So, here we have a very amazing pinpointed location that matches the biblical account and sheds so much light on it as to what happened, and how it happened. And we learn lessons about God, you know, and of course these biblical accounts of water. And then you go into the New Testament and the imagery where Jesus said, "I am the water of life." And, "Whoever's thirsty, come to me and drink." Making the bitter water sweet.

Steve:
And you know, it's interesting that it's a tree that's thrown into the water. I mean, who knows for sure, but the Old Testament is pictures, shadows, types and symbols. And I've heard that preached before, you know, that tree, a symbol of the cross.

Jennifer:
That's right. So much to learn and so neat to see it in the real world like that.

Steve:
Again, can God do a miracle? Of course, God can do a miracle. But what if he did it in such a way? We can go over there and find out how he did it so we can learn the place. We can see it with our own eyes that no, this isn't a fairy tale. This is real world history.

Jennifer:
I'd like to know how God showed him the tree. You know, it's kind of like at Rephidim where God stands on the rock and says, strike the rock here. I mean, we can't go back and trace that. I don't know how God did that, stood on the rock. I don't know how he showed Moses the tree. I mean, those are miracles between God and Moses. Yet God showing Moses how to solve the problem, how to provide for the needs of the people is incredible.

So, this discovery of the location of Marah, I mean, it just is a continuous path that is being laid out for the route of the Exodus. Well, we're a year later as I mentioned. And so, there is so much more that has been put into place since then. Even this morning, I was reading a new article talking about the location where Moses climbed the mountain and died. And we'll get there on the podcast eventually. We'll get caught up with these things. But this is such an exciting and stirring piece of the puzzle right here.

Steve:
Yes, very cool. All right. Well, let's move on.


Truth in Time Music: "Satisfied"

Jennifer:
John 7, verse 37 and 38 says, Jesus said, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink." Jesus is both the water of life and the bread of life, which is typified in the accounts of the Israelites experience in the wilderness. So, we want to present a Truth in Time song for you today. This is our family singing, and we go out and minister at Truth in Time events where we present this type of content. This song says, "Well of water, ever springing, bread of life so rich and free, untold wealth that never faileth, my Redeemer is to me."

Steve:
I love this song. It's called, "Satisfied." Sometimes it's called, "Hallelujah, I have found him." We hope you enjoy this.

(Song is played)

Steve:
Well, as we think on those thirsty desperate Israelites we talked about a little bit ago arriving at Marah and how refreshing that water became for them, we hope you enjoyed listening to that song that we sang. Satisfied, hallelujah, I have found him.


Quote of Note

Steve:
Well, I love the stories of C.S. Lewis, especially the Narnia series. That series of books has become very special to us as a family, and I know we're not the only ones. That's been special to a lot of people for a long time, and just good stuff. One of our favorite passages is in The Silver Chair where Jill meets Aslan. Aslan, of course, is a picture of Christ in these books.

Jennifer:
We could not have a water theme on this podcast and not use this as our quote of note, this exchange between Aslan and Jill.

Steve:
Yes, so let me just read it. Jill is there, she sees this lion, I think for the first time in this story, and she's obviously a little worried about this whole thing, and she's thirsty, and here's what transpires.

"Are you not thirsty? said the lion. I'm dying of thirst. said Jill. Then drink, said the lion. May I, could I, would you mind going away while I do? said Jill. The lion answered this only by a look in a very low growl. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving Jill nearly frantic. Will you promise not to do anything to me if I do come? said Jill. I make no promise, said the lion. I dare not come and drink, said Jill. Then you will die of thirst, said the lion. Oh dear, said Jill, coming another step nearer. I suppose I must go then and look for another stream. There is no other stream, said the lion."

That is a very special part of that book, The Silver Chair.

Jennifer:
And you really can't follow it up with much, you know it speaks for itself. So much truth in there.

Steve:
It really is. Well, I agree with you. How can we do an episode on water and the water of life without including that quote.


In the News: Jerusalem at the time of King David

Steve:
Well, let's look at the news for a minute. I don't like to look at the news very much. You have to sometimes, but we're going to do a section that we've done before called In the News. And especially if it's dealing with archaeology, chronology, biblical discoveries, Jerusalem, Israel.

Jennifer:
You know, I am thankful for the algorithm, in the sense that it does know that I want to see, things that relate to biblical history in my feed. And so sure enough, a lot of things come through and you think, well, that's not legit. Or I'll show it to Dr. Aardsma sometimes and no, that's not.

But here's one that is definitely newsworthy and noteworthy. And we wanted to tell to our readers. Now, we are getting out a little bit of our specialty here because we specialize in the historicity of the ancient Old Testament before the time of King David, because that's where the chronology really gets into trouble and where Dr. Aardsma's work has been able to bring so much clarity.

Steve:
But that leads into this. And that's why we're getting into this today. Because when early biblical history begins to be falsified, archaeologically, which happened decades ago now, due to the missing millennium, and that's a whole different topic which I encourage you to go back and listen to or read up on, wrong chronology, that's the problem. The secular world then became emboldened to attack the historicity of even more recent events that we find in the Bible, such as in the time of David or even going into the New Testament. Biblical points about the kingdom of David and about Solomon. And that's what we're talking about today that's in the news.

Dr. Aardsma predicted over two decades ago that these attacks would eventually be overturned since this time period is not affected by the missing millennium. That eventually we will be able to find the truth. We're just assuming right now, not us but the scientific world, the researchers, the chronologists, the archaeologists, assuming the Bible's myth. Because the Old Testament has such a problem right now, we're assuming that everything else does too. Those ancient stories, I mean.

Jennifer:
So a very recent news release shows that historians and archaeologists are now finding evidence that Jerusalem truly was a city at the time of King David, not just some small little village as was previously thought. Previously, they were trying to tell us. This has to do with radiocarbon dating and the time period in question for David and Solomon, which is 1000 BC normally is what the established date is there. And there were some issues with the radiocarbon dating and establishing what is called an absolute chronology for that time. And so the secular world has been downplaying the kingdom of David, saying that it really was just much more of a village type of a thing, not this grand kingdom as the Bible describes. But what this news article is telling us is that there is a lab that has been able to overcome those difficulties at that time period and has been able to establish what they call an absolute chronology for this time period. And they have found through radiocarbon dating of organic materials, it's very detailed and intricate, that the boundaries at the time of David were much larger than were previously thought.

Steve:
We have a picture of some artist's rendition of what it probably extended to back in those times on our show notes. If you go to our show notes, you can see that.

Jennifer:
Here's a little piece of the article, "In total, the results are the first major contribution in comprehensively addressing highly controversial and intriguing issues in the city's early history, assembling an absolute and high resolution chronology, covering a substantial part of the Iron Age and the time of some of the most consequential events in the cities. This is Jerusalem, emergence as the capital of a regional kingdom and early state society. The researchers have shown that ancient Jerusalem was potentially a more developed urban area than was previously hypothesized." And this is according to a professor at the Tel Aviv University. The professor speaking to Haaretz said, "If my pendulum has to move somewhere, it now goes more in the direction of the city than the village because of these results."

And Dr. Aardsma clarified a little more about this in an email conversation we had with him. He says, "It is strengthening the case for David and Solomon being real history as predicted."

Steve:
Very good. Of course, we normally deal with ancient Old Testament history. Again, like you said, we deal with the missing millennium and chronology. That's not what we're talking about here, but it does apply because as we strengthen the case for the ancient Old Testament, all of that's foundational to what we find later on in the Scripture, it's strengthening the whole of the Bible, the whole of the accounts that we have in the Word of God. So very neat.


Helen's View: Interview with Gene Sullivan

Steve:
Well, we had a great time some months ago. That was back in when? March the 19th. A gentleman, a friend now that we have here named Gene, came to visit us. Gene Sullivan stopped by. He has been taking the anti-aging vitamins since 2022.

Now, if you're new to the podcast, you may be wondering, what is this about anti-aging vitamins? Well, if you're just tuning in, if you're new to the podcast and our work here, you should understand that the vitamins being discussed here are newly discovered vitamins just like the traditional vitamins, except previously unknown, flowing out of the research of Noah's flood and the super longevity that is recorded in Genesis. You can look all this up. You can research this more at biblicalchronologist.org or go back to some of our previous podcast episodes.

Now, Gene, you'll hear some of this on the interview, he heard about the vitamins on a podcast that Jennifer did with another Jennifer years ago now.

Jennifer:
A few years ago, I was interviewed about the anti-aging vitamins on a podcast called Fading Memories, which is for people who are caretakers for those with Alzheimer's and dementia. And that is where Gene heard about the anti-aging vitamins discovery. He has dealt with dementia in his family and became very enthusiastic about it. And it's made a big difference for him in his life.

Steve:
Right. So on our Helen's View section this month, our behind the scenes section, we are going to share this interview that we had with Gene. Actually, it was Helen, mainly doing the interview. And then you and I were there as well with Gene. And so we kind of put some things together. Part of it is Dr. Aardsma and his wife, Helen, talking to Gene, and Helen interviewing Gene. So here it is, Helen's View, our interview with Gene Sullivan.

Helen:
We're excited to meet Gene, who's been on the vitamins for a few years. And he's coming to the area to visit and asked to come and meet Jennifer and Steve and me and Gerry. And so that's what we're doing today. So we thought we'd take advantage of interviewing him since he is a very enthusiastic taker of Dr. Aardsma's vitamins. And we're always happy to talk about the impact that the vitamins have on people. So Gene, tell us a little bit about yourself, how old you are, where you were born briefly and a little bit about your career.

Gene:
I'll be 62 in four days. I'm 61 now. I grew up on a farm outside of Amboy, Illinois, near Dixon, Illinois. And I live in Harrison, Arkansas with my wife. And I work for a school district as a school bus driver and a custodian right now. And I've lived in a lot of different places, but have kind of settled there. We'll be married 24 years on New Year's Eve. And so I've lived in Harrison for now for 24 years.

Helen:
Okay. So how did you hear about Dr. Aardsma, his work and the vitamins?

Gene:
Well, I heard about the vitamins on a podcast where Jennifer was being interviewed by another Jennifer. And she was talking about these vitamins that could extend your life. And it came from a biblical kind of a basis. And I was fascinated. I mean, just fascinated. And I decided quickly to start taking them. I think, what was the date? I started them on April 26. And I'd heard about them on April 18. So eight days later.

Helen:
Okay. So did you go to the website and read some of the materials and look at some of the information?

Gene:
I did. In fact, I scoured the internet for anything to do with biblical chronologist, the aging cause and cure. There were some video interviews and the website. I spent quite a bit of time in those few days to learn as much as I could.

Helen:
So you've been on the vitamins for how many years now?

Gene:
It'll be two years, April 26.

Helen:
Two years. Okay. So just shy of two years. So what was the first thing that you noticed that you felt was having an impact or a change?

Gene:
The first thing I really noticed was probably with my knees. I noticed that three, it was probably three or four months after I'd started taking them. When I really started saying, Hey, something's going on here.

Helen:
So what was wrong? What was, what were your knees doing?

Gene:
My knees were bothering me. I was having a really difficult time walking, climbing up and down stairs. And in June of that year, 2022, I had an MRI on my left knee, I had a severe tear, torn meniscus in my left knee. The doctor wanted to do a surgery right then to correct it.

Helen:
Like a knee replacement?

Gene:
No, just to repair the torn meniscus. I don't know, trim it up. I can't remember exactly how he was explaining how they were going to repair it, but no, it wasn't a knee replacement. It was a meniscus repair. And they, the timing just didn't work out with my scheduling with school. So I put it off. I was going to delay it until the fall. But before the end of summer, I had no pain in my left knee anymore. Or it was almost non-existent and got to the point now where I can pretty much run up and down the 19 stairs that we have to climb and go down to our front door.

Helen:
Okay. So that's amazing. That's really a testimony.

Gene:
Yeah, it is. It's, it's been a life changer for me as far as my knees.

Gerald:
What you've reported about your knees is very typical of MePA. That vitamin works quickly. And it really reduces a lot of pain for a lot of people because a lot of people have arthritic pain. That's what it is. The MePiA is the one which is much, much slower to repair. The damage is to the mitochondria, not to the kind of external organs. And it takes a long time to get that fixed.

Gene:
Is the mitochondria on every cell in our body?

Gerald:
Yes.

Gene:
And is it a double wall?

Gerald:
Yes. It is double walled.

Gene:
And basically what I understand is our environment because of pesticides, herbicides, toxins, the environment stuff, is it blowing holes in our mitochondria?

Gerald:
I would say that's oversimplified. The real problem has been the mitochondria are essentially the powerhouses of the, of the cell. So they are equivalent to kind of like our steam, turbine, coal energy producing, you know, electricity producing factories. And so they're very high energy density. And they yield what are called reactive oxygen species as a side effect of just simply all they're doing, they're burning oxygen. But anyhow, they produce these very chemically reactive side products. And the design that God made us with is we are supposed to have, it turns out, MePiA in there too, it deals with these reactive offshoot species that are going to cause damage if they get loose. Without MePiA, they get loose. And they just, they're just hammering the mitochondria from the inside. So damaging all of the biomolecules and damaging the genetic code that's there, and so forth. All of that's getting shot up because of this. When you put the MePiA back in the mitochondria where it belongs, it takes those reactive oxygen species and it neutralizes them so they don't do the damage.

So we like to compare it to being like a fire. You've got kind of a fire going on inside your mitochondria. It's burning everything up, making a mess, takes maybe 70 years or whatever. And then your mitochondria are so bad, you're not getting the energy you need for your cells. And then your cells can't do what they, you know, just like if you don't have gasoline in your car, it's not going to run. That's what ends up happening with your cells. And eventually your organs shut down, and you die because of this problem. Put the MePiA back in and you stop the damage right there. Puts the fire out. Completely.

But you got a lot of burned up stuff in there that now has to get repaired. And, as it turns out it's a bad problem for the body to have to repair that particular damage, especially the genetic damage to the mitochondria. So that's a long process. I'm saying decades. So we try to take care of ourselves at our age. Try not to over stress, overdo, which is a problem. If you're feeling real good, you can overdo in the workplace or whatever, because you're feeling so good. We try not to do that. We try to take care of ourselves. And hopefully the organs, the heart keeps ticking and the kidneys keep working and, you know, all of that stuff keeps going. And then we start, we hope, actually perceiving, "Hey, I'm feeling better. I am feeling more energetic", you know, and that's we're, we're getting rid of this disease, this aging disease.

I started taking the vitamins in 2017, I guess. So I'm the one taking them the longest. And what is that? That's seven years. Not very long. So we're still learning, you know, what's the long term going to be like?

Helen:
You had mentioned earlier, when we first met, that you felt like the vitamins have given you a new lease on life as far as future plans and thinking about other careers and just having a lot more psychological strength to, to think about other things to do in your life. Can you talk about that?

Gene:
Yeah. And it's interesting, just since you said that, I do remember too, immediately after hearing about it, and I, maybe even before I started in that period of eight days before I started taking the vitamins, I just remember feeling just an overwhelming new kind of almost like a hope, because of my knees bothering me, feeling like my body was breaking down. I was really starting to get a little, I don't know, depressed isn't the right word, but just a little frustrated thinking, is this all there is? You know, I'm just going to keep deteriorating, it's just all downhill from here?

And then to get this, this message that there's a vitamin or these vitamins that you can take that's going to extend my life and maybe help gain back some of the ground that's been lost because of the aging process. And this whole concept that aging is a disease, that was such a like a mind blow, you know, it's just wow. And for days, I just was like on cloud nine thinking that I had this new hope.

Helen:
So it's a paradigm shift.

Gene:
It was. And you know, the phrase, re-think aging, reimagine life is really, it's been something that just keeps going through my head.

Helen:
So you had like a psychological boost, mentally, even before you went on the vitamins. Now, obviously you've been on the vitamins for two years, and there's no way that just thinking and hoping would have held you all this time. Do you feel like the vitamins have actually given you a new lease on life?

Gene:
I definitely feel like the vitamins are helping me physically in ways I probably don't even know. That's the hope, you know, but I do feel like there's some physical evidence of that.


Closing Comments

Jennifer:
As we wrap it up today, I want to encourage you to consider scheduling us to come to your special event for your church or any other group, Bible study, community group. As you can tell, we are passionate about these biblical discoveries. We would love nothing more than to come and present a series of talks on the Water from the Rock and the bitter water becoming sweet and other related topics, sing songs like Satisfied with our family, minister to you and strengthen you and those in your circle.

Steve:
Hey, I just got back from the Iowa Homeschool Convention. It's called Homeschool Iowa. Got to be there this year. And I went by myself. I wished Jennifer and my kids could have been there with me, but I met a lot of neat people, and got to speak on the topic of "How to Keep Your Kids from Saying, 'I Don't Believe Those Bible Stories Anymore.''" And it was really good. And yes, some of those folks that we met and made contact with may be listening to this podcast for the first time. If you are, we welcome you for the first time. But yeah, if you would like us to come to a homeschool thing going on, a convention or whatever, we do that as well.

Jennifer:
The world is a dry and thirsty land these days, it seems. Definitely here in America. We are thirsty for real world spiritual truth. And we would love nothing more than to come and bring refreshment with these newly found biblical discoveries, showing us more and more the reality of God's works in history. And they're not myth. They're not legend. They are more real than you ever imagined.

Steve:
Hey, we'll see you next month.