November 2024: Jericho in Archaeology: The Problem & the Solution

Jennifer:
In Joshua 6 we read, "And the Lord said to Joshua, 'See, I have given Jericho into your hand.' And Joshua said to the people, 'Shout, for the Lord has given you the city.'"

Steve:
However, scholars tell us, and you can read on places like Wikipedia, "Jericho fell long before Joshua's arrival." "The strong consensus among scholars is that the book of Joshua holds little historical value."

Welcome to the BC Messenger podcast, Real Science, Real Bible, Real History, and Real World. We are going to be talking today about the topic of Jericho. This is episode number 29, and we are so thankful to have you along with us today.

Jennifer:
Our rundown of content for today's episode includes the feature topic of Jericho, and then a quote of note by C.S. Lewis. Our section "As a Matter of Fact is about dinosaurs, about Noah's Ark, about some things you've probably heard before, and we're going to give you some facts on that. Then the aging research section that we always bring to you, which covers longevity research coming from the data contained in Genesis, and we're going to talk from a personal perspective on that today. And then Helen's View, Dr. Aardsma's wife brings to us some Thanksgiving memories this time around as we are getting very close now to Thanksgiving.

Steve:
Very good. So that is our content for today. We have a lot to get through. And you know, when we think of Thanksgiving, one of the things we think of is football.

Jennifer:
Yes. Around our house, we have been having football, football, football for the past couple of months as we have two boys currently playing football. And as a family, we do enjoy watching football-watching it on television.

Steve:
A number of our boys have played football over the years, and you know, that has become the sport. When I was young, I remember it used to be baseball. Baseball was the all-American sport. That's not the way it is anymore. Well, a lot of people still do love baseball. But I think it's pretty obvious football has risen up.

Jennifer:
That's for sure. It's taken the lead. And it is an enjoyable sport. We have been watching so much football at different age levels and skill levels. You know, the analogies just keep coming. Life lessons and things that you can correlate with watching two opposing teams and their strategies and how they can advance that ball. So we thought we'd take an analogy from that today and apply it to our podcast.

Steve:
That's right. We have observed in football, that a dominant football team, we have learned, always has a strong defense, and a strong offense. You need both of those. Morale is a huge factor in winning games and in football. And you're right. There's so many illustrations here in Christianity, with our faith. We have been scrambling on defense for far too long. We've talked about this in the past.

Jennifer:
It's no fun to watch your team, you know, if it's our boys playing, whether in the youth league or in the high school, it's no fun to sit there and watch the other team constantly get the ball back. And so our offense barely has a chance to play in a game like that. And the defense goes out again and they go out again and they go out again. And what we want is a chance to score, right? We don't want to keep losing the ball. And so here, as we are in an apologetics ministry, our mission and passion is to advance the cause of truth. Not just stand there and try to hold the line, you know, and try to just hold against this onslaught from the opposing team. But we want to advance and score, right? It seems like in Christianity, we have not been scoring. We have, like you just said, we've been scrambling on defense for a long time.

Steve:
Some know that and some don't. I mean, when you get into the chronology, the archeology, the history, the evidence that we have for our faith in the Bible, for what the Bible is telling us, the opposing team of secularism and unbelief keep scoring. And Christians are left shaking their heads, wondering, how does this keep happening?

Jennifer:
And what's happened is it's playing out in the culture. So the truth, the biblical foundations of truth have been shaken so much and so often that the culture doesn't have any anchor points for truth anymore. Defense, you know, is getting pummeled and morale is falling. And so it's playing out all around us now in the culture. You don't have to go to Wikipedia and read about why they don't believe the Bible. I mean, you can just look in the culture and see, we are, Christianity is not holding the line.

Steve:
Right. Please don't look at the cultural scoreboard. It looks bad. The opposing team has been winning and they've been winning for far too long. And would we not like to see some points accumulate on the board for Christianity? And that's what we are all about here at The Biblical Chronologist. We have some real points to score. We have some plays. We have some strategic offensive plays that work.

Jennifer:
Yes. They're very hard for the opposing team to be able to stop you in your tracks. And so many of our episodes have presented this strong data rich apologetic. And we have another one for you today.

Steve:
That's right. We're going to get back once again to some fundamentals today that were undermined decades ago in a very familiar biblical account.

Okay. We got an offensive play Jennifer. The offensive play today is "Jericho." You know, I love that when you hear the quarterback, he's out there and he starts yelling, "Jericho, Jericho, Jericho!" Here we go. "Jericho!"

Jennifer:
Right. All right! So we're ready today and we're thrilled to be able to present to you this information. It's not hard to grasp. It's very interesting. And you will see the Bible come to life in archeology here today. Society can get back on the offense. And we're demonstrating today for anyone who has ears to hear that these accounts in the Bible are a reality. They really did happen. This is not folklore. This is not make believe. Right. Not myth, not legend, but more real than you ever imagined really when you see it in the science, when you see it come to life like we're going to do to here today.

Steve:
Now before we get into our main topic for the day, we do want to remind you that we have a brand new website, www.thebcmessenger.com, a very nice website with our podcast episodes, all the different locations where you can listen to the podcast and we encourage you to visit that. And you can go back through all of our previous episodes, which today is episode 29. So there are 28 previous episodes covering various aspects of Christian apologetics as it relates to the ancient Old Testament.

Jennifer:
And also, when you go to www.thebcmessenger.com, you will be able to get to our brand new store. We have a number of resources available for you from The Biblical Chronologist. And now you can go to the BC store and shop any of the products that we currently have available and see them all neatly there in one place. Use a variety of payment methods if you're interested in obtaining any of those resources.

Steve:
Okay. Our topic is Jericho. Following on the heels of the compelling evidence that we have seen for Israel in the wilderness, we now come to the beginning of the conquest of Canaan. Go back and listen to previous episodes where we are talking about all kinds of accounts that now are lining up in the real world, showing with proper chronology that these events definitely took place, compelling evidence.

Jennifer:
Yes, proper chronology. That's the key because I can just picture a new listener thinking, what are you talking about compelling evidence for Israel in the wilderness? Everybody knows there isn't any. So are you guys making stuff up? I mean, what are you talking about over there? So what we start with here and Dr. Aardsma's specialty, of course, is in the dating methods such as radiocarbon, radiometric dating, and how that relates to proper chronology. He is a chronologist, a biblical chronologist, which is a very unique field. But early in his work, decades ago, he was able to make a key correction in modern biblical chronology. And that key correction has led to harmonization across the board of secular and sacred history. And today with Jericho, that's just one aspect. But it is built upon sound chronology, sound dating methods, proper handling of the biblical texts, proper handling of the secular evidence. And that's where we're coming from when we say there's compelling evidence for any of this stuff. It all hinges on looking at the right dates in history.

Steve:
Right. So it's not like we're lifting this one story up out of the Bible and saying, hey, we now have an answer to this one story. We do. But we have an answer to all kinds of accounts in the Old Testament now. The evidence continues to build, continues to pile up.

Jennifer:
You can go to our new store through our new website and you can get the very first book that Dr. Aardsma published back in the mid 1990s, "A New Approach to the Chronology of Biblical History from Abraham to Samuel". And that is where the initial chronological discovery was made that all of his subsequent work has flowed out of. And so if you want to get a, you know, a basic foundational understanding of where we're coming from today, you could get that book and learn and see for yourself.

Steve:
So as we prepare to see the Bible come to life in archaeology, I'm going to take my Bible and I want to read the account of Jericho. You might be listening to this podcast going down the road and you can't pull your Bible out or whatever right now and read. So let me refresh our memory today on what the Bible has to say about Jericho.

I've got my brand new Bible here. I love this Bible. Just got it recently. It cost a bit of money. Got a beautiful leather cover on it. It looks real pretty. But you know what really matters Jennifer? Not how pretty my Bible looks and is. What matters is the content on the inside. Is it real? Is it true? Did these things really happen or do we just believe fairy tales? And that's what we're going to again today with our gameplay, show that this is real stuff that we have, not folklore.

So let me read it to you and then we'll go back and talk some more about it. The story of Jericho is found in Joshua chapter 6 beginning with verse 1.

"Now Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the people of Israel. None went out and none came in. And the Lord said to Joshua. See, I have given Jericho into your hand with its king and mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days. Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times and the priests shall blow the trumpets. And when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up every once straight before him. So Joshua the son of noon called the priests and said to them, 'Take up the ark of the covenant and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark of the Lord.' And he said to the people, 'Go forward, march around the city and let the armed men pass on before the ark of the Lord.' And just as Joshua had commanded the people, the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of ram's horns before the Lord went forward, blowing the trumpets with the ark of the covenant of the Lord following them. The armed men were walking before the priests who were blowing the trumpets, and the rear guard was walking after the ark while the trumpets blew continually. But Joshua commanded the people, 'You shall not shout or make your voice heard. Neither shall any word go out of your mouth until the day I tell you to shout, then you shall shout.' So he caused the ark of the Lord to circle the city, going about it once, and they came into the camp and spent the night in the camp. Then Joshua rose early in the morning and the priests took up the ark of the Lord. And the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark of the Lord walked on and they blew the trumpets continually. And the armed men were walking before them and the rear guard was walking after the ark of the Lord while the trumpets blew continually. And the second day they marched around the city once and returned into the camp. And so they did for six days. On the seventh day they rose early at the dawn of day and marched around the city in the same manner seven times. It was only on that day that they marched around the city seven times. And at the seventh time when the priests had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, 'Shout, for the Lord has given you the city.' And the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the Lord for destruction. Only Rahab, the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall live, because she hid the messengers whom we sent. But you keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction. Now I'll skip this part here because the Lord tells them not to take the things that are in the city. They belong to the Lord in this instance. So the young men who had been spies went in and brought out Rahab and her father and mother and brothers and all who belonged to her. And they brought all her relatives and put them outside the camp of Israel and they burned the city with fire and everything in it. Only the silver and gold and vessels of bronze and of iron they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord. But Rahab, the prostitute and her father's household and all who belong to her, Joshua saved alive. And she has lived in Israel to this day because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. Joshua laid an oath on them at that time saying, 'Cursed before the Lord be the man who rises up and rebuilds this city Jericho. At the cost of his firstborn shall he lay its foundation. And at the cost of his youngest son shall he set up its gates.' So the Lord was with Joshua and his fame was in all the land."

Jennifer:
So much detail there. So much presented as history, historical, certainly how it presents itself. This is what happened in great detail. And so if you know anything about archaeology, you know that what is being said here as having happened to the city of Jericho should not be hard to find. And when it comes to Jericho itself, it is one of history's most ancient cities and it is identified, it has been excavated, it has been studied in great detail. And so you've got a walled city, you've got it destroyed, defeated, and burned with fire and then not inhabited again for a long time because of the oath that you just read there that Joshua put on the people. So how hard can that be? I mean, if you know anything about archaeology, it's a fascinating science and there are many detailed discoveries that have been able to be made. I mean, this is major stuff happening to a city.

Steve:
So we had an archaeologist who went in and studied it. Right. So here's where we have the trouble. We just read the story. We see the detail like you said. But once again, the Bible runs into trouble at the traditional dates. We have the archaeologists going in, however, they come out saying we cannot find evidence that this, what I just read out the Bible, actually took place. The archaeologist who did the majority of the work there on this archaeological tell, which is the ancient city of Jericho, her name was Kathleen Kenyon and she's well respected in her field, not so much by Christians because her work caused a lot of consternation back then--what was it 1950s type of an era.

Jennifer:
Her father was a biblical scholar himself and she went into archaeology and did work there in the Holy Land. So here she is at Jericho. She's constructing the history of Jericho. And what does she and her team, what do they find? Nothing at the traditional dates. No walls, no burning, not even a city. Nothing at all is present in archaeology at Jericho within the traditional timeframe.

Steve:
Now you said something a second ago that I want to make sure our audience understands, that this is an archaeological "tell". Now if you're familiar with archaeology and science, you know what that means. But what that is, is a hill, it's a mound, but it's an ancient mound, and specifically in the Middle East, composed of remains of successive settlements. So when archaeologists, and this is something I had to learn, when they go into an area to excavate, it's not like you just start to uncover remains and then that's it. You've found all the history. You keep digging, right? You find one layer and then in another area you keep going further into the tell and you find more ancient history and then you keep going and you find more ancient. 

Jennifer:
And of course it's all correlated with the scientific dating methods so they can, you can't just hold something up and say, "Oh, here's what it was." You have to know when, when the time period is that you're relating these things to. And so that's how you construct a history this ancient, and this is literally one of history's most ancient cities, Jericho.

Steve:
Well I read Jericho is quote, "The oldest continuously inhabited city on the planet." That's from, I believe I was on Khan Academy where I read that. That's fascinating.

Jennifer:
It is fascinating. What a place to do a study, my goodness gracious. And then of course, along with that you have one of the most famous stories in the Bible. I mean, every Sunday school kid knows that they marched around the city, they blew the trumpets, the walls fell down. That's Jericho. And so going in to dig, certainly the expectation would have been there from all of the Christians that we are going to find some amazing evidence for these biblical accounts. So Kathleen Kenyon goes into this tell where we know Jericho was and begins to uncover and excavate following some other archaeologists, but goes back to the traditional dates that, okay, here's where Jericho it is said in the Bible, where this account took place and as we already said, does not find evidence at all. Jericho, well of course the Exodus. I mean, that's the most major event. The traditional date for the Exodus is 1450 BC. And so the Israelites were in the wilderness for 40 years. So you're looking close to 1400 BC to find the conquest of Canaan, which is not just Jericho, but of course other many other sites related, but Jericho was the first one and definitely so much detail in the account. So 1400 somewhere right around there, that's where we're expecting to see a walled city that was destroyed and burned with fire. And sadly, to all of the evangelical Christians there in the mid 1900s and decades following, the evidence was just not there. It is not there. I'm sorry, but there wasn't a city there. Jericho did fall, but it was a long time before that, a very long time before that. And so what must have been going on is that Israel was making up history for itself to show how mighty their God was and to give hope to the future generations propaganda, basically making up propaganda. And maybe they were drawing on some kind of little tidbits of history, but Joshua never marched around walls. Walls never fell because there wasn't a city, there weren't walls, and there wasn't even anybody living there in those surrounding centuries.

Steve:
Right. And so we have phrases like we began with on our podcast today from Wikipedia, "Strong consensus among scholars is that the book of Joshua holds little historical value."

Jennifer:
And unfortunately, Kathleen Kenyon became a name amongst Christians that is not held in high esteem because basically she just told the truth that, you know, this is where the story is supposed to have happened. We dug it up and it's not there. So this is a real problem, a real problem for our team. This is a real problem for Bible believers. I mean, the opposing team has gotten the ball back about 12 times throughout the progression of this story of Jericho here and what in the world is going on. And we have presented this numerous times throughout our podcast.

Steve:
And Dr. Aardsma has shown this numerous times throughout his newsletters that this real problem continues to come up in the Old Testament before the United Kingdom of Israel over and over and over again. And we are here today to demonstrate that one correction, one answer, solves all of these problems. Not a multitude of answers, not just one or two problems. One answer solves all of them over and over and over and over again. One solution. So for those who are kind of new to our podcast, and we have new folks joining us at times, let's just real quick talk about what have we discussed that this answer, this correction in chronology, resolves.

Jennifer:
So we did an entire episode called "The Story of the Missing Millennium Discovery." You can go listen to that if you want to hear how it all happened. But that's the gist. There is one verse, I Kings 6:1, that gives a number 480 years, and all of the chronology, you may not know this, but all of the biblical chronology preceding that hinges upon that one number. And through a variety of compelling pieces of evidence, Dr. Aardsma proposed that the original number in the text was 1480 (not 480). And that everything before the time of Samuel needed to be dated 1000 years earlier. Now, 1000 years is a long time and we get that. But if this proposal was incorrect, if this theory was not correct, it wouldn't take long to falsify at all. And so instead, what happens is, yes, it works. It works for Noah's flood. Yes, it works. It works for the Exodus.

Steve:
We can find the Pharaoh of the Exodus.

Jennifer:
There are pieces of the puzzle just coming into place, and very early on with the discovery, Dr. Aardsma investigated Jericho, would this missing 1000 years work at Jericho? Of course, if the traditional date is 1400, approximately, and you add in the missing 1000 years, what is the new date, the corrected date going to be? The new date is not going to be 1400. It is going to be 2400. 2407 approximately for Jericho. So the flood, instead of being at 2500 is at 3520 BC. The Exodus instead of being at 1450 is at 2450 BC. And Abraham, we can mention him instead of being at 2000, he is at 3000 BC. And this is a mental hurdle to get over if you are very familiar with this Old Testament chronology, but investigate it because it works beautifully over and over and over. You do not hit the roadblocks that this biblical history hits with traditional chronology.

And so naturally, Dr. Aardsma investigated the question of Jericho very early on because it has such detailed archaeology and such detail in the biblical account, would it harmonize at 2400 instead of 1400? What do we find? And also, let's mention not just Jericho, but we are going to get into in a future podcast, "Ai," spelled AI, some pronounce it AI, but it is Jericho and Ai that constitute the two most important cities for the purpose of investigation into the Bible.

Steve:
Okay, so when we go into Jericho and we look back as we now have the privilege of doing with our modern day excavations that were held at this place, on this tell, we should be able to go back not to 1400, 1407, but to 2407. When we should be able to find a walled city that existed for some time, proceeding up to the biblical account, we should be able to find evidence of a city completely destroyed around that time. Again not 1407, but 2407. We should be able to find the destruction showing signs of deliberate burning, as the Bible says. We read a minute ago in Joshua 6, we should be able to find a ruined city that was not rebuilt for a very long time after its destruction, described in Joshua 6, again around 2407. So do we? When we go back into those times with this corrected chronology, what do the excavations show?

Jennifer:
So here's where the Bible comes to life in archaeology. Looking at the new chronological dates, what did the archaeologists say was going on at Jericho at that time?

Steve:
Right, there were two main archaeologists, one back in the 1930s named John Garstang and then one we've already mentioned, Kathleen Kenyon in the 1950s. And the excavations by these two archaeologists show that yes, Jericho is a very old city, extending back thousands of years. You can look at illustrations drawn. Dr. Aardsma has one in his book called "A New Approach to the Chronology of Biblical History from Abraham to Samuel" showing a schematic cross-section of that tell, the mound of ancient Jericho, revealed to us by the modern archaeological excavations. And it shows various times throughout the ages, the early bronze, middle bronze, different ages, where there were walled towns at those certain times. And when you get back to 2407, you certainly do find what we are looking for with the story as presented to us in Joshua chapter 6.

Jennifer:
There is a nice little graph that Dr. Aardsma has put together that shows the archaeological history of Jericho. At times, it was an unwalled town. At other times, it was a walled city. At other times, it was just a campsite. And this is going back thousands and thousands of years. But sometimes, it was purely uninhabited. So what do we find at the new date? That's what we need to answer.

Steve:
Right. Well, why don't I just read, and this is again right out of Dr. Aardsma's book, what Kenyon said in her findings of this particular, and again, it's early bronze that we're looking at around 2400, what did she find at those dates? Well, here's what she said. Here's what she recorded. "This is a fully urban stage for the greater part of the town was enclosed by mud brick walls." Well, there we have some walls. "The complex of the structures in all excavated areas suggests a thriving population. And the many re-buildings of the town walls, sometimes in new positions, show how necessary it was to keep the defenses in repair, either against the occupants of neighboring Palestinian towns or against invaders from the east." Then later on, regarding the final destruction of this particular, it's called E.B., early bronze III Jericho, Kenyon wrote this, "In one area, 17 successive stages in the town walls can be identified. The 17th was destroyed by a raging fire, and its destruction marks the end of the early bronze age town."

You know, this reminds me of when we talked about the Exodus and the end of the Egyptian Empire. The Old Kingdom. The Old Kingdom was the Exodus that caused that. And again, that falls right when you put the new chronology in place.

Jennifer:
That's exactly right. Put the thousand years in and you're back to the end of the Old Kingdom.

Steve:
So once again, end of the early bronze age town. So she's describing a walled city that was destroyed, and she's describing the end of an era for that city. Let me read just a little bit more. In regards to a violent overthrow and burning of this particular town, quote, "The wall was destroyed by fire, the brick being burnt to a red color from one side of the wall to the other. Outside the wall, there were layers of ash from the wood that had been piled up against the wall. And inside the layers of burning show that the attack succeeded in setting fire to the town inside."

Jennifer:
Yes, Joshua 6:24. They burned the city with fire and all that was in it. And so here's Kathleen Kenyon describing that very thing in her archeology. And then we fix a new date based on new chronology, go looking at that date, and these two things come together beautifully with no backflips, no doing crazy stuff with the text or crazy stuff with the science. It's just, they are there and they harmonize. And you know, I'm fascinated. It says, she said, "Outside the wall, there were layers of ash from the wood that had been piled up against the wall." And I don't know if the people in Jericho did that to try to reinforce their wall or if the Israelites did that when they were getting ready to burn it. Maybe it was that. But anyway, it was a brick wall built several times in succession until it fell to Israel.

Steve:
And we can keep going. Joshua said, "Cursed be anyone who tries to rebuild this city." So it ought not be rebuilt for a long time. And we have the evidence of that as well. Let's go to our graph. What do we see? Listen again to what Kathleen Kenyon says here. "There would appear to be an interval after the arrival of the newcomers and their settlement on the site sufficiently long." What she talks about here is that the accumulation of silt that they found on top before anyone started to build houses on it again. So a very long, like you said, look at the chart here.

Jennifer:
Yeah, the chart, I mean, the new date, which is labeled as C on the chart is pointing directly to the end of the walled city. And then there is nothing uninhabited. And then there are some dashed lines as in a campsite, which we know the Israelites, if they went and lived there, they were nomadic peoples and they were not interested in building towns necessarily. And Joshua told them not to. And so it was a campsite for a long time, hundreds of years. And then it became an unwalled city again until it was a walled city again for a brief time later on, but not at the traditional date, not in a good place at all to try to say that that was Joshua.

So anyhow, it's amazing. I mean, Kathleen Kenyon herself describes the biblical account, but because of problems with the biblical chronology, she herself said actually, let me find what Kenyon said, "We may take it in the first place that chronology based on the biblical record cannot be taken literally." And yet she held the evidence in her hands. So she cast aside the biblical chronology because of all the problems. She did not realize what that was stemming from. And she was, of course, quite mistaken. We now know, and the evidence was all there. And she excavated it and handled it herself. She commented on how the walls had been subjected to a fierce conflagration by the attackers, but because she regarded the chronology as being fabricated and not worthy of serious study, she was not able to make that connection between what happened at 2400 BC and what the Bible says that Joshua and his army did. 

Steve:
Right. So when you get the date right, yes, there was a city. Yes, there are walls. Yes, there is evidence of a great burning and overcoming of this thriving, in that day, large population, urban society. This ancient city burned with fire at the very time predicted by modern biblical chronology. And after that time, not inhabited again for a very long, long period of time. This is a winning play. This is points on the board for biblical Christianity, for the reality of the biblical accounts in Scripture. It's right there for all to see. I just want to keep stressing. We haven't pulled one thing out of the hat and said, "Hey, here we go. We can prove this one story." This is just another piece of the evidence on top of this ever-growing pile of evidence. 

Jennifer:
Right. I don't want to mix too many metaphors, but if we bring in the puzzle analogy, we are putting together a puzzle and we have put a lot, a lot of pieces in place with this new modern biblical chronology with this one correction. This Jericho piece, it's a corner piece. It is foundational, very easily identified where the new chronology works so beautifully.

Steve:
We didn't get into it today, but Christians have tried to give different answers like you said a minute ago, doing backflips. Every possible thing we can think of to try to make the traditional dates work has been attempted. There was a walled city sometime later on. Again, we'll just mention this, that folks have tried to back up everything and put this story at that time. 

Jennifer:
However... When the answer is not the correct answer, you just add problem after problem after problem. We won't go into all that, but those attempted corrections don't work and they fall apart on many levels. When you have the truth, it's just plain. It's right in front of you. Next month, Lord willing, we're going to get to Ai. The story of Ai and the destruction of Ai. Again, it's right there. It's in the archaeology and it is the Bible coming to light. 

Steve:
So again, can we keep going with this one correction and go to the next account in the Bible and see if we can find it? And what we're saying is, yes, we can. That's what we're going to do on the next episode.

Jennifer:
Yes. And this takes us right into our quote of note because you might be wondering, some might be wondering, well, what's the big deal? I mean, these are good spiritual things. We can learn that if God wants to, he can take down the walls in our own lives. The obstacles we're facing and I like these stories because they just give me a good feeling, and I know I can go forward stronger because I've read this and I don't really care about the archaeology. But here's the deal. I mean, C.S. Lewis gives us this quote from his work called God in the dock. Here's the quotation. "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

So either it's false or it's true, and either it doesn't matter at all or it's the most important thing ever. It can't be in the middle. And so when the foundations, the fundamentals are being attacked and destroyed like, well, sorry, but the account of Jericho didn't actually happen, Christianity is being weakened from the inside out, and the whole culture suffers and is falling, and we see that all around us.

Steve:
I heard someone just the other day telling me, well, we live in a very rural farming community and they were in a conversation with a local farmer, an older gentleman, and they were talking about these things. And he made the comment that his son went to college and has rejected Christianity because of these very things presented to him that look, your dad meant well, mom meant well, grandparents meant well, but it's been proven over and over again... these things did not happen. They are just fabricated tales. And he told the person I was talking to that he is still a believer, but really just because he wants to be, he has to be because it's so important to him personally, but he's basically holding on by his fingernails. And so what a sad testament and what an illustration of where we are today and we're trying to say it doesn't have to be this way anymore. We have points for the board. We have good plays here. We can start coming back on the offense.

Jennifer:
And so often the truth is not complicated. Get a new date, get a new chronology with the one correction, one correction and start looking, start investigating. And it's amazing what you'll find and it's amazing how this has taken so long to be corrected and we're thankful for Dr. Aardsma's work and the groundbreaking discoveries that he has made, and we're ready for this to take hold of academia and for unbelievers to try to come back against this type of offensive play and falsify it.

You may have seen a graph that goes around social media, getting into politics a little bit here, but the graph shows how many professors are liberal versus conservative in their political standing. And it's overwhelmingly liberal. Now I assume that graph is correct. I don't know. I have not done the research myself, but probably the reason for this is because professors know the kinds of things that we are talking about here. They know the problems. They have cast aside biblical values a long, long time ago because they do not want to build their life on what they see as fairy tales, mythology, propaganda for an ancient nation. Sorry, but I'm not going to stake my life on that. And so those that are in the more educated circles are more aware of these kinds of problems. Those who are more laypeople like myself, we haven't been taught all of this stuff or studied in any related area. And so it's not hard to understand how it's playing out culturally that from the top down, as far as our institutions go, like you said, the cultural scoreboard doesn't look good. The professors are pushing agendas that we would say are anti-God, anti-Bible. And there are very basic reasons for these things. And we have fumbled the ball. We have lost our chance to get on the offense because of these unresolved problems.

Steve:
And I think it's important too, on that note, to think about this for those of us whose faith is strong. We believe the Bible. It's time for Christians to, instead of continuously mocking and making fun of unbelievers and people like the scientists, like they're just a bunch of wackos, it's actually important for God's people to have compassion on those who are struggling with things we're not struggling with. I saw a verse just the other day, when you interpret it properly, it actually means "have compassion on those who doubt." There are some people who are facing struggles I'm not facing. They're seeing things I haven't seen before. They're really having to grapple with stuff I haven't had to grapple with. And so we really ought to have compassion on those folks and pray for them and pray that God will help them to see the truth.

Jennifer:
And pray that God will use this type of data-rich apologetic to reach them intellectually so they can engage their mind and they can see, "Oh, well, it wasn't that complicated after all." And ultimately bring in all kinds of people, Lord willing, into the truth as we all begin to see the reality of these things in the real world, more real than you ever imagined.

Steve:
Yes. Okay, we need to move forward here and let's talk a little bit about dinosaurs. We've never done that before on our podcast. And this is our section called "As a Matter of Fact."

Jennifer:
We take a few minutes each episode to correct a popular misconception. There are some well-known groups out there who are wanting people to believe the Bible and who are trying to use science for that means to that end. But very often what is happening is misinformation is being given out, just to be perfectly honest. And that is not going to advance the cause of truth. And you can be as well-meaning as you want, but if it's misinformation, it's not going to help. And that's what we're trying to expose, that's what we're trying to show in this particular section, As a Matter of Fact.

Steve:
So, You may have heard it said... that dinosaurs were on board Noah's Ark. In spite of their exceedingly large size, various dinosaurs could have fit onto the Ark if, number one, they came on board as babies, maybe. Number two, dinosaur eggs were brought on the Ark by Noah.

Jennifer:
Well, as a matter of fact, dinosaurs were not on board Noah's Ark because dinosaurs did not live during the time of Noah's flood. Once again, chronology, dating methods, everything hinges on that when it comes to studying the past. 

Steve:
So without chronology, without proper chronology, you really can make up any fantastic tale you would like to. You can tell any story you want if you are not getting things in the proper time frame.

Jennifer:
So when did the dinosaurs live? Well, first of all, for our regular listeners, let's see, what is the date of Noah's flood? The correct date where the flood is found in archaeology and in history and in civilizations around the globe. What is the date of Noah's flood? 3520 BC. Get that in your head. 3520 BC. You can go to our store. You can get the book on the flood and read all about the evidence for Noah's flood at that date. So there you go. You've got the flood. 3520 BC. Now here's the question to ask, were there any dinosaurs living at 3520 BC? If the answer to that is yes, then we could talk about them being on board Noah's Ark. Were there any dinosaurs alive at 3520 BC? There were not. Not according to actual scientific research.

Steve:
Dinosaurs became extinct long before the time of Noah's flood. They became extinct about 65 million years ago. Now wait a minute. Wait a minute. How can we say that? Okay. So go back, listen to some of our other podcasts, do some research. We talk about something here called "virtual history". The virtual history of our earth, part of what a creation miracle would be. Dinosaurs are part of the fallen virtual history of our earth.

Jennifer:
Therefore, dinosaurs were not on board Noah's Ark as babies or as eggs or anything else. They were not inhabiting the earth at the time of Noah. And science tells us that dinosaurs and humans really weren't living at the same time anyhow. So get your date straight and that'll answer a lot of questions for you. Don't reject the concept of millions of years, which conservative groups do. Of course, there's other groups that don't have any problem with talking about millions of years, but do have a problem with Noah's flood being identified in history as like a global event of some sort or hemispherical event. I won't go into all that, but there's so much you can read and learn on these topics.

Steve:
And on the topic of virtual history, we did have an encouraging phone call from a listener who lives in Florida who heard our discussion on virtual history on one of our podcast episodes, and said that it had been a huge help to him. He works with a group of young adults in his church, I think it's his church, or some Bible study that he has, and was able to present that idea to them, that concept of virtual history within a creation miracle.

Jennifer:
I mean, that's a great day when you get a phone call from a listener who says, "Look, I'm going to tell you something, that this has been able to really help in our discussions in my young adult group, that knowing the concept of how to bring into harmony a fairly recent creation date with the very ancient history of our world." And he said that he loved being able to start with agreement with this topic, and also with the climate change topic that we discussed last month, that yes, these things are real. And where do we go with this as Bible believers? And so this listener, Michael, called us, and made our day. He wanted to let us know what a help this has been to him. And our episode on the age of the earth is, I believe, our second most downloaded, most listened to episode that we have done.

Steve:
And you know, back to our football illustration. If we are passing down information to others, our children, others under us, that is not factual information, whatever the motivations might be that someone has, if it's false information, if it's not good, if it's not true, then that really is a fumble of the football. I mean, that's a bad play. It's a big mess up on the field and it is not going to end well. It's not going to bring points to the scoreboard at all. It's going to turn the ball over to the other team in the end, no matter how good the intentions are, no matter how hard they played that play. If it's not true information, if it's false, it is not going to end well.

Jennifer:
A young person who is taught things like dinosaurs were on board Noah's Ark as babies is going to eventually be faced with some facts that are going to hit them upside the head and really stop them in their tracks and cause them to think, wait a minute... And then if that happens again, and it happens again, if it happens enough times, you're going to be left wondering, can I believe anything I was taught? So we want to not throw the ball into the enemy's hands practically. We think we're doing this great play and the next thing we know, there's an interception and the ball's going the opposite direction because we are propping our kids up with false information when we allow groups to speak into them. Like Steve said, no matter what the motivation is, I don't know, but if we're not being honest all the way around and we're making up our own story that we think best fits the Bible, it is not going to end well. It is not going to advance the cause of truth.

Steve:
Right. Okay, let's talk a little bit about aging research. We discuss this in most of our podcast episodes and today, instead of talking theory, we want to talk about a little experience that to most folks is more interesting. And the theory behind the discovery of the anti-aging vitamins that we talk about here is freely available to anyone who would like to explore that, understand that further. But flowing out from the theory is this product that we call the anti-aging vitamins and flowing out from this product are testimonials, experiences.

Jennifer:
Now wait a minute here, Steve, because I can just imagine a new listener saying, "I came on here to listen to real science, real Bible, and now you're talking to me about anti-aging vitamins. Okay, what are you saying?"

Steve:
Well we go all the way back to the beginning of that real Bible and we find people who lived a whole lot longer, according to that story, if we believe it. They lived not for decades, but for centuries, hundreds of years. And so the question Dr. Aardsma had many years ago now was how, if this story is true, is there a scientific answer that we could eventually come to the knowledge of to understand how these people biologically, scientifically lived those ages. And so a whole lot of research has been done, a whole lot of information is out there, a product has come from it, through it, there's still a lot of research being done, tests being done, and anyhow we do have some experience to share now from those who have been taking Dr. Aardsma's anti-aging vitamins, we call it, for a number of years now. And today, I'm going to share a little bit from my own experience.

Jennifer:
Yes, so of course, I am Dr. Aardsma's daughter, and so we have been in on the front end of this discovery for a long time. The longevity research goes back even to when I was a little girl, honestly. Dr. Aardsma's wheels were turning about this question and about the event of Noah's flood and taking these things literally as true history, not myth, not legend, real. Could it be explained? And it must be able to be explained if it's real. Why life spans dramatically declined after Noah's flood and leaving us in the sad state today of aging and death by age 100. Suffering, the most prevalent form of suffering in our world today is aging and death as a result of aging. So 2017, an answer finally emerged from the decades of longevity research. And again, we were on the front end of it. So Dr. Aardsma, out of an ethical obligation, began to make this discovery publicly available as vitamin drops. Dr. Aardsma's Anti-Aging Vitamins. It's not vitamin C, it's not vitamin B. It's previously unknown vitamins that are missing from our diets today and are responsible, according to Dr. Aardsma's theory of aging, responsible for the disease of aging that plagues the entire population today.

So back in 2017, we were some of the first people to get this newly available product. But at the time it was called Vitamin MEPA because it was just the one vitamin that had been discovered. So we were wondering what should we talk about on the aging section this month. And I said, you know, there's quite a bit of history there. That was seven years ago. And then when I looked up your testimonial, your published testimonial, Steve, it said that you began to supplement vitamin MEPA on October 19th, 2017. So that is literally seven years ago, almost exactly as to the date of us recording this podcast. So it's high time we talk about it.

Steve:
I remember the first time I took the vitamins, they are drops, you put them in water. And we got our first shipment in the mail and we put them in the water and, you know, it was kind of a funny feeling. I put those in the water and I thought maybe I'd hear angels singing, the sun shine a little brighter. And I didn't, but you know, I remember that, taking it for the first time and giving them to our family.

Jennifer:
Steve was the first and it was because, partly because of some struggles, physically you were having at the time. And I said, what are we waiting for? You know, don't you think you should want to get this new vitamin and try this? So I was looking at your testimonial and reading through and I bet you don't remember a lot of this stuff. So I'm going to read this for us here and we're going to talk about your experience supplementing the anti-aging vitamins early on and then up to where we are today.

Steve:
All right.

Jennifer:
I wrote this in February of 2018. "Steve began taking Dr. Aardsma's vitamin MEPA dietary supplement as a 41 year old healthy individual on October 19th, 2017. In a few weeks, he noticed that he was sleeping more soundly and had more energy each day. It had been quite common in the past for him to say how tired he was in the afternoons and evenings. After starting to take the vitamin, he had more energy to stay up and have conversations late into the evening and rarely complained about being tired. Steve seems to be experiencing greater stamina and doesn't feel as worn out from the long ministry days. His Sundays at this time, you were involved in full time church ministry. His Sundays typically begin at 6 AM with a very busy day until 9 PM. After ending the day of church ministry around 9 PM, Steve still has had enough energy to enjoy watching an evening football game with the family while helping to get supper for the family, which includes several young children in the past, especially following the 5 PM choir rehearsal. He would often remark about how tired he was getting. In November, Steve fell on the stairs while carrying our 11 month old son." I did not remember this. "Steve whacked his knee pretty badly. Steve felt ill and a little faint from the pain immediately after the fall. And from past experience, he expected it to swell up and hurt pretty badly for the next few days. It did not swell up at all, although it caused him some pain that evening. The next day it felt fine and he was quite surprised."

Now I should say what I'm reading here is a published testimonial along with many others on the research website. We'll link to that in the show notes. Okay, so going on. "Prior to starting the vitamin, he had been having moderately severe intermittent lower back pain for several months. It had become constant pain for about four weeks immediately prior to beginning vitamin MEPA." And this I'll just interject here is the reason why I was like, do you want to get dad's new vitamin and try this? Because constant back pain all day every day where you're like hunched over walking across the yard is just very debilitating. So then reading on here, "This pain diminished very gradually after he began the vitamin. Within several weeks, it had subsided significantly. At the present time, it only bothers him rarely and when it does, the pain is much more mild."

Now I don't know why we don't have this in the published testimonial, but you went for some scans and were diagnosed with degenerative disc disease in your back. Going on, "He had been experiencing some fairly major acid reflux symptoms prior to starting the vitamin, which diminished into just some mild heartburn at times." Now, we know now seven years later that that was actually the beginning of gallbladder trouble.

Steve:
I had a gallbladder issue. I had my gallbladder removed.

Jennifer:
But it subsided and it behaved itself for quite a number of years after that. "Steve has had frequent headaches for over 10 years. He would take Advil about once or twice a week to help with the headache pain that seemed to come from working at his desk for long hours. Since starting vitamin MEPA, he has not had to buy any more Advil, and he has rarely had any headaches for the past few months. Steve usually complains of knee pain every winter, especially noticeable when going up and down stairs." You complained about this all the way back into our early marriage.

Steve:
Everything you're reading, which is bringing back memories to me, it's funny how when things are gone, pain or whatever, you don't think about it. You don't remember what it used to be like because it's gone. It's not on your mind all the time. Some of these things, they come and go, such as headaches. 

Jennifer:
We'll go back. I want to go back and hit some of these majors.

Steve:
That's probably the main thing I could say as my testimonial that used to be really bad. It was bad for a long time, even since some of my high school days-- I had knee pain. Since I started taking the vitamins, I do not have the knee pain. Now again, maybe there was a flare up here and there, but yeah, that's ... It's neat to remember that. That's gone.

Jennifer:
I said here in 2018, "He has not mentioned anything about knee pain this winter. Starting at the beginning of 2018, Steve began to try to lose some weight. He had tried a handful of times over the past 10 years or so to lose weight, but had been unsuccessful at restricting his diet for more than a week or two. As of today, he has lost a total of 15 pounds over the past six weeks. He has been able to limit his food portions and seems to feel satisfied with less food. If he had thought it has been tough to limit his food intake, he seems to have greater initiative and resolve than he had in the past. Steve's blood pressure had been elevated starting in the summer of 2017. His readings lately have been much better." Then there's a graph here that shows where he started taking the anti-aging vitamin and then how his readings were after that. "He has not noticed any improvement in his eyesight. It seems presently to be worsening. He reported on January 20th, 2018 that he seems to be needing to use his reading glasses more and more." Now we're going to update this here shortly. "Steve ran out of the vitamin the week of January 22nd. While waiting for his next bottle to arrive, he began to sleep more poorly than he had in several months. He also began to say, 'My back hurts.' And repeatedly to say, 'I'm tired' for the first time in many months. Although he was experiencing higher stress due to preparing for a big church event during that week, it is interesting that this apparent dip in wellness coincided with not taking MEPA for the first time in many months. Steve typically would deal with dry and chapped skin on his hands during the winters. Prior to running out of the vitamin at the end of January, he had little to no trouble at all with dry skin this winter. Since he ran out of the vitamin and began taking the vitamin again about a week and a half later, he developed dry skin on his hands that has not yet fully healed." Last thing from this February 2018 report, "Five days ago, our nine-year-old son, who is not yet taking the vitamin, came down with a flu virus. Later the same day, Steve came down with it too. Symptoms included fever, very sore throat, swollen glands, headache, and muscle aches. Our nine-year-old son seems to be getting back to normal now on the fifth day after sleeping a lot and feeling poorly each day. Meanwhile, Steve was back on his feet within a day and a half."

All right, so that's what we had just several months in. So here we are seven years later. We really need to update this published testimonial. But back pain, how's your back pain? Do you have any back pain?

Steve:
My back pain is, well, no. I mean, I have an occasional soreness in my back. But again, remembering back to what I used to deal with, that never did come back.

Jennifer:
I do not think you've had a single episode or flare-up that at all compares to those ones you used to have. They were very bad.

Steve:
I mean, I know some people struggle with serious back pain. But no, that's still gone.

Jennifer:
How about headaches?

Steve:
Headaches can come, but not as frequent as they used to. I know I don't drink enough water, and I think I suffer probably with some headaches because of that. But again, they used to be a lot more frequent.

Jennifer:
Now, I should say for our listeners, there was the first vitamin in 2017, and then in 2019, a second newly discovered vitamin was added to the anti-aging vitamins. So now it's the anti-aging vitamins, which again are not the same as any traditional vitamin, not any beet juice supplement out there. This is completely different.

Steve:
When you get the one bottle, it contains both.

Jennifer:
So what else did we talk about? You said the knee pain is still completely gone. Now we're not saying this is a miracle cure, but the thing about vitamins, if they're true vitamins, they affect the entire body, both physically and mentally. We've talked in some of our podcasts quite a while ago about other vitamin deficiencies and the terrible suffering that results. You don't have just one problem if you're vitamin deficient. It is manifesting itself all over the body, and that is similar with these anti-aging vitamins, but we call it "aging". But what it is, is the body missing something it desperately needs, and it's showing it in so many ways.

Steve:
We also find ourselves in an interesting place to have started taking the vitamins because I was in my early 40s. And so that's about the time when you start to see pains and aches beginning to come, right? As you're aging. If a teenager starts taking the vitamins, they're not going to see a whole lot. They're feeling pretty good already. They're already healthy, right? And if you're 75 or 80 and you start taking the vitamins, I don't know. We have testimonials of definite improvements, but you're so advanced in aging by that point as well. But when you're the age that we were, it was a good time to start to see, okay, is this helping?

Jennifer:
So what about illnesses? Just general flu, like we talked about there at the end.

Steve:
The other evening, I started feeling a little flu-ish, like I was feeling a little feverish. And I remember telling you, I haven't felt like this since I had COVID. I got COVID back in, whatever that was. And I don't think I've had the flu. I don't think I've had any kind of... I don't even know if I've had a cold since 2021, whatever that was. Now, I mean, I have allergies, not like I never feel bad or whatever, but as far as being laid out with, you know, bad sore throat, sick, flu, I just don't get that anymore.

Jennifer:
Your immune system seems to be very strong.

Steve:
And the other night when I had that, I woke up the next morning, it was gone. 

Jennifer:
Right. Woke up the next day, I said, "How are you feeling?" He said, "Fine." 

Steve:
And we knew we had the bug in our house because our son had been sick. And he did the same thing.

Jennifer:
And I thought, Okay, I thought he was going to have to miss school. Woke up and he said, "I feel fine. I want to go to school."

Steve:
So, yeah, I'd say that's still quite the thing.

Jennifer:
Yes. And our son, all of our children, our whole family supplements the vitamins, these anti-aging vitamins every day. Okay. So, as far as your immune system, this is so interesting. So, we said here you were having acid reflux. We did not know back in 2018 that it was the beginning of gallbladder trouble. But the trouble went away for a while, and then it began to pop up just like once a year or so. And you would have one of these episodes that we didn't know was a gallbladder attack. So in April of this year, you did end up having your gallbladder taken out. But what is so interesting is that the surgeon said that there was a lot of scar tissue in there and it took him a long time to do the surgery because you had had multiple gallbladder infections that your body had fought, had been able to fight. And he said, "You must have a very strong immune system." And so, the gallbladder trouble was held off for a long time before it finally got to the point that we had to deal with it. And even the surgeon remarked that your body was good at fighting those attacks off.

Steve:
I'd like to just think that it was just how tough I was. But I think it was probably because of... Yeah, I wouldn't doubt that the vitamins had a key factor in that.

Jennifer:
Now, are you looking younger?

Steve:
Oh, my. You should see me. I'm looking so young... Well, I would say, no, I don't think I'm looking younger. Now, I do have a beard and the beard's quite white. I think that adds to my appearance of age. I have had multiple people say they thought I was older than I actually am. So, no, I don't think my appearance is looking any younger.

Jennifer:
You will be turning 49 next February.

Steve:
Yeah. I had hoped my hair would come back on the back of my head. Nothing yet. No, not coming back. And so, no, I don't think I'm looking any younger. 

Jennifer:
Again, we're on the front end of this discovery. So, we don't know what the next 10 years hold. We don't know what the next 20, 30, 40 years hold. But we are expecting good things. And that is based upon so many people experiencing good things. Now, it's a battle raging in the body. I mean, aging is a serious foe to deal with. And it's raging in the body even when you're 40.

Steve:
It's raging when you're 10. I mean, the research is showing the sooner you can get these vitamins into your system, the better. If you wait till you're 40, 50, 60, 70, it may make you feel better. I mean, we don't know. We don't know what it's doing going to do. But the earlier the better because it's raging the day you're born. It starts, it's processes and anyhow.

Jennifer:
Your blood pressure is still good. We've checked that occasionally. It's always good. So overall, I mean, you're healthy. You feel good. You're able to have energy for our very busy family playing sports and running us ragged with all these things they're doing.

Steve:
And so, yeah. I would say in summary, definitely. Everything from being 48 going on 49, I think all that you pointed out there and I'm remembering back to those things, yes. It points up. Everything points to good, to progress. Definitely can't say that I'm just declining terribly at this age. Now, I will say, do I look older? Yes, I look older. No, I'm not 35 anymore and I don't feel like I'm 35. I don't feel like I'm 18. I don't feel that. But things have improved at the same time.

Jennifer:
And we didn't touch on the eyesight. So, back at the time I wrote this, I said you felt like your eyesight was worsening. I don't believe your prescription has changed in that amount of time. And more recently, you've been remarking to me on a couple things.

Steve:
Yeah. I am a pastor of a church, so I preach each Sunday and I have noticed that I don't need to use my reading glasses as much as I used to have to use them. I do still need them, especially for smaller type. But yeah, even in that, I feel like it's not getting any worse, at least not at this point.

Jennifer:
When I wrote the testimonial there, I mean, I was saying that you said you were having to use your reading glasses more and more. So now you're saying, I almost feel like I don't need them as much as I did. And I noticed that. I saw you up there preaching and reading off the pulpit with no glasses and just your contacts for your regular vision.

So anyway, we just wanted to share that from our own personal experience and helping to build the case that these vitamins are real vitamins and they are affecting the body. And like we said, you know, you have the experience side and you have the theory side and the theory side is very strong. It's published in the book, "Aging: Causing Cure". We're not just going off of anecdotes here, but it is part of it. It all goes together in this groundbreaking longevity work.

Steve:
And the theory is strong and our encouragement is it cannot hurt to take these vitamins and it can only help. And we know it's new. It's just coming out and in many cases, those listening have to take our word for it because you don't understand the theory. You can read it if you want to and study it. We hope that you will. But it would be foolish not to take these vitamins if you have this information.

Jennifer:
And aging is a certain thing. I mean, we know with great certainty what's going to happen without the vitamins and it's not a pretty picture. Nobody wants their health to break down. Like one lady I know said, "If we're going to be here, we might as well feel good." We got a lot of work to do for the Lord, you know, got a lot of things, a lot of your health and your body is most important for serving God in this world. So without the vitamins, you know where you're headed sooner or later with the vitamins. We are on a track to what we believe is a good destination. And that's what we shared with you here today. You can purchase the anti-aging vitamins through our new store. Go to thebcmessenger.com and you will be directed to where you can purchase these items on the BC store. All of the results of the research work here are available there for you and make it as easy as possible for you to avail yourself of this cutting edge research.

Steve:
We will now go into our Helen's View section, and this month Helen, who is Dr. Gerald Aardsma's wife, will give us a behind the scenes view as she thinks back into some memories of the past. This is called Thanksgiving Memories.

Helen:
Thanksgiving 1974. We were newlyweds in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. I purchased the smallest pre-basted turkey I could find. Stove, top, stuffing, pumpkin pie mix, whipped cream in a spray can, brown and serve rolls, sparkling cider, and all the trimmings. This was our first Thanksgiving as newlyweds. We would celebrate it alone, but so happily together in our little apartment next to the university. Preparations went smoothly. Gerald studied for classes as I made the pie and cooked the turkey. Our little table looked lovely with its spotless tablecloth, two matched place settings, from my hope-chest, candles, and ornamental gourds. I slipped the rolls into the oven just before we sat down to our private little banquet together. We bowed our heads and gave thanks to the Lord from our hearts for our new home and our blossoming love. We had eaten beyond the fill line when I jumped up from my chair and headed for the oven. The rolls! I had forgotten about the rolls. Oh, dear, too late. Oh, well, we couldn't fit another bite in anyway. After our Thanksgiving meal we enjoyed a quiet walk, hand in hand, in the brisk autumn air, down to the park beside the river. We watched the ducks for a while and shared some of our Thanksgiving bounty with them. They didn't seem to mind that the bits of roll we tossed to them were burnt. When we got back home we quickly deboned the turkey. What were we going to do with all that meat? Did the dishes, cleaned up the kitchen together, and sat down for a quiet evening of our favorite activities, reading, chatting, and watching our discus fish swim about in their aquarium. But our full stomachs and the warm indoors after our crisp walk outside soon conspired to make us drowsy. We headed for bed early, fully content, and both grateful for all our gracious creator had provided.

Thanksgiving 1994. Now a family of ten in El Cajon, California. Knowing that the grocery specials before Thanksgiving are some of the best of the year, I stocked up buying enough to last us for a few months. I bought several of the biggest turkeys I could find, the un-basted 29 cents per pound variety, canned pumpkin and two traditional family favorites, cranberry sauce and black olives. There would be 13 of us around the Thanksgiving table this year, ten in our family, and three young adult guests. We began our preparations the day before Thanksgiving. Jennifer 17, Laura 9, and I started with a major house cleaning. When that was finished I set Jennifer and Laura to work, making the pies. Two pumpkin, one apple, and one cherry. Rebecca too wanted to help, so we set her up with a little flour and dough which she quickly fashioned into a predictable mess. Culinary preparations continued throughout the day while Jennifer worked on Angel Biscuit dough, Laura made a Jell-O Fruit salad. I directed operations and pitched in whenever Baby Rachel was asleep or otherwise contented. Father Supper Mark 15 brought the 15 pound turkey in from the garage freezer and left a seemingly inevitable trail of dirt and sawed us through the house in the process. Later after a final clean-up I went to bed early, more exhausted than usual. Next morning feeling much refreshed by the night's sleep, I got up early and made the dressing, stuffed the turkey, and got it and some diligently scrubbed potatoes from our garden into the oven. The girls and I cleaned the house once again, hung out three loads of laundry. Thank you, Lord, for the lovely sunny weather, and set the table. There were too few pieces left in my good matching tableware set, so we settled for our every day definitely unmatched place settings. Matthew Four and Rebecca collected some flowers for the table and felt happy that they had contributed to the celebration. They then insisted on sitting and waiting at the table even though we would not be eating for another three hours. "No, we can't light the candles yet. Please go outside and play," I urged. Finally we were down to the last-minute preparations. While I nursed the baby in the quiet calm of my room, Jennifer got the home-canned dill pickles, relishes, and bread-and-butter pickles from the basement and arranged them on a dish for the table. Laura whipped the cream for the pies and I set it in the refrigerator. Stephen Thirteen brought a load of wood for the fireplace through the living room and left the inevitable trail of dirt and sawdust in his wake. Jennifer did a final cleaning in the bathroom. After an emergency vacuuming in the living room, I washed the youngest children's hands and faces. I noticed a little too late. The guests were coming in the front door that Rebecca now had mud on her dress. David, seven years old, firebug age, lit the candles. Jennifer filled the glasses with homemade sparkling grape juice, and I put the angel biscuits in the oven as we gathered in the dining room and squeezed in around the table. Before thanking the Lord for our meal, everyone in turn shared briefly something they were thankful for. A lump formed in my throat as I listened to what the children were thankful for—parents who loved them—a happy home, good food, bugs, bugs, toys, and a climbing tree. I had a hard time speaking when it was my turn. I looked at my precious new baby and the happy, healthy faces of my children and husband around the table. My mind went to scripture. How blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways. When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, you will be happy and it will be well with you. Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children like olive plants around your table. Psalm 128, verse 3. Gerald bowed and prayed as I kept my eye on the little ones who were trying to blow out the candles. I noticed David's very dirty hands and groaned inwardly. After the prayer I signaled him to go wash up while everyone began filling their plates. Then all was quiet for a few moments as we enjoyed the yummy food together. About the time we were all feeling the way the turkey had been a short while before, stuffed, I jumped from my chair and headed for the oven. "The biscuits! Oh, dear, I'd forgotten the biscuits. Too late." My mother used to forget the dinner rolls in the oven, too. I must have come by it genetically. After our feast we gathered in the living room before the cozy dancing fire in the fireplace for a brief thanksgiving devotional. Then it was time to begin the cleanup. Jennifer and I looked at the piled dishes in dismay. Rebecca insisted on helping, but we discouraged her and sent her with a book to daddy in the living room. We deboned the turkey. There would be enough for perhaps two more meals. Put the carcass in the refrigerator for soup for the next day and put all the leftovers away. Laura swept the floor and then we began the task of washing the dishes. Our guests helped out and we chatted happily as we worked together. By the time we were through Matthew and Rebecca had fallen asleep on daddy's lap and David had crawled into my bed and fallen asleep. Jennifer went to her room to talk to a friend on the phone and Mark and Stephen began a game of checkers at the dining room table. We enjoyed a time of grown-up conversation with our guests. The discussion taking itself wherever it pleased. Much later when our guests had gone, Gerald and I put the various sleeping angels in their beds. We snuggled on the couch before the last embers of the fire and chatted briefly about the privilege of being parents, the joys of the home, how quickly time was passing, and the big challenges which lay immediately before us. We headed for bed late, fully content and both grateful for all our gracious creator had provided.

Jennifer:
Hearing her share all that definitely puts you in the mood for the holiday spirit, for some Thanksgiving festivities with family and friends. It's enjoyable to think ahead to what this month holds.

Steve:
Hey, and our game plan as Christians is to follow the One who is the truth. We're going to go through seasons of doubt. We are going to go have questions. There's going to be times when it seems that the outlook isn't so good. We're a little nervous. In Christian apologetics, our job is to show that the facts actually are on our side. And in doing so, the morale of our whole team is boosted. The offense is emboldened to go forward, press on, and the defense is enabled to stand their ground.

Jennifer:
We hope that you have been empowered and encouraged with the information on this episode. The morale of the team is so, so important. And when we know the facts are on our side, when we know that this is a winnable battle, it does wonders for us in our individual Christian lives as well as the church as a whole and the cause of truth in our world today.

Steve:
So leave us a review on Apple Podcasts on Spotify. Visit our new website. We mentioned earlier www.thebcmessenger.com. Do you have a question? Do you have a comment? You just want to say hi. Hey, we would love to hear from you.

It's been a fun episode. Hey, after all this talking about football, you want to go through the football?

Jennifer:
What? I don't know how to throw a football.

Steve:
Oh, yes, you do. You've watched enough football. Jennifer is a true football fan now. She didn't used to be.

Jennifer:
I get excited for my kids. I cheer and ring my cowbell and everything, but I don't think I can get out there and play. I've enjoyed having the football illustrations this time. It's been fun. It's been great.

We will see you next month for our December episode. Meanwhile, have a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving.