September 2024: Discoveries That Seemed Delusional

Steve:
That's crazy. That can't be true. Until it is.

Discoveries that seemed delusional, but ended up changing the world. That's what we're going to be discussing today in our podcast. Welcome.

Thank you for joining us. This is the BC messenger podcast. Real science, real Bible, real history and real world.

My name is Steve Hall and as is the case every month, I'm here with my wife, Jennifer.

Jennifer:
We are your co-hosts for this monthly podcast and we sure do love bringing you this variety of unique content every month. This is season 3, episode 2 for September of 2024. Thank you for being here.

Steve:
Yes. Got my cup of coffee in hand. We're ready to go here in September, and in September, kids everywhere, Jen, are back to school. We have eight children of our own and they're back at it.

Jennifer:
They are back to school. Our oldest is back working on his graduate degree and getting ready to be a teacher in college for the first time. Then we have our five kids still at home and they are all back to school and doing some different things than what we have done in the past.

Steve:
That's right and it is amazing to think that scientific truths taught in kindergarten today, our kids will be learning things in science in their school and this year and if you have children in school, grandchildren, they will too. But it's something to think that scientific facts, truth taught today in kindergarten even, were unimaginable just a few hundred years ago.

Jennifer:
Yes, it is. I was in preparation for our school year and cleaning out some things, going through some books and materials and thinking about this podcast. I pulled two books off. I could have pulled many more. One is called Moon, Sun and Stars and this is written at an elementary level, learn about the universe. There are truths in this book that were laughed at just a few hundred years ago.

Also, I pulled off a book called Incredible Flying machines. Again, this is for 10-year-olds. Again, who would have ever thought that there would be a book called Incredible Flying machines?

Steve:
Yeah, we'll get into that.

Jennifer:
It was not thought of. It was definitely not anticipated by many people, but yet here we are.

Steve:
Well, that is our over arching topic today for our podcast, and we're going to get into that in just a minute. discoveries that seemed delusional in the day that they were being discussed and talked about and being discovered. And you know, it's also frightening to think that education, any type of education, can sometimes be driven, not by the truth, not by reality, but by agendas. And agendas often lead to false information.

Jennifer:
Yes, and boy, do we ever see that happening today. And it happens in different circles. From the far right to the far left, we can have agendas driving the information that's being taught to the next generation. And that really is scary because we don't want to teach agendas. We want to teach the truth.

Steve:
That's what we need. And ideas, based on the truth, ideas have consequences. So we want to labor. We want to pray to see the next generation coming up, that is being educated today, empowered with real world truth, not by agendas, not being led by ideologies or preconceived ideas. But the truth. Why? Well, for the betterment of our families, the betterment of our churches, of our communities, and ultimately of the entire world.

Jennifer:
Right. I mean, as we've said on this podcast many times in the past, all truth is God's truth. And when we give the unadulterated truth, we know it might be scary, it might take us to strange places, but in the end, it will always be for the good. It's going to lead to good places for the kingdom of Christ in the world.

Steve:
Right. Now, we here have some discoveries that we've been announcing, that to the average individual, the average person listening, can certainly seem delusional. And we will be talking about that some today in our podcast.

But, Jennifer, why don't you go ahead and give us the lineup for today, our bullet points for what's going to be on the podcast today.

Jennifer:
Okay. And before I do that, I just want to give a little encouragement to our faithful listeners. If you listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or another platform, leave us a quick review. It helps more than you know, and we appreciate that. So, if you get a chance, leave us a quick review.

Steve:
I'm always amazed at the people who now listen to things like Spotify. We have an elderly gentleman in our church, who's quite elderly, and he told me the other day that he listens to the sermons on his Spotify. And I was just kind of taken back by that. He listens to Spotify. He knows how to work that. It's awesome. That's where we are today. All right, go ahead.

Jennifer:
Okay. So our rundown for the month with this theme, underlying theme of education, which is a gift from God, and we're so thankful for the education we can receive today and all that can be done with that. Okay.

So our monthly roundup, we have, first of all, as we've already whet your appetite for discoveries that seemed delusional. We're going to go down the timeline of history with four examples on that theme. Then we have a quick research update.
Then we have our new section, "As a Matter of Fact." And we are going to give it to you kind of in a news briefing style. We're not going to take a lot of time to discuss it, but we're going to give something you've probably heard before, may have heard before, and then give you as a matter of fact about that topic.
And then closing out today, "Helen's View." And she is going to be sharing some thoughts, memories from her and my father, Dr. Aardsma's 50th anniversary, and how God has worked in their lives over the years. So we have a very full podcast today, as usual, and here we go.

DISCOVERIES THAT SEEMED DELUSIONAL

Steve:
So we were in a church recently this past summer. We were in a lot of churches this past summer, and I was setting up the table that we always set up, and we enjoyed every church we were in. Every church was a blessing to be in.

Jennifer:
It was a busy and very blessed, fruitful summer.

Steve:
And this one as well. But as I was setting the table up in this particular church, I had pretty much finished, but I was over on the side, and some folks were starting to come into the building. And there was one elderly lady with a friend, maybe, I'm not sure if it was a relative or a friend, with her. And as they walked in, they were looking over the materials on the table. A well-dressed lady, probably in her 60s or so. And she picked up a copy of Dr. Aardsma's book, "Aging, Cause and Cure." And she surveyed the cover for a second. And again, I'm over to the side. I'm not paying much attention, just kind of seeing them out of the corner of my eye. She surveys the cover, she sets the book down, and I heard her say, with a little bit of a chuckle, "That's just too much."

Jennifer:
I'm holding that book in my hand right now, "Aging Cause and Cure, 3rd edition." If she turned it over and looked at the back, it says, "The truth about aging. Have you ever felt helpless as you watched a loved one suffer and die due to aging? Do you dread the aging process in your own body?" And then it gives a couple of paragraphs there on the back of summary. And then it says at the end, "Suffering and death due to aging are no longer inevitable for you and your loved ones or for the world today." And it describes Dr. Gerald Aardsma, the Biblical Chronologist, as the author of this book. So you can't really blame the lady for saying that's just too much.

Steve:
Certainly talking about something like the cure for aging, understanding the cause for aging and the cure. I'm glad she was looking at it. I'm glad she was taking it in enough to make that, you know, in her own mind, judgment call. She was taking seriously what the title was saying. But yeah, talking about something like curing aging as a disease does sound crazy. And crazier still is the idea that the cure, as I just mentioned, is now known. And topping all of that off, that the cure has been found through data contained in the ancient book of Genesis in the Bible. So we certainly have something here that we talk about, and that we're putting the message forth that sounds crazy to us today in the present time that we live in.

Jennifer:
Right. I mean, when you are engulfed... I think Dr. Aardsma has a quote that we have put down some time ago, "When a person is engulfed by a misconception, the actual truth seems very strange."

And that's where we're finding ourselves today. All we've ever known is aging and death by age 100, breaking down of bodies, you know, frailty in your 80s, 90s. And so for someone to say that's not inevitable, definitely, that's all we've ever known, all we've ever seen, and so you are a nut.

Steve:
Right. But even though this is a new idea for our day, looking back through time, we can see that many world-changing ideas and discoveries initially sounded crazy too, too crazy to be true. Those ideas eventually, though, became accepted as fact. And the discoveries, as we mentioned a minute ago, are now talked about in kindergarten classes as absolute fact that everybody knows. Well, they didn't start out that way. This month, we're going to take a look at four of those.

Jennifer:
Yes, it's always good to look in history. And be reminded, wait a minute, how have these things gone? And this podcast, part of our byline, is real history. Now, usually, we are referring to Biblical history in that. But this month, we're going to share some real history on the topic of world-changing ideas, how they were initially received, and what the story looks like for these things in our past.

Steve:
Well, and before we get into these, it is important to remember, too, that we are talking about aging, and the eventual cure of aging if it's actually a disease. And many listening may not realize, I know many do, but many may not realize this is not a topic new with just us, here at Aardsma research and Publishing. This is a topic that is being talked about by many people today. The research, the money that's going into the research on this is pretty staggering, and it continues to grow, and discoveries continue to be made on this really unbelievable front.

Jennifer:
And there are many talking heads, or some anyway, that are trying to raise awareness that if we could solve aging, we could sure stop a lot of suffering and death in the world. And it's kind of like the Wright brothers when they were inventing their flying machine, a race was on, you know? Who was going to be the first to be able to put wings for man in the air? And I think that's kind of where we are today with the aging question, except Dr. Aardsma is miles ahead, light years ahead, because he's working from this real world data in genesis. It's going to be laughed to scorn, but in fact, that is the key that unlocks this mystery of aging. And there are many hurdles still to overcome. We don't have anybody who's a hundred who is youthful at this point.

Steve:
But Genesis is the only window we have into people that actually did live ages far beyond what we live today. There is no other window. There is no other data to look at as science works. That's how science works. We look at data from history, from experiments.

Jennifer:
It's great when you can have observations to work with. And that's what Genesis is giving us. And so if you're new to this podcast, new to this work, we have the longevity data in Genesis, and then we have the true nature of Noah's flood and what actually happened and flowing out of both of those things is the discovery of the anti-aging vitamins, two essential vitamins that went missing after the time of Noah's flood due to the nature of Noah's flood.

Now, that's too crazy. That can't be true.

Steve:
That's too bizarre to be true. Well, that is again the way it is with many important discoveries. Maybe we could say all of them look too bizarre to be true.
At the beginning. But God has hidden his marvelous truth in his awesome creation. That's just a fact. It's there. It's new to us because we're just discovering it. But this is part of what God wants his people to do as we take dominion over this this earth and discover him out, discover his creation and give him the glory for what he has done and what can be accomplished in this amazing world that God has created.

And contrary to what we may sometimes think, we have not discovered it all yet. We have not arrived. This is a mistake that many people make, even some of the most brilliant minds of our day, to think that we are finally there. We finally reached the pinnacle. God is so far beyond us and there's so much still yet to discover. And God allows men to delve into the truth of this amazing creation. We're born with the curiosity in this world, and we have the privilege to search it out. But we have to have an open mind. We have to be able to think clearly and to realize, really it's humility, in humility understand that we don't have it all figured out.

Jennifer:
So right before we get into our four examples, I'm going to read this quote from professor Mueller Hill, "In science and elsewhere, there are two types of truth. The first is the truth that everybody already knows. And the second is the truth that is not yet discovered. Most persons deal in science as elsewhere with the first type of truth, that everybody already knows. Most scientists just analyze another similar system and then produce simply more of the same. The second type of truth is different. At first, it looks too bizarre to be true, and it may be as dangerous as fire. If you are not clever, it may destroy you."

Steve:
Yes. And here at ARP, The BC, BC messenger, we are dealing with some of this second type of truth. And he's right. It may destroy you because people don't always deal kindly with things they don't understand.

Jennifer:
And it is dangerous, and it is quite a responsibility to know how to handle, how to present brand new truth that looks to the world too crazy to be true, that's going to have doors slammed in its face over and over again. Genesis? No thank you. We don't believe that.

Steve:
Getting in the way of preconceived ideas and people's reputations are at stake, not to mention in many cases their own livelihood. So there's a lot of hurdles. But you know what? If it's truth, in the end, it's going to be made known and it's going to be good for everybody.

Jennifer:
Sooner or later, and when it's a type of truth like this that has enormous, gigantic humanitarian implications, you really would like it to be sooner rather than later.

So starting on the timeline at the year 1543, we find a gentleman named Copernicus. We probably all heard of him, Copernicus. And what was he doing that was going to ultimately change the world?

Steve:
He had a view of the world that nobody else had in his day. So this was around 400 years ago in Europe and...

Jennifer:
Almost 500 years ago.

Steve:
Yeah, 1543. Questions were beginning to be asked because it was starting to be talked about within the scientific realms and with the thinkers of that day. People were asking questions with new ideas, startling new ideas. Could the whole world move? The world that we live on. Is the earth that we are living on actually moving? Well, that's crazy. That's an insane thought. We're standing here. We can see the...

Jennifer:
I don't feel anything. I don't feel it. I don't see anything flying past. We're not moving.

Steve:
But that's what these thinkers, and especially Copernicus, began to start to say, this strange idea that the earth is actually moving. We are moving. And back then, that was just completely shocking.

Jennifer:
It was a very startling new idea for sure. And, of course, the prevailing model of the universe at the time was a geocentric model, where the earth was fixed, and everything was moving around the earth.

Steve:
And that sure is what it looks like.

Jennifer:
Sure does. I mean, hey, I see that sun. comes up every morning, goes down every night. You could see it with your own eyes, of course. Everybody was familiar with the movement. You know, the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars, everything revolving around, of course, the earth, which even had theological implications.
Of course, that's how God would do it. This is the earth that he has redeemed, and everything goes around it.

Steve:
Yes, and even certain passages were used in that time in the Bible to try to argue against this by the church and others. So it just seemed like common sense was that these people saying this are crazy. I mean, we can see this with our own eyes.

Jennifer:
So Copernicus ultimately changed how educated human beings viewed the world by constructing the heliocentric theory of earth's relation to our sun. Sun-centered instead of earth-centered. And in fact, this little book I mentioned at the beginning, Moon, Sun and Stars, page 31, The Earth moves. "Have you ever seen the sunset? It looks like the sun moves down in the sky, but the sun does not move when it sets. The earth moves. As the earth turns, it looks as if the sun were setting. When the earth turns far enough, we cannot see the sun, and then we say it is night."

So here we are less than 500 years later. And we can open up a first grade book and read that.

Steve:
Now, you know, there are still those out there who want to disclaim this fact. Not that many, but...

Jennifer:
There's always a few of those faithful remnant hanging on to the ideas of the past, I guess, but...

Steve:
But, you know, thinking clearly about this and correctly, we can understand that now it's, you know, this is just fact. Now everybody, it's obvious if you were to try to say that the earth, and again, some do, that the earth is sitting still, now you are lapped to scorn because it's become commonplace. Established truth.

Jennifer:
Well corroborated theory. But when Copernicus first decided to publish his theory, and I did read that he was somewhat of a perfectionist, it took him a long time to put his book out there, the publisher of the book tried to soften it and just said that this was easier mathematics for predicting the movement of the planets. But in fact, the publisher should have said, this is a whole new way of looking at the reality of the universe. But they didn't want to say that. And here's the reasons.
Copernicus was challenging some big dogs. One you've heard of, named Aristotle.

Steve:
Yeah, heard that name before?

Jennifer:
Yeah. Aristotle had put forth theories, ideas, a geocentric model. So Copernicus was challenging him. He was also challenging the church, which was very powerful in his day. And he was challenging, of course, common sense. So the publisher of the book tried to soften it, make it sound like it wasn't that big of a thing. But in fact, it was huge. And there were some questions to answer. I mean, what kind of questions would you have if this was a brand new idea being told to you?

Steve:
My children ask me questions even today. They're trying to understand it in their own mind. I am too, right? I mean, how can people be on the bottom of the earth and not be falling off, right? How can it be curved? How can we be moving so fast and not feel it? Sure.

Jennifer:
And thankfully, we have these branches of science like physics that explain these things even in mathematical terms and everything that shows. Yes, this is what's happening.

Steve:
But his ideas didn't just take off overnight, did they?

Jennifer:
No, I mean, 150 years.

Steve:
150 years before his discovery would have become known to be true.

Jennifer:
Right, before the revolution that he was putting out there actually triumphed. And we had to wait for some other scientists to come along and help answer those questions. How come we're not being thrown off into space? Or how do things fall straight down? Those kind of questions, instead of on a curve, we had to wait for Kepler and Galileo and Newton to come along, and they contributed to helping to answer these questions and firm up this brand new theory.

Steve:
But somebody has to get that ball rolling. Somebody has to have the courage to begin the process of talking about it, putting it out there. And then more scientists come along, more people come along who take it seriously. And just like you were saying there, that's the way it always works. And yes, very good. Let's get to our second example.

Jennifer:
Okay. Example number two. Moving down the timeline.

Steve:
We're going now to 1609. We were just in 1543. So we are a good ways on into the future. 50 years. Another fella you probably have heard of, his name is Galileo.

Jennifer:
Galileo Galilei.

Steve:
Galileo Galilei. That's fun to say.

Jennifer:
That's a musical sounding name. I like it.

Steve:
If you're going down the road in your car or something, just say that Galileo Galilei. It's just fun. Well, he contributed greatly to the scientific world of his day as an inventor, as an astronomer, as a physicist, as an engineer. But his most important legacy is the scientific method. Roughly speaking, science is observation, hypothesis, testing, repeating. He would use that method and made discoveries that were very unwelcome to powerful people. And in consequence, his very life was threatened and constrained you. I'm sure you've heard the stories of Galileo. The one very famous story was the telescope and seeing into space things he wasn't supposed to be seeing.

Jennifer:
Or he couldn't be seeing. Absolutely not. That can't be true. And I was watching a little documentary again for school-aged kids. I guess that's how I best understand these kind of things. And on that video, it said, "Galileo courageously shared new science and math." And I thought, you know, we don't really think today that it takes courage to share math. You know, it's like, well, I mean, this is math and this is the fact.

Steve:
It takes courage to take a test in math.

Jennifer:
Yeah, right. Math can take courage. But usually, you know, you think of courage as standing up for some kind of morality or against the status quo of justice or something. But in this case, it's like he had to have courage to share new science and math.

SteveL
And well, because it's that dangerous truth we talked about. It's like fire.

Jennifer:
And I mean, I relate where we're sharing some new science and has math in it too, with the aging work here. And so that does take courage. But what's interesting about Galileo is he was on a real turn of a corner in history because at his time, the precursors of science were really, were at the forefront of most people's thinking. You know, astrology instead of astronomy or alchemy instead of chemistry, maybe magic, you know, mystical things instead of physics. And even with his simple observations through the telescope, he helped to bring in the scientific revolution where we look at the facts. And of course, new tools were coming on the scene that were giving us a new look, giving mankind a new look at the world. He brought in this new way of just looking at purely at the facts.

I read an article that said that we're still at the beginning, the relatively early days of scientific thinking. And I thought that was so interesting.

Steve:
Well, wait, no, we've reached the top, haven't we? I mean, we have Google, for Pete's sake, right? We have all this technology. No, there's so much to discover. And we may even be, like you said, in the early days of discovery.

Jennifer:
That's incredible to think of. But the universe really did change. I think it was November 30th in 1609, when Galileo climbed up on the roof of his house and looked through the telescope. He saw small moons orbiting Jupiter, kind of like its own miniature solar system. He observed the Milky Way being composed of innumerable stars, and he recorded the crescent phases of Venus. He sketched the pock-marked, imperfect face of the moon. And so the cosmos was opening up wide to him. But, once again, he faced some serious, serious opposition.

Steve:
And it's important to realize that his opposition mainly came from the church. And that's very sad. Of course, it's understandable. They were trying to protect and defend God's Word, but they did not understand it properly. And you, I'm sure, have heard the story. Galileo himself was even put under house arrest. House arrest, for the rest of his life. Because of his observations. Now, the church finally did apologize after it was made known.

Jennifer:
Good for them.

Steve:
But it took a little while.

Jennifer:
Hey, I was alive when they apologized. 1992. 1992, they apologized. Back in our early days of high school, the church finally decided to...

Steve:
Only took them 359...

Jennifer:
We're sorry, Galileo.

Steve:
No, I don't know how that worked, but I guess they made an official statement on it.

Jennifer:
Oh my goodness. Well, here's the thing. Galileo was discovering evidence to corroborate Copernicus' heliocentric model, but guess what the church, which at the time was the Catholic Church, told him and their statement was, do not teach or defend Copernicus' ideas.

Steve:
You can't talk about that. You're not allowed. Now, that's something.

Jennifer:
Yeah. We're going to put a label on you called heretic, unbeliever, and we're going to discipline you for these kind of ideas, and these kind of viewpoints that you're getting through this telescope, which at one point was even called the instrument that deceives. We're not going to admit what we're seeing through it. We're going to say something's wrong with it. It's bad. It's evil. So Galileo, burn the telescope and stop talking about these crazy ideas.

Steve:
Right. However, as we sit here today, again, in 2024, you could pick up a children's book and very clearly read what everybody now knows today. The obvious truth that, yes, what Galileo saw through that telescope actually was true, that the heavens were not perfect, that the moon did have craters, all these things that he found out. And so once again, we see that eventually the truth does come forward, and we begin to understand things more properly, and then more discoveries are made, more progress goes forward.

Jennifer:
I mean, literally, he fueled the dawn of the modern era of science. And aren't we all grateful for that? I mean, it could have been 100 or 200 years later before somebody else would have the courage to say, I'm sorry, but this is what I'm seeing, and you're wrong. And thankfully, we live in the modern era of science, and we can even begin to list the ways our lives have been blessed and benefited because of this turning of the chapter in history.

Steve:
Right. You know, interesting side note, our podcast is called "The BC Messenger", and that name was chosen partly because of Galileo. We considered various names for our podcast. I think we talked about The BC Voice, The BC Post, The BC Update, and anyhow, we eventually settled on The BC messenger.

Jennifer:
But there's a reason for that. It's tied to Galileo. So as a team here at Aardsma Research, we tossed these ideas around. But the name The BC Messenger is tied to the name of Galileo's book that he published. His many observations were published in the classic work,... I can't pronounce this... Sidereus Nucius, which I suppose is Latin or something, "Starry Messenger."

Steve:
I could pronounce it for you, but you did fine. You did good.

Jennifer
Okay. Thanks. So it's "The Starry Messenger", or the Heavenly Messenger was the name of his book, published in 1610, the first scientific work based on the telescopic observations. And so Dr. Aardsma, when we were naming the podcast, he said, "I like The BC Messenger. For me, it has hidden meaning. Galileo's book was called Sidereus Nucleus, which is usually translated as Heavenly Messenger. And we are doing the same thing that Galileo did. We are making data-rich presentations, fully aware that they will ultimately turn established views upside down.

Steve:
There you go. Now you know a little bit more why we call ourselves The BC Messenger. And that is a very important phrase there, data-rich presentations. That is what we want to do in this podcast, in this ministry that we have here, this work. Theology is important and it comes alongside, of course, in all of this. But this is what we are in such need of today, data-rich discovery and presentations.

Jennifer:
Right. I don't know if we really brought out the fact that, of course, the church was against what he was seeing and saying because they believed the scripture taught otherwise and their dearly held theological ideas about the moon being a perfect sphere, smooth, because it wasn't affected by sin, you know, these types of ideas. They did not want to let go of those things. And so, the theology got in the way of what the science was saying. And I'm thankful for guys like Galileo because they inspire us today. I mean, he was a regular guy. Obviously, very gifted and specially chosen by God, but he was a human. And so are we. And so are many people doing pioneering works today. And we're thankful for this example.

And I got to say this. As I was reading about Galileo, I saw that he had three children, I believe. His oldest daughter was particularly devoted to her father's work. And I thought, hey, that's pretty cool.

Steve:
Yeah, that is cool. All right, let's carry on our third example. We have talked about Copernicus and now Galileo. We're going to move up the timeline now all the way into 1879. And a name I'm sure you know is Thomas Edison. Thomas Edison, the great inventor, scientist.

Jennifer:
We don't have to wonder how he changed the world. I think we all know that our day-to-day life is greatly impacted by his invention of electric lighting, the light bulb, but electric lighting in general.

Steve:
But you're saying that this was questioned, that people didn't understand this? I mean, we all understand they can turn the light on. I mean, have electricity. I mean, hey, how could you be against that? I mean, we don't light candles anymore.

Jennifer:
We don't have to use this oil lamp, you know? Oh, yes.

Steve:
People had a problem with this?

Jennifer:
What the problem was, he couldn't get anybody to agree to have this electric lighting wired into their homes. They were afraid of it. There were a thousand questions, of course, and in people's minds, it hadn't really been tested.

We can't really grasp how large this burden was, when we are generations into the experience of electric lighting, but by the end of 1882, and I believe he first started establishing it in that year, the actual wiring of electric lighting, only 225 buildings in New York had been wired.

Steve:
In New York City.

Jennifer:
Yeah, which included the offices of JP Morgan, who was one of Edison's admirers and supporters. But they actually had to supply the current free for three months, to those who were brave enough to allow their places, to be threaded with these mysterious wires, which people worried, are we going to have an explosion any minute? Is everything going to catch on fire?
I mean, I just don't trust this. I've never seen anything like this before. We have never done this before. We're getting along just fine with how we've done it. This is dangerous.

Steve:
And you can see, humanly speaking, everybody's worried about this new discovery concept that we don't really need. You know, and again, this is the way it always is. I remember listening to, some years ago, a radio program, and they were talking about this. We had had these smartphones come out, but now they were going to talk about this great big one, this big thing that was going to be the size of a notebook, and they're going to call it, not the iPhone, but the iPad. And I remember thinking, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Why would you need a phone that big? Why would you need this? And we all know what an iPad is now, but we're human, aren't we? We can't understand.

Jennifer:
I did the same thing about the smart watch, which I am wearing on my wrist at this very moment. I thought that is ridiculous. You couldn't use something that small. How would you possibly send an email on it?

Steve:
It would probably give you cancer.

Jennifer:
Can't take a picture with that! It's hard to be a visionary and grasp what could come of it.

Steve:
And how many of you walked in your room now and just, you know, you're really scared to turn that light switch on because it might burn, you know, it might blow up, you know. But, you know, this is life now. We understand it.

Jennifer:
Well, and when we think of Edison, we often think of how hard it was for him to discover the light bulb. Right? We've all heard that in school growing up, that he had to try a thousand things or whatever until he finally tried the thing that actually worked, and made this first light bulb that would burn for a long enough period of time and everything. Yes, he had to go through all of that and actually get to his invention. But then he had to overcome the public resistance against it. Give away for free! I mean, for decades, he probably was thinking, "Man, this is going to be the day that I figure this out. I can't wait to tell everybody." And then all of a sudden, he finds out, wait a minute, nobody's welcoming this. You know, and once again, there are parallels with the aging research and Dr. Aardsma's journey. But I won't go into all that right now.

Steve:
Well, we need to learn from history. That's the whole point of all of this. Learn from history and maybe not repeat it. You know, it's hard for us to do that. Well, that's our third example. Let's get into our fourth. Our time is fleeting by here.

Our fourth example is now moving up the time scale, up the timeline to 1903, to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. There were two brothers. Remember their names? They were the Wrights, the Wright brothers. And it was commonly said just 120 years ago, you know what? If God wanted men to fly, he would have given them wings. It was statements against what the Wright brothers were trying to do in their day.

Jennifer:
And many others. But again, a theological or spiritual opposition to it. Well, God didn't give us that, so stop it. We don't have wings. That's a bad idea. God doesn't want people to be flying around. Well, actually, he must.

Steve:
Apparently, he did. Here we are. I just got off a plane not too long ago over here in an airport.

Jennifer:
And I don't know anybody who has a theological hang up with flying on airplanes. You know, they might have a phobia of it, but they probably don't think it's like against God's will.

Steve:
Well, it takes vision to see beyond the currently accepted limitations. It takes vision to turn dreams that other people would say... "That's too much. That's just too much." They dismiss it. It takes vision to turn those dreams into realities that actually end up changing the world. And God's behind it all. It's God's world. He has made it. He has hidden these things. I think God must have a good time. You know, just enjoys watching his children discover and even, you know, sit back and laugh. And then he knows what's coming.

Jennifer:
And he commissioned man to do it. From the very beginning. Take dominion. Solve the problems.
Figure it out. And that sure is what has been going on. And I mean, the air traffic all around this globe, every day in our world today, just 120 years ago was really unimaginable. You can watch old videos of them trying certain things, not just the Wright Brothers, but other people. And it is silly. It's funny. They were trying, but they weren't getting it. And some of those old black and white videos, they're just flopping down. And I'm sure some people got really hurt. There were different accidents and things that happened. But that's part of the process.
There were people that were laughed at, you know, news reports, trying, trying again and trying again. And you have to be willing.

Steve:
That's right.

Jennifer:
If you feel that this is my mission, you know, obviously the Wright Brothers were on a mission to figure this thing out. They didn't care who was going to laugh at them, who was going to be a naysayer or whatever. They worked on the problem. They piece by piece by piece figured it out. And boy, how they changed the world.

Steve:
Well, this has been good, a good reminder that we have to have vision. And we have to have courage and boldness to say the truth if we found it. You know, there's a passage of Scripture in the Book of Acts that talks about how we have seen these things with our eyes. Now, in that instance, it was talking about the Lord. The disciples were talking to those against the truth that they had been made aware of in Christ. And they were saying something along the lines of, "how can we not speak the things that we have seen and heard?" How cowardly would that be? That you have seen the truth, and even though nobody understands it, and it may be, they may be opposed for whatever reason, would it not be cowardly? How can we not, not speak the truth?

Jennifer:
How can we be silent? How can you be silent about something that has the power, potential even? Nobody can predict the future. Nobody knows anything for sure. But if you have the potential to change the world for good, in a small way, in a big way, how can you be silent?

Steve:
And here were four examples that we just gave of the same thing. Again, it's human nature, and yet the truth eventually wins in the end, and God is glorified.

Jennifer:
I thought maybe I would share a couple of thoughts, viewpoints from my insights into this aging research and from my experience so far. I have felt all along that this was something that God gave me to do. I have felt that strongly to be a voice, be a communicator for this work. And yes, I mean, it does seem crazy to a lot of people. And so, you know, there has been a personal cost involved in it. And I know, Steve, you are right here with me in all of this, of course. And there are family and friends who have not wanted us to get on this train or who have been vocally opposed or not vocally opposed. There are some people who will never ever bring it up. You know, there's personal costs. There are people who unfriended me on Facebook very quickly after I started talking about anti-aging vitamins, curing aging, Genesis, longevity. You know, I mean, I saw those things happening. But I'm not complaining.

I'm just saying it's encouraging to think about history and to know how these things can go. But my mind goes to a little lady named Shirley. She just recently passed away at the age of 87... 87 years, 6 months and 6 days to be exact. And she heard about the anti-aging vitamins in her early 80s. She already had a lung condition at that time, a serious lung condition. And the man who knows her, who has been kind of the bridge between Shirley and the anti-aging vitamins, a man named Tom, who has been a great friend to the research work here. He said that he never expected her to outlive her husband, but yet she did by a year or two, I believe. And so we don't know what her life would have been like without the vitamins. I know she wanted them. I know she was upset any time her supply got interrupted, and just wanted to keep the bottles coming to her doorstep. And so Tom just sent me the link for Shirley's obituary.

And so I had never met Shirley. I saw her picture there, and she was just a beautiful lady. And so I believe that the vitamins enhanced her quality of life. But I wish she could have had them from much earlier on and could have benefited from them. So I'm thankful for guys like Tom who support. I'm thankful for people like Shirley who've been able to benefit to some extent from the discoveries here.

And we see this on many fronts. And I'm also thankful for people who have been willing to give a voice to it. Because you have this new discovery, you have this well-documented work, but nobody wants to publish that or talk about it or put it on their platform. Just, you know, whenever you're on Wikipedia, let us know and then we'll talk about it on our platform. And you understand that people want to protect their reputations as we have talked about and as we see in history. But I am thankful for a very few who have been willing to put this out.

And one is a local reporter that we have here who has given us news coverage a couple of times. He's just a hometown reporter. His name is Will Brumleve with the Ford County Chronicle, and he puts out a great local paper and he has very kindly given some very extensive news coverage early on to the work here, the discoveries here, and I'm thankful for that. And hopefully he is leading the way. He's being a visionary. He's willing to put this out there, even though it's not going to be talked about in the Chicago Tribune.

We need those who are willing to say, "I will lend what I can do, my weight, to pushing this thing forward or to exposing people to it." Let them make their own decisions if they think it's crazy or if they want to take advantage of it, like Shirley did when she heard about it.

And we can't expect the big dogs to give us a platform. And that's why we rely on individuals like you who are listening to the podcast. This truth needs to be told. It needs to be given. And right now, we're just relying on the individual to tell what you know and what you've seen, what you've heard to those who need the same information.

So that was kind of a lot. But that's just really what's on my heart with all of this in a brief synopsis.

Steve:
Right. So, do we have the full picture yet? Are we completely there with the discovery? Do we have it all figured out? Well, probably not. But it has to start somewhere with somebody.
And definitely, there's something here. And it's, like you said, well documented. This is real science.

Jennifer:
It really is. And real Bible.

Steve:
Very good. All right. A brief look ahead as we are preparing for next month's podcast. We mentioned this on our last podcast. We want you to plan to listen next month, as we are going to be presenting a new theory of climate change. Is climate change real? If so, what is causing this? What does this all mean for us today? Again, we're presenting a new theory of climate change, global warming, based on Genesis. Real science. Real Bible.

Jennifer:
It is sure to give you plenty to think about, plenty to pray about, and a new understanding of the globe that we are living on. So plan now. This will be the October 2024 podcast discussing the topic of climate change. You may not believe in climate change. You may not trust the science on it. And we don't necessarily blame you for that. But listen in, because you're going to be surprised. And again, we are offering some world changing truth, very sobering, coming up on the October podcast. Please join us.

Steve:
We now have a research update since our last research update, which would have been all the way back in our June podcast. Dr. Aardsma has now published six additional newsletters continuing to piece together the route of the Exodus. These newsletters include the locations of places that you have read about in the Bible, the location of the Plains of Moab encampment, the mountains of Abarim, Mount Pisgah, Mount Nebo, the Kingdoms of Sion and Og, and the regions of Bashan and Gilead and many more.

Jennifer:
In Numbers 33, there are 41 Exodus encampments that are listed in the account. Through Dr. Aardsma's extensive recent work on the route of the Exodus, we can now locate 17 of these 41 encampments that are talked about in the Book of Exodus. We can find them on a map. We now know where they are. This is sufficient to show the basic route of the Exodus. This has been a mystery.

Steve:
You get a Bible map and you look at the proposed routes of the Exodus, and they're all over the map, literally. But now we can show the basic route of the Exodus, and now there really needs to be field archaeology, deliberate field archaeology to go in to these places by trained individuals to confirm this route and locate now the rest of the remaining encampments that have not yet been discovered.

Jennifer:
Our research updates usually cover one newsletter article, a new one, you know. But in this case, they've been coming out so fast that we just have to catch up here with this research update and just tell you these six additional newsletters have really continued to build on the case for the correct route of the Exodus. Dr. Aardsma has used his training in various areas to arrive at these conclusions. And he has drawn upon the available archaeology and of course maps, topographical maps, Google satellite images and all of these things to confirm these 17 sites. And it's really, really interesting. These last several newsletters maybe are more obscure as far as we don't necessarily recognize some of the places, but definitely some we do.

And again, just as you study the Biblical account and piece it together where this was happening, more comes to light and it just verifies this is real world. There are really legitimate travels by millions of people recorded here. So, as Steve said, we need more people with training, especially in archaeology now, to go in. I think what Dr. Aardsma is saying here is they need deliberate field archaeology done to be able to solve them. He says in one of these last newsletters that he is not trained as a field archaeologist and he has other Bible science urgencies that he needs to turn to, but definitely a strong, strong foundation has been laid. And how exciting it would be to see some young people get training in these fields or who have been trained in these fields, maybe not even young people, you know, middle-aged people like us, go out and just deliberately continue to work on these questions and build the case for the historicity of these Biblical accounts.

Steve:
Yes, and you can go on to www.thebiblicalchronologist.org and click on newsletters in the left-hand side or on the show notes. There's a link. You can have easy access to all of these newsletters that Dr. Aardsma is putting out.

Jennifer:
Now, we should make sure our listeners know that there isn't any other group anywhere saying, here are 17 of the 41 sites listed in numbers 33. You might have a group saying, this is this site and maybe here's another one over here, but you certainly don't have a coherent picture of matching the biblical records to this extent. It's unique. It's really uncharted territory and it's very, very exciting.

Steve:
Well, we now need to do our "As a Matter of Fact" section that we began last month on our podcast. So this month, we are going to be talking about a man that you may or may not have heard of who makes claims. Really, what we're going to be doing is flipping what we just talked about. Men who are experts in their fields, who are discovering things that are very hard to believe. But now we're going to be talking about a man who is not, or was not, an expert in his field that he presented, whose discoveries actually are easy to believe. So it's totally a flip here.

So let's just get right into this. As a matter of fact, so here we go.

You may have heard it said... the place of the Red Sea Crossing has been identified because chariot wheels have been found at the bottom of the Gulf of Aqaba in Egypt. That this is an amazing confirmation of the Egyptian army drowning, just as the Bible says.

Jennifer:
We hear this brought up quite a bit in different churches we've been in. People are familiar with these claims and videos, etc.

As a matter of fact... this claim is not credible, and this is pseudoscience. The "chariot wheels" information comes from the work of Ron Wyatt, who was an American nurse, anesthetist, and an amateur archaeologist. On this episode, for just a couple of minutes here, we're going to give you rapid fire, several reasons why this discovery of quote chariot wheels and other similar claims should not be seen as legitimate or appropriate material for Christian apologetics.

Ron Wyatt was a Seventh-day Adventist whose work is fairly widely known in Evangelical circles. For some reason, when it comes to certain things, they are easy to believe. And again, it's just humanity.

Steve:
According to Wikipedia, Ron Wyatt, as you said, Jennifer, was an American nurse, and anesthetist. And an amateur archaeologist. He claimed to have made almost a hundred biblical archaeological discoveries. And then after his death, his wife carried on with publicizing his work.

Ron Wyatt is really doing, or was really doing little more than walking around, pointing to something laying on the ground, something up on a mountain somewhere, holding it up as a long lost relic. But you know, it doesn't work like that. That's not how science is done.

Oh, here's an interesting rock. Here's a black top on a mountain. Here's a rock that's split in half. So this must be the rock that the water came from. That's not how it works. The Israeli antiquities Authority has stated that, "Ron Wyatt is neither an archaeologist, nor has he ever carried out a legally licensed excavation in Israel or Jerusalem. In order to excavate, one must have at least a BA in Archaeology, bachelor's, which he does not possess, despite his claims to the contrary."

Jennifer:
Dr. Aardsma has a section on his website where he answered a reader's question about Ron Wyatt's work. He points out three falsifications very quickly. There's an individual who's very closely associated with Ron Wyatt, who did not apparently believe the chariot wheels, and he chose to place the Red Sea crossing at a different site. So he was not convinced. So that's definitely raises some questions there.

Secondly, and here you go, I mean, this is big for us here at The Biblical Chronologist,
Wyatt predictably ignores proper chronology. He moves people and events around on the timeline, does not take into account scientific dating methods or the well-established Egyptian chronology. So that's a red flag.

And then thirdly, his Red Sea crossing site leads to a Biblical region where he says Mount Sinai is located, but yet reading of the text places Mount Sinai outside of that region, reading of the Biblical text. And so that also raises some questions.

So Dr. Aardsma says at the conclusion of his lengthy explanation, "Let me merely point out that it does not take a great deal of imagination to see how chariot wheels and many other commodities might have wound up on the sea floor of this ancient shipping lane through circumstances having nothing at all to do with the Exodus. The story of the Red Sea crossing and the Exodus is very real, but we cannot go about trying to discover these things and prove the stories to be true in the wrong way. And this is an example of that very thing. And in the end, it just does more harm than good."

Steve:
Yes. Online, we saw, or read somebody saying, "Wyatt is gone. He did die some years ago now.
Wyatt is gone, but his assertions and confusion live on."

Jennifer:
That's right. And that's unfortunate. And it does harm to the cause of truth and advancing real discoveries when you have pseudoscience like this. And so we want to help correct these misconceptions.

Steve:
Wyatt is gone, but the same kind of thing continues today, unfortunately. And we'll probably be getting into more of that in a future, "As a Matter of Fact", in a future podcast.

All right, let's go into our Helen's View this month. Helen is going to be talking about Dr. Aardsma, which is her husband, of course, Gerald Aardsma's and Helen's 50th anniversary.

Jennifer:
She shared some of these thoughts at a family gathering we had recently and is now sharing it with you here on The BC messenger.

Helen:
In August, Gerald and I celebrated our first 50 years of marriage. It is truly hard to believe that so much time has passed so quickly. As I have been working with Sam, my grandson, this summer, he has asked quite a few questions about our family history. He encouraged me to do a slideshow for our 50th anniversary celebration, so he could learn more. I am so glad he did.

As I prepared the slideshow, I had so many emotions as I went through all of my photos. I have hundreds of photos. My overwhelming impression was of so many wonderful, joyful times and of God's faithfulness to Gerald and me over these past 50 years. So many lives added to our family.
So much love I thought my heart would burst. So much laughter, singing, playing, walking, reading and just living a very full and happy family life. I had some sad emotions too and cried some fresh new tears from sad events that happened some many years ago.

As in most families there is and has been deep sorrow and sadness, hopes and dreams that died, sometimes a very slow and painful death. This is the way real life is and part of our story of 50 years of marriage. We spent 15 years of debilitating illness with Gerald, a rough and scary time, and owe the joy and miracle of Gerald's healing through his own research and God's goodness.

Some loves were lost, our hearts were broken. Three beloved and longed for babies were lost to miscarriage, and some adult children left our family going no contact. Others left that were struggling with mental health issues. We love them all so much and miss them terribly. Many tears cried in those lonely middle of the night hours.

God has never failed us and was always there. He was always faithful, and he gave us the strength and courage to go on. Healing takes time, and over time, God gave us peace. "In acceptance lieth peace", as Amy Carmichael said. My heart is always with my big kids and their children, wherever they may be, but there is nothing like it when the rest of me gets to be with them too. My favorite thing in the whole world is laughing with my adult children and grandchildren, realizing how much I truly enjoy and cherish just hanging out with them all.
We are always cheering our children on and our grandchildren on, praying for them, that their dreams will come true.

The happy, precious and amazing fun times together as a family were just a million tears of joy. I was overwhelmed and rejoiced as I looked at the hundreds of pictures, and in awe over and over again about God's goodness to Gerald and me. Gerald and I have lived through so many miracles. Our lives were dedicated to the Lord from day one and we longed to be in full-time Christian service to make a difference in the world. I remember when we left California to move to Illinois, my dear friend Judy Sharfenberg told me as we hugged and cried together, "Helen, you and Gerald are on a great adventure. I'm actually jealous of you both as you venture out to God-knows-where in faith that God will provide your every need."

When we went back to Canada for my parents' 60th wedding anniversary, we visited with a childhood friend of mine named Carol Scott. She said, "Helen and Gerald, you left Cornwall and went on a very long adventure together, and look at all that the Lord has done in your lives.
I wish I could have lived the life you have lived." There are so many miracles and adventures, both big and small, that I could share. And some I have already shared with you, our beloved BC Messenger audience, and there will be more sharing in the days ahead.

Gerald and I are still on our adventure and believe there are even more miracles and many more exciting days ahead. Gerald and I desire to follow God wherever he might lead. Oh, how he has blessed and honored our choice to follow him. Gerald and I look back over it all, all that God has done for us and our family over the last 50 years. It is a story of God's amazing grace and God's abundant faithfulness.

Jennifer:
So hey, as we close out here today, we know that we are into the month of September and the leaves might be starting to give a hint of fall approaching, depending where you live, you get that little crisp feeling in the air in the mornings, and you see the school buses coming and going early in the day, then later in the day. Let's just take a minute to be thankful for the gift of education, and how God enables us to learn more about His Word and His world, and for the history that we have of people who have advanced truth through advancing education in their day. And we're thankful for that.

Steve:
Yes, and no matter our age, we should always humbly be seeking to learn and to grow in our understanding of what God has done in this world. Education is an amazing gift from God. Let's steward it, and let's steward it well. Until next month!

Jennifer:
Leave us a quick review, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen, and tell a friend, and have a wonderful, blessed month.

Steve:
We'll see you next month.