BCM September 2022

Steve:
Well, hello and welcome to The BC Messenger, Real Science, Real Bible, Real History, and Real World. This is thebiblicalchronologist.org messenger newsletter, the September 2022 issue. And my name is Steve Hall, and my wife, Jennifer, we host this newsletter podcast.

Jennifer:
Hi friends. Good to be back with you here for the September podcast.

Steve:
Yes, we do welcome you and Jennifer and I have had a great time. We really have preparing our content for this month. And we're just going to dive right in. That's kind of a play on words today because our special focus is on the ancient event of Noah's Flood. By the way, let me mention this right at the beginning. You can now subscribe to the podcast, The BC Messenger, wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now subscribe to the podcast and have it delivered to you. And a reminder sent to you that this is available. 

Jennifer:
Hey, that's pretty awesome. Comes right in your feed, your podcast stream every month when we release a new issue. That is great.

Steve:
Yes, it does. Well, let's move right into this today. The first thing that we're going to talk about is our quote of note this month. And here is our quote by Dr. Gerald Aardsma. "If Noah's Flood was a real event, then it needs to have a real date. If it does not have a real date, we might as well be discussing Goldilocks and the three bears." Well, that is a good quote and might sound a little harsh, you know, those of us who see a story such as Noah's Flood as sacred to us, to put it in the same camp as Goldilocks and the three bears, which of course we do not see as sacred. But the truth is, if these things cannot be found in the real world, these accounts, these stories, then we really do have a problem no matter how sacred the topic is to us. And that's what we're dealing with in this issue. Many people do not believe that the story of Noah and the flood was a real true event. So was it? Was it not?

Jennifer:
All right, so that takes us right into our featured book for this month. Our featured book is Noah's Flood Happened 3520 BC, and it is by Dr. Gerald Aardsma. This research book, we're going to talk about it today. We're going to talk about some of the groundbreaking ideas in this book, some of the questions that are answered by this 380 page book. First, let's just talk about the title of the book. It's an important title. It does not merely say Noah's Flood happened. That statement by itself would be an interesting claim for an author to make. But the title goes on to say when this event happened. And so in doing so, it pins the event to the real world. It gives us an anchor point from which we can go and investigate this claim that's being made that Noah's Flood happened. It's giving us a date, 3520 BC. Here at the BC Messenger, here in the work we're doing, we like to say often that true stories happened in real-world history. When discussing something like the account in the Bible of Noah's Flood, we're talking about a major event that wiped out entire civilizations. People in many locations around the globe were living their lives. They had families, they had civilizations, cultures, and they should have vanished, completely wiped out. So we can't just say, well, yes, we know Noah's Flood had a real date, but we don't know what that date is. We can't figure that out. We have so much available to us today in archaeology and in dating that we can, we can find these events in the real world if they happened. Also, it's not going to do to give a date that just doesn't work. The unbelieving world knows this and they like to point it out because there are dates given for Noah's Flood that do not work. And maybe you've been on social media and you have seen some of these memes pointing this out. This kind of brings us to the some of the fun parts of our episode this month. There are a couple of memes that we've selected to talk about here on the podcast today. There were plenty to choose from, but I picked out a few here and Steve's going to read them for us, pointing out why these folks believe that Noah's Flood is nothing but a myth.

Steve:
Yeah, here's the first one. If you have the newsletter, you can see the picture there of Noah's Ark with some elephants hanging off the end of it. And you know how these things go. Here's what it says. "We know the biblical flood never occurred because there were great civilizations thriving during that time. They kept good records and neglected to mention that they were all wiped from the face of the earth." Then it lists the Chinese, Neolithic dynasty, the Egyptians, dynasties 4, 5 and 6, Mesopotamians, early dynastic period, the Sumerians, the Peruvians, and it goes on and more. And then the meme ends by saying "We find a continuous line of culture, construction, art, and historical records that runs through the time Noah's Flood was supposed to have happened." Well, if that's true folks, then we do have a problem, don't we? Is the story of Noah's Flood true in real world history? When it happened, were all of these civilizations truly alive and well and doing fine? That's what the meme says. Well, here's another meme. One right after that we put in the newsletter, it says "Global Flood wipes out everything on earth." And then there's a timeline with all the information and then it ends with a funny little phrase. "The Egyptians are like, 'Eh.'" With a hand wave. So again, another meme there, contradicting what the Bible says took place in real world history.

Jennifer:
Okay, so we are going to agree with the memes, actually.

Steve:
What?

Jennifer:
We are going to agree with the memes because they are discussing the traditional date of Noah's Flood. It's all about the dates, folks. We have to remember this when we are talking about events in the real world. We can't find something if we are millennia off or even hundreds of years off from when the event actually happened. So yes, we are going to agree with them on the date. The traditional date is approximately 2400 BC. This is the date given by Usher's chronology and the date that you are going to find on most timelines which are utilized in evangelical circles today. If you, well, for example, I did see even a homeschool company that offered a timeline for sale and I love timelines. I love using them in our homeschool. They are so much to be gleaned from proper use of a simple timeline. So I was curious. I looked at the timeline this company had for sale and they in fact did not even pin a date on Noah's Flood, but they labeled it as prehistory. And this was from a Christian company labeling Noah's Flood as prehistory. You want to know why they are doing that? Because they do not have a functional date. And so rather than put something down that just doesn't work, they don't put a date at all. So that certainly reveals a lack of ability to find this event in the real world. So it's all about the date. The traditional date does not work of 2400 BC, but Dr. Aardsma's new approach to chronology works beautifully. The missing thousand years, which you can read all about at some of the links that we'll provide for you, pushes the date back to 3520 BC as the title of the book tells us. And if you look at 3520 BC, as is carefully explained in the Noah's Flood book, you do indeed find civilizations disappearing without a trace.

Steve:
It really is amazing when you see these things and you get into this book and you begin to see how the timeline in the real world in history, and again, Mesopotamians and what is it, the Ceide Fields?

Jennifer:
Ceide Fields in Ireland. Yes, some of these ancient civilizations that have been able to be studied, but yes, around different pinpoints like that.

Steve:
And right at the right time with the new date, the corrected date, these civilizations do go missing as these memes again pointed out that we read a minute ago, they are gone. It's fascinating.

Jennifer:
Back at the correct date of 3520 BC. And it's interesting if you read, you know, the archaeologists or the people that are studying these ancient cultures and wondering what happened to them, and they want to propose theories like some kind of climate change happened and they all disappeared. But in fact, we know from the biblical account exactly what happened. And it was a flood that God sent in judgment.

So moving on, I wanted to point this out as we continue on our theme of Noah's Flood. We can learn so much from the account of Noah's Flood and indeed probably millions of sermons have been preached and lessons have been taught based upon this ancient account. But some voices today, such as Jordan Peterson, who has quite a voice to the millennial generation and young people, he will say that it doesn't really matter if these ancient biblical events actually happened or not because what really matters are the lessons that we're supposed to learn from them. So he's taking it out of the real world and he's putting it into a myth category, but saying but these stories have endured. So let's learn from them. But here at the at The Biblical Chronologist, we do differ from that idea because, after all, I suppose we could learn some good lessons from Goldilocks and the three bears too. But I'm probably not going to base my life upon lessons learned by a fairy tale about Goldilocks going into the woods. But I do want Christians, and I want my children, my young people, to base their life upon the truth of God's word and knowing that the God that Noah served is the same God we have today. And so in that light, we want to see these things as much more than just important lessons, but real world accounts. So the historicity of Noah's Flood matters immensely.

Steve:
It matters very much. Yes. And well, Jennifer, here's another meme we have on our newsletter. It raises another good question about Noah's Flood. It's titled Noah's Ark Nonsense and tells us, as it says in Genesis 7, that rain fell for 40 days and nights and flooded the entire world and covered all the highest mountains. And then the meme goes on to tell us that rain fell on Oahu, Oahu, Hawaii continuously for 247 days and nights, August 27, 1993 through April 30, 1994. And guess what? It didn't cause a global flood. And then it ends by saying, "Just more nonsense from the Bible." Well, you know, the question raised here is basically, where did all that water come from? We've all heard that question. We've all thought that before, right? Where in the world did all of the water come from? Because the Bible does say that it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. And so the meme presents a very good question. And that question, where did all the water come from? naturally is followed by the question, then, where did it all go? That's a fair question. Deserves consideration. This question is answered in detail again in the book, Dr. Aardsma's book, "Noah's Flood Happened 3520 BC", by the hemispherical flood model that's presented in this book. You can see, for example, in chapter 24, you may not have heard of the hemispherical flood model. You may not have heard that before. Usually either a global flood or a local or regional flood are talked about when these things are brought up, when these things are discussed. But in Dr. Aardsma's hemispherical flood model, which would have been of gigantic proportions, the water from the southern oceans flowed up into the northern hemisphere during Noah's flood. And as this meme points out that we just read, 40 days of rain alone would certainly not have caused a flood of these proportions. But the waters of the southern oceans flowing up, well, yeah, that definitely would have. Again, this may all be brand new to you. It probably is. And maybe we can wet your appetite here a little bit, and get you to get these books, read this book, understand these things. How would the waters have flowed up? Boy, that's a good question. How would the waters have flowed up? Well, all I can say for now is that you really should read the book. It's fascinating, and it provides a physical mechanism, scientific, for the historical event of Noah's flood, which did happen in real world history, 3520 BC.

Well, there are many other memes that try to point out that the Bible isn't true. By raising good questions about the particular event of Noah's flood. And as Christians, we don't need to fear, cower away from memes and questions such as this. We do have answers. We need to have answers. We must, if this is really true. Maybe we'll be able to share more of them in the future. If you see one, by the way, send it our way. We'd love to see it. We'd love to address the question. These questions do have answers as we gain a proper understanding of God's Word and God's world as related to this particular event of Noah's flood.

Jennifer:
So "Noah's Flood Happened 3520 BC" is available as a free download. You can go on to thebiblicalchronologist.org website and get this 380 page book as a free download and read it on your e-reader or your computer. Printed copies are also available for purchase. And even though it can be downloaded for free, I honestly do suggest getting the physical copy of this book. I think these are just such important resources to have on hand. It'll be a great reference book for your library. And really, it's an important apologetics resource. Our young people are being faced with a lot of questions today. And if they're faced with the questions, we need to empower them and equip them to be able to have answers and to be able to think these things through and to consider new ideas, maybe that they haven't known before that will give them a greater level of confidence in believing the scriptures. So right now, as you're listening to this podcast, we are running a special sale on this Noah's flood book. It is packed with cutting edge research and the normal price of the book is $49.95. But during the time of this podcast for the first week after it's released, we will be having a special sale of $24.95, which does include shipping. And I believe that's an amazing value. I mean, this book is answering questions that have not been answered before. That's just the truth. So it is well, well worth it.

Steve:
You know, someone might want to go online and again, it's a free download. You can go on there and look it up. You know, look at the chapter titles, maybe read a portion of it and then think about getting the book itself, having it for again, like you said, sitting on your table, sitting on a bookshelf to be picked up and read. So you do have that option. Go on there and look it up and for free and take advantage of this price. It's a good deal.

Jennifer:
Yeah. And it should be in church libraries. It should be on pastor's bookshelves. It should be a handy resource as we teach and understand more about these ancient events. So yeah, some of the chapter titles, section titles, The Historicity of Noah's Flood, The Genesis Record of Noah's Flood, The Geographical Extent of Noah's Flood, The Mechanism of Noah's Flood, which again, I think that's a cutting edge area of research that really nobody has effectively ever addressed. The Nature of Noah's Flood and The Hazard of Noah's Flood. Chapter 43 of the book is an epilogue section and it is called Radio Carbon Dating Noah's Flood. And I have to mention this because here at the biblical chronologist, we are not afraid of radio carbon dating, and we address the issue head on. Dr. Aardsma specialized in carbon 14 dating during his years at the University of Toronto and other years of his education. And he is fully equipped to talk about radio carbon dates and how they pertain, the bearing that they have on questions like the date of Noah's flood. So I think you'll find that pretty interesting and definitely unique in Bible-believing circles. So I hope you'll take advantage of it.

Steve:
Let me just mention the mechanism. When you get into this, if you'll take the time to seriously read it, you will see Dr. Aardsma is a scientist. He's not a theologian, and he has used his expertise in showing that these passages in Genesis that Noah put down, the account is like someone keeping a journal, a scientific journal record, completely coinciding with the real world in science. And showing how the world is made. And again, I don't have time to go into all the details here, but it's just fascinating that the Bible is proved to be true in real world history and in science. And I just I could go on and on, but get the book.

Jennifer:
Yes, I hope you will. I hope you'll take advantage of this sale, which is lasting one week for getting this book delivered into your mailbox for $24.95. The purchase button will be on the written version of the podcast and in the show notes as well.

So as we transition into our next segment, I did want to mention the only reason that the anti-aging vitamins were discovered was because of the foundational work of the Noah's Flood book. Our next section pertains to the anti-aging vitamins and many of you are familiar with that part of the work here to some extent. But if it had not been for the groundbreaking work on Noah's Flood that Dr. Aardsma did, and published the book in 2015, we would not have the anti-aging vitamins available to us today. So it's been a path to discovery and I think you'll be fascinated by it.

Steve:
Yes. And what we have next is our one of our latest testimonials from Sandra, who has been taking the anti-aging vitamins. She began the summer of 2022. Sandra is 74 years old and she relayed the following information to one of our staff members. Sandra is excited about how good she is feeling since taking the anti-aging vitamins. She said she is sleeping better, has more energy, has been cleaning her house, which she hasn't been able to do much recently, and is not as achy. She feels like her body temperature is regulating itself better and the heat is not bothering her as much. She said, "I wish they had come out with this sooner because I might not have gotten in the bad shape I'm in. I've been looking for something to help me feel better and I'm so glad I got this." She said she's been telling others about it and telling them they can call and order as well. She readily agreed to publishing her experience with the vitamins and ended her correspondence with the following line, "You have a good day. I know I'm going to."

Jennifer:
Yes, great to hear from different customers as they share their experience with us. I have something a little bit fun I wanted to share in keeping with our theme of Noah's Flood for this podcast. Sometimes our customers come up with their own name for the vitamin drops. They maybe don't want to call it Dr. Aardsma's anti-aging vitamins, so they come up with some little shorter name that they use in their household. One customer calls the vitamin drops "Noah Water" and another couple calls it "Flood Water." So I think that's pretty funny. And another name that was given by a customer some time ago, they like to call it "Eden Drops." So all those people are giving their own little take and showing the level of understanding they have about how this discovery was made and I just love it.

Steve:
So you're welcome to call them whatever you want. It's a vitamin. That is really what it is. And that is fun. I remember we had a fella in our church years ago. I think he was the first one I heard to do that. Was he the one to call it Noah's Water?

Jennifer:
Flood Water. Flood Water maybe.

Steve:
And if you're listening, you know who you are. Alright, well let's go to our next section. We have produced a new music video. Our family, the Hall family, we do like to sing and we have some little ones that love to sing and play instruments. And Dr. Aardsma requested, by the way Dr. Aardsma is my father-in-law, if you haven't put that together yet, he requested this song to be added to the video section of the biblicalchronologist.org website. And our family really enjoyed doing this little song. Our son Ethan, who is a student at Bob Jones University, he was the director and cinematographer of this video. And all of us at the biblical chronologist hope that it will be a blessing to you. The link is on our newsletter that hopefully you have, and have been reading. It's also on thebiblicalchronologist.org website under videos if you would like to watch it there.

Jennifer:
And it will be in the show notes of the podcast as well. Yeah, so the title of the song is Just the Same. And the song is talking about the God that lived in Moses time is just the same today. And so we did really enjoy making this music video at my dad's request. There's a little history on this particular song choice. This is a song that Dr. Aardsma remembers going all the way back to his childhood and the verses that we recorded pertain to the work that he has done as the biblical chronologist. We did a verse about Moses and a verse about David. And so it's a special song to him. He grew up in the home of a Baptist minister and his mother as the pastor's wife taught this song to her children that they could sing it as a special number in church. And so it has a special meaning to him in that. And then it has a special meaning to me as well because I remember singing it as a child and having dad teach it to the kids in the home there and singing it in family devotions. Sometimes he would sing the verses and all the kids would join in on the chorus. So it was really a special honor for our family to be able to record it and share it with you. It was a very hot August day, but the kids did a great job and we're very pleased to be able to use this song to minister. And something else that was mentioned is that this song actually spans four generations in our family. So that's very neat. In the video, I have to mention this, you will see a special book pulled out of the picnic basket in the video. And the title of this book is The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes. My Dad used this book in family devotions when I was a little girl. Steve's parents used it with him when he was a little boy. And so it's just neat to be able to include that on the video. And again, we do hope it'll be a great blessing to you, and share it on your social media and encourage people that we serve the same God that Moses served that David served.

Steve:
Amen. Our family does love to sing and minister, and if you would like us to come and present the Bible in real world history, such as the story of Noah's flood and the research behind it, as well as have a sing, we'd love to come. Our ministry there is called Truth in Time and we have a website, truthintime.org if you're interested in that.

Jennifer:
Okay, and at this time we will now bring to you Helen's view where my mom shares a behind the scenes glimpse each month.

Helen:
I woke up this morning to rain pounding on our metal roof. Sometimes I'm just in the mood for this kind of day. I light a candle, open the curtains and just enjoy the moment to pause and reflect. Gerald and I just celebrated our 48 wedding anniversary. It is hard to believe. I don't even feel like I am 48 years old. Gerald and I attended the same church as teenagers and that is how we met. I was friends with his older sister and spent quite a bit of time in their home. Gerald and I were friends first and soon became best friends. We had a wonderful courtship sailing and skating on the St. Lawrence River, playing badminton and tennis, walking the back country roads, riding the roads on his motorcycle, learning to drive a stick shift on a hill over train tracks. Yes, I know. And dreaming of a future together. Gerald is still my best friend. God has been so gracious to me. Each day gets more and more precious. I'm ready for another 48 years.

I thought you might want to know about the banner for my column. I took that photo one Sunday afternoon while Gerald and I were taking a walk. This area is about five miles from where we live. It is wide open spaces with no houses or farms in view. And once you get to the first corner, there are also no telephone poles. A delight for the eyes and peace for the soul. One of the secrets of our happy marriage is taking a walk for about 45 minutes every single day. There is always a reason as to why we just don't have time to exercise and to communicate. But we make this a daily priority, even if the weather doesn't cooperate. This is our talking time. I do more talking than he does. I know, I'm working on it. No phones, no computers, and no interruptions. Gerald helps me solve business problems and people problems, sometimes both together at the same time. He talks to me about his people problems, very rare indeed for him, business decisions that require quite a bit of discussion, and his ongoing research successes and problems. I'm afraid I pretty much listen to his research problems as there isn't much I can do to provide solutions. But even as I'm listening, he is thinking and sometimes solves problems while he is talking to me. I cherish these walks and look forward to them every single day. It's so nice to chat with you. Can't wait to talk to you again soon. Blessings, Helen.

Steve:
Alright, and as Helen mentioned, the research is ongoing in many areas of ancient biblical historicity here at the biblical chronologist. And it is our pleasure, it really is our pleasure, to be able to be a voice for this work, and to bring it to you, to help strengthen your faith. We believe that God is on the move. And there are answers here that we are just praying and very hopeful will more and more get out. If you're listening to this, we're very thankful that you are. And we thank you for joining us. If you have any questions about something that we talked about today or something that you would like to hear more about, contact us. We would love to hear from you. We will respond and we may feature your request in an upcoming episode of The BC Messenger.

Jennifer:
Yeah, we'd love to do that.

Steve:
So hey, it's been a little longer this time, but it's been good. Again, we enjoy putting this together and we look forward to seeing you next month.

Jennifer:
And remember, you can go on to whatever podcast platform you use, search for The BC Messenger and subscribe to the podcast.

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

Jennifer:
Bye.