December 2023: The Age of the Earth

Steve:
Welcome to the BC Messenger Podcast. This is Real Science, Real Bible, Real History, and Real World. My name is Steve Hall. My wife, Jennifer, and I host this podcast every month. And we thank you for joining us for this, the last episode of 2023. ]

Jennifer:
In December, here, we enter into the Christmas season, and we begin to think about all the sights and sounds and aromas of the season. Just last night, we were able to be a part of a Thanksgiving and Christmas concert. And the sounds of the season bring so much joy to our hearts, bells and lights and all the blessings that God gives us this time of year.

Steve:
That's right, and God gives us so many good gifts to enjoy in the Christmas season. And we thought maybe we'd share something, like a tradition that we enjoy as a family. We could share a lot of things. You all that listen to the podcast, you could share some things with us. We love to make Russian tea, hot Russian tea.

Jennifer:
I never even heard of Russian tea until I started dating you. And it was just like a foundational part of celebrating Christmas, was this Russian tea jar sitting on the counter.

Steve:
It's good stuff. It's very sweet, probably not very good for your health. But in moderation, a cup of hot Russian tea on a cold December evening with a good book...

Jennifer:
I guess we're going to have to just give the recipe to our listeners. I mean, we can't just talk about this. 

Steve:
Well, we did. It's on the show notes.

Jennifer:
Okay, go to the show notes, get the recipe. You want to make it a few weeks ahead. It's a dry mixture. Make the mixture and the flavors will blend and then you can mix it with your hot water when you're ready to enjoy a cup.

Steve:
And I remember, my mom always said you put it together and you let it sit for a little while. You got to let those flavors and aromas, it has cloves in it even, you know, spices and...

Jennifer:
You know, I got to share this little story too. I just thought of this. We always had Russian tea in Virginia off and on over the holidays where we lived for many years. And then God called us to move out here to Illinois and it was a huge change for our family. Our first Christmas here, a new friend in the area showed up on our doorstep with a jar of Russian tea.

Steve:
I don't remember that.

Jennifer:
I do. I still have the jar. It was the Lord, you know, saying something familiar, something special from a new friend.

Steve:
That's right. Well, that's very good. Well, yes. So, Merry Christmas. Thank you for joining us. But we didn't get on this podcast today, Jennifer, to talk about Russian tea. I mean, that's fun. But that's not our main topic for the day. Matter of fact, what... we have a podcast, what should we talk about today? Any thoughts? Any ideas? Hey, I got an idea. Let's talk about the age of the earth.

Jennifer:
The age of the earth. There you go. That's a little tidbit we could share here on the podcast today. You can hear the sarcasm in our voices because we did promise this topic at the beginning of the year in January. Now it's December. And so the fact that we have not addressed it until now may indicate some procrastination and hesitation on our part.

Steve:
It's a big topic. It's a big topic.

Jennifer:
It's a huge topic.

Steve:
There's a lot of emotion involved in this topic. And a lot of infighting. And we want to put something on the table today in the conversation about the age of the earth. And I think by the end of this podcast, you're going to be surprised at the information that we're going to give, the thoughts that we're going to give to you. And I hope it's something that you'll consider. Take seriously. It's a very... It's a big topic. And we were having some fun with it here, but it really is a very important topic, of course.

Jennifer:
These questions and things that have come to the surface in science over these past several decades have really rocked the boat for Christianity in many ways. And in fact, different apologists, different Bible believers on social media who have a large following, all they got to do is pose a question about the age of the earth, something about dating or dates or millions of years or 6,000 year old earth or something. They just have to say a little statement and the comments will blow up every single time from both sides of the issue, because it has become very divisive. Understandably so. But sometimes we need to back up and reconsider where we're coming from. And that's what we want to do today.

Steve:
That's right. And we're going to get into that in just a minute. But before we do, as we do each month, Jennifer, give us the bullet points of what our podcast episode is going to cover today.

Jennifer:
Okay. Well, I don't have a whole lot of bullet points because we did keep the podcast pretty clear in order to be able to address this big topic. So we have the featured topic, The Age of the Earth. We have a research update, very quickly, brand new article about the pillar of cloud that led the Israelites through the wilderness. New research on that by Dr. Aardsma. And then we do have Helen's View as we do every month. And she shares something very personal, very recent from the Aardsma family.

Steve:
Well, how old is the Earth? When was the Earth created? Is our planet thousands of years old? Is it millions of years old? Is it even billions of years old? When we consider these questions, you know, many Christians are aware, as we've kind of already alluded to a little bit ago, that science seems to be saying one thing and the Bible seems to be saying quite another thing. We are starting right off the bat with the understanding that God created the world. That we believe what Genesis says, we'll get into more of that in a minute, that the world was supernaturally created by God. We're not going to go into an apologetics, you know, the reasons necessarily why we believe that today on this podcast.

Jennifer:
We have though, on past episodes, that has been the focus of the majority of our podcasts is the confidence that we can have in the historicity of the ancient Old Testament, where the real evidence matches the biblical accounts. And so, working our way back, it builds our confidence until we get to the creation account, which then, of course, involves what the Bible plainly tells us is a supernatural miracle.

Steve:
Right. So what we want to do today is specifically deal with, why is there such disagreement amongst the scientific community on one side and the biblical, quote, scholars on the other side? Why is this? What's going on? Why is there such a war? We say on this podcast all the time that it's God's word and it's God's world. And if that's true, and I think everybody would agree with that, but if that's true, then why all the fighting? What's going on? Is there one side that's just telling a bunch of lies? Is there one side that's just God-hating, you know, and they don't want the other side to be true, so they're just lying? And is it true that the other side's just stupid and don't understand anything? And, you know, this is a large topic and it could go in a thousand different directions.

Jennifer:
It really could. The thoughts involved in the different branches of science involved, it could lead off all over the place. So for this one podcast, we are going to try to really keep it simple. We have very basic things that we all need to be aware of, and most of us probably aren't, is the truth. We ourselves, you know, have been getting educated and reading Dr. Aardsma's writings on this topic as a biblical chronologist. And, you know, that is the right field. If you're trying to determine the date of creation from the Bible, was it millions of years ago? Was it 750,000 years ago? Was it just a few thousand years ago? That is the proper field to be delving into this question. Is biblical chronology?

Steve:
Right. I mean, most people today might say, well, let's lead that up to the pastors, right? Let's lead that up to the theologians. Well, no. I mean, we're dealing with dates. We're trying to find out when something took place in the real world. And the people who need to be studying that are the people who study dates, who are the ones who go in and find out, well, how long was it when that happened and when this happened. And so chronology is the place where we want to go to find these answers. We're going to be presenting some new ideas today. Introducing brand new ideas, I guarantee you, you probably have never heard before. And we want to do this, like you said, with as little confusion as possible. So what we've done, here's our here's our plan today. We have chosen a question and answer format for this discussion. We're going to bring our points out as questions and then answer those questions. And we're probably not going to hit every question that you might have. So we always want to put that out there. If you ever want to write us with other questions and give us your thoughts, please feel free to do that. We are putting this out on the table, but would love to answer any other questions that you might have and, you know, open the dialogue about these very important topics.

Jennifer:
I do want to tell our listeners, we have a brand new resource for you. Not actually brand new resource, but new to us here on the podcast and newly made available again as a download on the biblical chronologist website. And it is called, appropriately, the age of the earth collection. I have just finished reading through this. Steve has as well. And most, if not all of what we're going to talk about on the podcast today is coming out of this resource, which is a collection of Dr. Aardsma's writings throughout his years of writing his biblical chronologist newsletter. Everything that pertains to the age of the earth question is brought together in this one volume. And it is available for you as an open access download. There is no cost for this valuable resource, actually invaluable resource. The clear presentation of facts and of unapologetic science and the plain sense of the scripture and working through so many things, you really would benefit from this. And there's nothing stopping you from going over to the website, go into the show notes and hit that download button and have that resource available.

Steve:
Okay, let's get right to our first question on the topic of the age of the earth. And our first question is, does the Bible really teach that the earth was created 7000 years ago? And if it does, Jen, take us to the verse and chapter.

Jennifer:
Right.

Steve:
Where's that verse and chapter at? It must be in Genesis because that's the creation account. No, there's no date, right? The Bible doesn't give us dates. We're dealing with ancient literature here.

Jennifer:
That's where the discipline of biblical chronology comes in so important. And when you get these big disagreements about the age of the earth, then somebody's got to ask the question, well, okay, is something really wrong with the people doing the chronology work? I mean, are they missing, you know, that there was a lot more time somewhere? But the answer that we come down to, and again you can read this resource for a detailed explanation, is that, yes, the plain sense reading of the scripture and the discipline of biblical chronology gives us a creation date of about 5176 BC. So that is just, you know, over 7000 years ago, we can get confidence in that chronology as we work our way back and as we've talked about Noah's flood in the real world, the Exodus in the real world, flip the order of those two, and many other of the events in scripture going all the way back to creation. And then we have this date that, you know, even scholars down through the years of church history have not differed very much on that creation date coming from the biblical text.

Steve:
And this is what Dr. Aardsma agrees with. We call him the biblical chronologist, and he also agrees, like you said, with many biblical scholars through the years, that that is the approximate timeframe, approximate date. So yes, we would agree that the Bible really does show us that the earth was created around 7000 years ago.

Jennifer:
And so that's a deal breaker right there for many people. Okay, this antiquated book is telling us that we're living on an earth that's 7000 years old, and obviously we're not. So we can't believe that book because it doesn't even know anything about modern science, and so it's just a relic of the past.

Steve:
Right. So that's our second question. Does science really show that the earth is older than 7000 years, or approximately?

Jennifer:
Because, I mean, okay, so the Bible is telling us it's 7000 years old, and is the science really telling us that it's way older than that?

Steve:
And the answer is yes, it actually really does. As we move backwards in time, looking at the secular data, we find that there is evidence for civilizations existing before the established chronological creation date of Adam and Eve. Now, I already can feel it, Jen. I can feel lids flipping. People have flipped their lid. I can sense some...

Jennifer:
People before Adam, people before Eve. Okay.

Steve:
And so hang with us. Don't ditch us at this point and call us heretics yet.

Jennifer:
Yes, because this is going somewhere that I think will at least really give you some food for thought. And it is not doing backflips with the text. It's not doing backflips with the science. We are real science, real Bible, and we're going to stay true to that.

Steve:
We need to stay true to this. We have to stay true to the truth. Whatever the truth is, is what we want. Nobody wants to hold on to a lie. The problem is, what's true and what's not true? So it's very important that we have the truth and that we find the truth and that we're not afraid of it, whatever it may be. There are young people going to universities today who grew up in Christian homes, who are having professors standing in front of them and telling them things that are rocking their world, and showing them the validity of some of the things that they're saying to them. And these young people are trying desperately to coincide what they're hearing with their faith.

Jennifer:
Well, and I'll say this. Yes, there are some going off to university. There's also a whole lot of Christian young people not going off to university because those who are shepherding them are knowing it's going to rock your world. And so don't do that. Do something else. And so in that we are not taking ground. We are not advancing the kingdom of Christ in these realms of higher learning and academia, because we're steering the young people to go elsewhere. We don't want their faith to be shaken, of course.

Steve:
Right. And also, you don't have to go to university today to find out that, you know, there are different... 

Jennifer:
There's good reasons for saying the earth is really old.

Steve:
That's right. I mean, we have this thing now called the internet, and information is just readily today available. So we can't hide. We can't hide from something we may not like. We need to delve into it. We need to look into it and not be afraid of it because we want truth, whatever the truth may be, wherever it may be found. And so, yes, science really does show that the earth is older than approximately 7000 years old. This is real science and real Bible today on our podcast. We don't just say that and not mean it.

Jennifer:
So we're going to start with this most recent divergence. You know, we've established the historicity of other things in the ancient Old Testament leading back to creation. And then you get to Adam, who certainly seems to be the first man created. The best we can understand the scripture. And then we look in the secular evidence out there and we see civilizations going back before the time of the creation of Adam. And so there's our point to start. We can talk about millions and billions of years. We don't need to begin there. We can begin with this most recent conundrum now that we've settled the historicity of other ancient events. And we need to consider, OK, what's going on? I can take you to page 14 of Dr. Aardsma's Age of the Earth Collection. And there you will see a table with dates and with the names of the archaeological periods. Ubaid, Ubaid, I learned how to say that word. Ubaid 4, Ubaid 3, Ubaid 2, Ubaid 1, Ubaid 0. These are very ancient archaeological periods. I know when Adam was created. I know when creation happened. Ubaid 0, the beginning, the beginning. Well, unfortunately, that does not work because Ubaid 0 is going much farther back than the biblical creation date of Adam.

Steve:
OK, so let me ask a question. So I can hear someone asking this. You're saying that science shows the Earth is older than 7,000 years. Well, why would you say that? I mean, isn't this just scientists making this up? Aren't these just, you know, people who don't want to believe in God? Who are saying, no, no, no, Genesis isn't true. The Earth is millions and millions of years old just because we say so. Is that why they're saying it? I mean, what's the... What evidence do they have?

Jennifer:
Yeah. Well, they have this thing called, and again, hang with us here, radiocarbon dating.

Steve:
Oooooh, now Jen, radiocarbon dating?

Jennifer:
This is one of the things we promised we were going to talk about this year.  We're going to be talking about radiocarbon in hand with the age of the Earth.

Steve:
But isn't radiocarbon dating a hoax? I mean, oh, come on, radiocarbon dating. I mean, again, the bad, bad scientists just made this up and they're just using this. Well, if they didn't make it up, then it's not really reliable. They want it to be really reliable, but it's not. Is that true?

Jennifer:
Right. Again, in this collection, age of the Earth collection, you can read all about what went wrong with the radiocarbon and Dr. Aardsma, who went to university for this specialty, for this purpose, comes out with the conclusion that, no, it's perfectly sound, actually. And I mean, let's just stop there for half a second. It's perfectly sound. Is it perfect? No. Of course, any measurement method that you have is going to have issues that have to be worked out from time to time. But there are scientists all over the world staking their reputations on their radiocarbon results. It is not a made up science. And if you learned how to measure radiocarbon, you could go in the lab and measure it for yourself and get the same exact results that these guys are getting. And we do have a word from Dr. Aardsma on this, but what we've decided to do is save the full treatment of the radiocarbon topic for January, which will be our next podcast. It's a broad topic and there's so many interesting things related to radiocarbon dating. And we'd like to just spend a full episode talking about it as an amazing gift from God, and hearing the segment of the interview that we did with Dr. Aardsma, where he talked a good bit about radiocarbon dating. And I think giving it its own episode will be very beneficial for our listeners. So we can't give it a full treatment here today, but just hold on to that for next month.

Steve:
And I love that interview. There's so many things from that we're going to be pulling into other podcasts in the future. But the basic point we're trying to get across in this podcast is Christians need to stop disregarding things they don't understand. It is God's world and God has been good to us to allow us to make the progress that we've made to be able to delve into this world like we've never been able to do before. And obviously that's going to cause us to have to change in some of the ways that we've been thinking or some preconceived ideas. That's just human. That's just natural. It always happens this way.

Jennifer:
And there's no sense in bashing the science, which is actually an amazing tool given to us by God. You know, I think of Galileo when he first started discovering things through his telescope that were not going over well with the theologians and Bible believers of the day, who had their ideas about how things should look in the telescope and they weren't looking that way. And instead of saying, "Well, hmm, how could we be mistaken about our thoughts?" Instead what was told to Galileo was, "Your telescope is an instrument that deceives."

Steve:
An instrument of deception. Right.

Jennifer:
It's tricking us and we don't like that telescope and something's got to be wrong with it.

Steve:
And it's the same thing with the radio carbon dating or whatever else you want to pick out. It's an instrument. It's an instrument that's showing us truth. And you know, we're studying these things and refining these things. But it is God's Word that's giving us truth. And if we're being honest with the tools God gives us, like a telescope, that also is showing us truth in God's world. And it's the same thing here. So, okay, but that doesn't answer the conundrum because that just pronounced...

Jennifer:
It actually just made it a whole lot worse.

Steve:
Right. We have this problem.

Jennifer:
I'm sure a lot of our listeners at this point, you know, your mind's kind of exploding and thinking, "Well, okay, so you're telling me that the Earth was created 7,000 years ago. You're telling me the science is legit that says, you know, that people lived tens of thousands of years or..." And you're telling me that the science, the radiocarbon dating is actually real and true. And trustworthy and even a gift from God. Like, okay. So, and somehow this is all supposed to go together. Like, what are we? A stalemate, you know, that like, okay, these two things are mutually exclusive. So you just got to pick one, which is kind of what you see going on. Everybody picks one. And so where does that leave us? I mean, that's not real science, real Bible.

Steve:
Right. So it is a very surprising thing to realize that there is evidence in this Earth for history and ages before the 7,000 approximate years up to the creation of Adam and Eve.

Jennifer:
And we're talking about things like a basket that was woven, maybe 10,000 BC, that was radiocarbon dated that fits the time period where it was found. A basket? I mean, a person made that and it's dating to before the creation of Adam. And that's just a drop in the bucket, but we're starting with the most recent conundrum. We're talking about the kind of houses people lived in. There was a period before the creation of Adam in the archaeology that shows people living in pits dug in the ground. Agricultural villages were happening at the time. And again, you can look these things up. We don't have time to explain it in detail, but you certainly cannot just sweep it under the rug. I mean, this is big time evidence. And it's like Steve said, it's shocking. I mean, does not compute. That's what your brain wants to say. Does not compute. 

Steve:
And depending on where you're coming from listening to this podcast, depending on what experiences that you have had, what you have learned, there are many Christians today who have understood these things and have had to come to terms with them, of some sort. Now unfortunately, many of those Christians have decided to go the route of saying, well, the Bible, I mean, yes, the Bible is giving us good moral lessons and is true, but it's not literally true in these areas. Yeah, it says 7,000 years, but it doesn't really mean that to be taken literally. We learn good moral lessons. But we see over here in the science, it's telling us something different. And so then they insert long ages in between the six days of creation. And we all know this.

Jennifer:
There's a well-known Christian author, an apologist today who wrote a book about the quest for the historical Adam. He could not accept that Adam was created only 7,000 years ago because of all of the evidence we've been talking about. So the conclusion of his book on this quest for the historical Adam, was he a real person? And you get into the New Testament and it's kind of hard to say that Adam wasn't a real person. And so because of theological arguments that Paul is making there and stuff. So this author, and this is William Lane Craig, places Adam as a created man 750,000 to 1 million years ago. He's doing that with his best understanding of the evidence that he sees in the earth from all the science that's being done. And so he says, okay, yes, there was an Adam and he could have been up to a million years ago and the Bible is just giving us like this really squished down mytho-historical history. But the real Adam was a long, long, long, long time ago.

Steve:
And it's for theological reasons that he feels like he must do this and believe this. So there's all kinds of ideas, all kinds of paradigms and I'm sure you know some. But let me be clear on the podcast, we are saying today that we believe in the literal account of Genesis. We are not saying that we believe there are gaps like the gap theory in between the six days of creation. We are not saying we believe Adam had been created a million years ago, or whatever the other theories are that you've heard. We believe that the Bible is giving us history. Just like all the other things we talked about on our podcast, that the Bible is a reliable record of the history of the creation of the world, and that God did this in six literal days approximately 7,000 years ago. Evening in the morning or the first day.

Jennifer:
We want to be faithful to the text.

Steve:
And at the same time, we are saying that the science is showing us evidence in the earth of years and ages much, much longer and older than that.

Jennifer:
It's time to turn our attention to something new, a thought experiment. We have on the podcast talked about things that are assumed to be miraculous, like manna, and then we talk about the actual physical explanation of that. But of course, in the Bible, we do have supernatural intervention of God. And I don't think there's anybody who believes in the creation account who wouldn't say, "Well, that was God spoke and it was so." And so that is a creation miracle of God. And so we need to think about that. This is really the turning point, and how to harmonize these two things that seem to be so at odds with each other.

Steve:
Dr. Aardsma makes a really good statement in his newsletter and says this, "I hope you do not find it shocking or alarming that there are things which we do not yet know in the field of biblical chronology. Let me remind you that the cosmos in which we live is the product of an infinite Creator. We should not be surprised when, as we probe about in this cosmos, that we run into puzzles for which our finite minds can find no ready solution. Let me suggest that the only truly alarming situation would be if it were otherwise." God is so much bigger and greater than us. And we're going to be constantly bumping into things that rattle our cage, shake us up, cause us to flip our lids, wonder what's going on. And that's why we're here. But it's part of how God is glorified is that we discover it. We find it out. Now we're never going to find it out if we keep pushing it aside. If we keep saying, "We can't go there. We can't talk about that." Those are certain things you can't approach. They've been decided, somebody along the way decided that was wrong and by gum it's wrong forever. Well, wait a minute. That's not the way we're going to find real truth. 

Jennifer:
Yeah, truth will never be advanced if we're not being 100% honest. And so that's what we've been trying to put forward this far.

Steve:
So right, so now let's turn our attention to supernatural creation miracles. As you said, we would all agree the creation of the earth is a supernatural event, a creation miracle. Okay, what's that? What is a creation miracle? Well, first of all, it's something only God could do, right? And the best we can understand it with our finite minds, is God bringing something into existence out of nothing. According to the scripture, by His word, by His word He created, by His word He holds it together. So that's a creation miracle.

Jennifer:
We have a law in science that says matter can neither be created nor destroyed. So that's true unless you're God and you are able to do creation miracles and bring physical reality out of nothing.

Steve:
Right. So let's talk about an example of this.

Jennifer:
Yes, it's good to scale back. Thankfully, in scripture, we have other examples of things being created out of nothing. Let's consider as we begin to think about what actually is going to be the case when a physical thing, physical reality is brought into existence.

Steve:
Right. So something on a smaller level, smaller scale. Let's go to the New Testament of the Bible and think about a miracle that Jesus performed. Let's specifically go to the story of the feeding of the 5,000. Here is a situation where there are thousands of people on a hillside, 5,000 men the Bible says, so there could have easily been 10,000 or more people at this event. Jesus has been teaching them. They do not have food. Jesus tells the disciples, how are we going to feed all these people? And they look at him like he's crazy. What are you talking about? Where are we going to find food to feed all these people? Of course, they get the lunch from the little boy, which includes five small loaves of bread and two little fish. From that little lunch, Jesus then begins to distribute, to break apart this matter, this material, this real life stuff, food, and begins to hand it to the disciples who then begin to distribute it to all of those thousands of people. So in that account we have a creation miracle going on, as best we can understand it. Jesus is producing something out of nothing. I mean, he began with a little lunch there, but he's multiplying it. He's creating. 

Jennifer:
At the end, there were 12 baskets left over that the disciples gathered up, and inside of those baskets was created bread and fish, brought into existence from nothing by Jesus, the Son of God.

Steve:
Right. So let's say you were able to take a time machine and travel back to that event, and you walk over to that hillside in Israel over 2,000 years ago, and let's say the crowd has eaten, and you walk over to one of those leftover basket fools.

Jennifer:
Man, I wish we could.

Steve:
Wouldn't that be amazing? That would be incredible. But you know, if you walked up on that, it would be a normal day. I mean, people may have been talking about what had just happened, and I guarantee you they were. But there it was, sitting there, this basket of bread and fish.

Jennifer:
12 baskets.

Steve:
Well, you walk up to one of them, and you stick your hand in that basket, and you pick up one of those pieces of fish, and you hold it there in your hand, and you break it apart. What are you looking at? You're looking at a piece of fish that has been cooked. It has been gutted. It's probably seasoned. Maybe you take a little bit of it, and you put it in your mouth, and you eat it, and it tastes good. It's cooked fish. It's real fish. And so the question that we have here is, where did that fish come from? Who cooked that fish? What lake did it come out of? Who seasoned it? Did anybody smell it cooking? Or was this fish that Jesus had just created, was it brand new fish?

Jennifer:
Look at this basket of brand new fish!

Steve:
What would brand new fish be? What would that look like?

Jennifer:
The nature of a physical thing is that it will never be "brand new". It always comes from something. A seed comes from a tree, an embryo comes from its human parents. You can never get to where you say, "This is the starting point. This is where this fish began, and I won't be able to see anything past that."

Steve:
So if you had the instruments there with you, you could look deeper into that piece of fish, and you could see the cells that make it up. You could see all of the intricacies through science and through your instrument of a fish that has lived. A fish that has been swimming in water. A fish that has grown. Some of those pieces of fish would have had more meat on them than the other pieces of fish because they got bigger. And some of the fish were smaller. They didn't grow as much.

Jennifer:
You could say, "Oh, I know where this must have been caught. This type of fish only comes from far out in the Mediterranean." Or use your imagination, but you could discern so many things about that fish from examining it. And you could examine it, like Steve said, if you had all of our scientific instruments today, you could examine it to the most minuscule detail imaginable to man.

Steve:
So here in a little illustration, we have our conundrum sitting right in front of us in our hand. Maybe one of the people in the crowd walked over to you and said, "Did you see what just happened?" You look at that person and you say, "What just happened?" "Jesus just, He just created that." "Created what?" "That fish you're holding in your hand. He had a little boy's lunch and he began to multiply it. All 10,000 of us on this hill have eaten to the full and that basket you just pulled it out of, there's 12 of those. And he just made that piece of fish." And you're looking at that piece of fish and you're saying, "No, he didn't. I mean, this fish has a... here we go... this fish has a history. This fish has, it has details about it I can show you right here. I could probably tell you what lake this fish came out of. Somebody cooked this, somebody seasoned this and you're telling me this is brand new. This just appeared into the world?" Okay. So do you get the conundrum that we have going on right here with the illustration?

Jennifer:
Because you have the eyewitness account telling you that it was created, and then you have the evidence you're holding in your hand of a history going back to time out of mind, really.

Steve:
So Dr. Aardsma has termed this, and the term that he has given to this is "virtual history." Did the fish have an actual history? Well...

Jennifer:
Apparently not.

Steve:
Right, the answer to that is no. It didn't come from the Sea of Galilee. It didn't come from the market down in the town. It didn't actually swim, and yet there's a history projected behind it that says it did. And all the evidence is there that says it did, in God's real world. And so the question that we want to present here is this. How could it be any other way? Like you said a minute ago, how could you have a brand new piece of fish? What would that be? Because we're dealing with matter. You know, we're dealing with real life here, and if you bring something into existence out of nothing, will it not inherently have a history behind it?

Jennifer:
It's going to have to. You can perform your own thought experiment, think about creating something. Well, I know, let's think about the Russian tea we talked about at the beginning. You know, we're not familiar with things being created in our everyday lives. We don't observe this happening. So we have to deliberately put our minds there. What if we were, you know, somebody was able to bring into existence a jar of the dry Russian tea mix sitting on the counter, and there it was, brought into existence out of nothing. But yet the flavors are blended, the tea, lemonade, tang, cloves, everything that's in there is mixed together.

Steve:
You drink it and you say, boy, that's been sitting there a while. I can tell those flavors have mixed. 

Jennifer:
Somebody put it into a jar. Where did the jar come from? Maybe the jar has a date on it. You know, maybe you'd say, oh, this is definitely a mayonnaise jar that somebody saved and put Russian tea in. I mean, of course, there's going to be so many pieces of evidence behind that newly created thing. We have, of course, Jesus turned water into wine. So he created that. Jesus made a blind man see, created him with sight, which is going to entail a very detailed history in that man that wasn't there before the seeing eyes. 

Steve:
His brain and eyes learning to be able to see again. Well, yeah, there's a history right there.

Jennifer:
So this is something to really think about and let your mind percolate on that for a while. What do created things look like? And what about this universe? Could it have a history projected way back into the past? We have some terms, proleptic time and different things that are in this age of the earth collection. But is that possible? Is that even the way it would have to be?

Steve:
With the nature of created things that had just come into existence.

Jennifer:
If it didn't have a history, then what exactly would that have looked like at the time of creation until now? So to wrap up what we've been illustrating here with what we call virtual history of created things, okay, the newly created fish and bread. By examining the physical reality of the newly created object, fish and bread, or whatever, Russian tea, you would never conclude that it was newly created. The physical reality, the evidence of it would never lead you to the conclusion that, "Oh, this was created moments before." Conversely, loudly proclaiming, "This was just created. You must believe what I'm telling you. This is a created object created only moments ago." That will never negate the physical reality of the created object. So there you have what seems to be mutually exclusive facts, observations. One seems to be completely crowding out the other, but yet both are true.

Steve:
Right. And again, we're dealing in something we don't typically deal with every day. We're dealing with creation miracles here, trying to wrap our brain around this in a different way, and understand what would that be like? Here's another way to look at it. God is writing a story. The day you're in right now listening to this podcast, you are in God's story. You're in time and you're in His story, history. And every good story has a beginning. Every story has page one. Chapter one, page one. When you get to page one, chapter one, sentence one, is that like brand new? You walk in on a brand new world with nothing before it and the story starts here and it goes on. But in every story, and again, this is just the nature of things, the nature of the way things are, there is a history that happened that led up to page one, chapter one. It has to be that way.

Jennifer:
And sometimes an author will go back and write the prelude that wasn't written at the time.

Steve:
I think of The Lord of the Rings. That's exactly what happened in that story, right? Tolkien, you enter into the story with the Hobbit, Bilbo, and then you go on through there and you enter in there with Bilbo, and describing his dress and describing what's going on, describing who he is, the character. And yet later on, Tolkien comes back and gives us more information about what led up to that in that particular story. The point is, there's always a backstory. There's always a backstory. There's always a history behind a newly created thing. And a story really is probably the closest we can get to creation.

Jennifer:
Well the story opens in the first chapter of Genesis. I mean, that's where God chose to open the story and gave it to us, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." So even a kid's story book, thinking of a book in our house right now called "Pip Moves Away." And it's a story about a boy who moves to a new place to live with his family. So here comes the moving truck down the street. I mean, we don't have the story telling us anything about Pip when he was born or his parents when they got married or who his grandparents were or where his ancestors came from or any of that. The story just picks up. That's where that author chose to pick up the story.

Steve:
So hopefully, and again, we're just, we're laying this out, we're setting this on the table to begin to think about, to begin to roll around in your mind, I hope that you can connect the dots here and see how this could potentially resolve the problem, that we have 7,000 years approximately demonstrated to us in the Bible since the creation of Adam and Eve, the creation of the world. And yet there is a history, what we are calling here a virtual history innate within that creation miracle, just like the fish and bread, just like the story that you would write, a history that would come as a natural consequence of a creation miracle. Now, this presents another problem.

Jennifer:
Yes. Here comes another one of these questions that we want to answer. You know, I reject this, Steve, because you're telling me that God built this creation with this history. And when I look at the history, when I look at fossils, when I delve into what all was going on in the secular history that we can learn about, it's death and destruction and decay. And yet God made a creation that he said was very good. And so, again, this does not compute.

Steve:
Well, we have to take the whole Bible, don't we? We need to understand all that the Bible is telling us. And there is an event that stands between us today and creation.

Jennifer:
What do you think it is, class? What do you think it is? It was an earth-altering event, not Noah's flood, that's not what we're talking about, much closer back to creation, that had such huge ramifications.

Steve:
We don't think about it. We overlook it.

Jennifer:
Yes, it definitely is overlooked.

Steve:
And it is called, in Genesis 3, we call it the fall. It's when Adam and Eve chose to disobey the clear command of God, rebelled against him, and what he had specifically said, ate of the fruit of that tree, and when they chose to do that, the Bible very plainly says that a curse came upon this created world. This wonderful creation that God had made that was so good and so perfect now had fallen. What does that mean? Jennifer and I have talked about this quite often as we've gone through these discoveries and tried to communicate these things, that one of the things that just has jumped out to us so many times has been this. That God, when God does something that is good, it is really, really good. I mean, you think about the salvation of sinners. You think about Christ taking the punishment for the sins of mankind, whatever you want to talk about. But the other side of that coin is that when God judges, he really judges. It's hard for us to wrap our brain around how ferocious, how terrible the judgment of God is, and can be, just as how wonderful and absolutely amazing his goodness is, that our minds can't even imagine what lies in store for the people of God. So when we think about the fall, you know, we think about thorns and thistles and sweat of the brow, and all those terrible things that we have to endure. But we don't think about the entirety of creation itself that came under this judgment of God. And that the New Testament goes on to talk about and give us more information about, that the creation waits for that day that they'll be set free from the bondage of corruption.

Jennifer:
Because the New Testament tells us the creation was subjected to futility. And it was really a light bulb moment for me when I realized that we are not able to see this creation as it was when it was first created. It was very good, and that was the entire creation. Now it's cursed, and that's the entire creation. And so as we look backward in time, that's what we see is a cursed history. Let me read this section from page 56 of the age of the earth collection. "When we look backwards in time, we necessarily peer through the lens of the curse, not the lens of creation. The Bible is clear that the whole world was changed as a result of the sin of Adam. The whole character of reality was somehow changed by the curse from pleasure and meaning and fulfillment to pain and emptiness and futility. Romans 8.20 and speaking of these things says, 'For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it.' The act of subjecting the universe to futility necessarily involved creation type miracles. We are given glimpses of this immediately in the account of the fall and the curse. For example, we see the restructuring of man's work experience. Now, the ground which had yielded every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food, brings forth thorns and thistles instead. There also, for example, we see the restructuring of woman's childbirth experience with pain and ambivalence as the consequence. As in the case of the man born blind, this obviously involved some very basic physiological restructuring." So can we accept the fact that there's no use looking in the history of the world to see what it was like when it was created because we are in a fallen world and we can only see what it's like since it's been cursed?

Steve:
Right. I mean, doesn't that make sense? I mean, if we are talking about creation miracle, a virtual history behind it, a history that's projected behind it because that's just the natural way things are, that if things were cursed, it would not only affect the present and the future, but it would also affect the past, the virtual past, inherent within the creation itself. So the fall itself was its own creation miracle.

Jennifer:
So is God a deceiver? This comes up all the time. You know, your God's just a deceiver, I guess, because he's putting things in the rocks that aren't even really the true history of this world.

Steve:
Man, you're asking all the hard questions!

Jennifer:
Or they're making, it's making it look like it's so much older. But you know, who's the deceiver? We know who the deceiver is and his name is Satan, the serpent in the garden. He's the one who deceived and the blame lies at his feet for the curse. And man who chose the disobedience. It does not lie at God's feet, the fact that we now have a cursed history of the world. But God allowed the natural consequences of the choice to sin, the choice to listen to the serpent came on this world. And as Steve said, when the judgment comes, when the natural consequences come, there's so often much more far reaching than we have allowed ourselves to realize.

Steve:
We presented this, I think it was on Twitter or something, and a gentleman commented with a really good thought. He compared this to the cross. He said something along these lines. "So you're saying the fall had consequences that affected all of creation." And yes, that's what we are presenting.

Jennifer:
Past, present, future.

Steve:
Right. Past, present, and future. A glorious point that could be made here is that, think about the cross. The cross did as well. And this guy thought of this and responded, the redemptive work of Christ on Calvary, well, what does that apply to? Does that just apply to the present when Christ died in the future? Well no. That also applied to the past. The past, the present, and the future.

Jennifer:
It reached back in time, forward in time, the redemptive work of Christ, which is such a glorious opposite thought of the curse, which did that same thing.

Steve:
Yes. Okay. We have two more questions. And let's hit these real quick. Someone I could see asking this question. "Well, aren't you just talking about what I've always heard of as appearance of age? Isn't this just the same thing as what a young earth creationist would teach as appearance of age?"

Jennifer:
Appearance of age is brought up in things like tree rings. The trees created in the garden would have had rings. So that's making it look like the tree is old, but it actually isn't. Or starlight visible from stars. We know that there's light visible to us today that had to have been created as visible light because it would take much longer for us to be able to see it than since the time of creation until now. The fact that Adam was a mature man, so yes, he had an appearance of age. But the problem with that view is that it's truncated greatly. It does not account for the fullness of the history that is in the earth. It's kind of a band aid that's applied when something obvious has to be dealt with. Well, appearance of age. But no, a virtual history of a created thing is a much deeper, fuller, broader explanation that takes into account the entire universe.

Steve:
It also doesn't account for the fall.

Jennifer:
Right. The appearance of age, that kind of line of reasoning never brings up anything to do with the fall or how that could have changed the history of the earth.

Steve:
So Jennifer, I'm a little confused here. Are you then a young earth creationist or are you an old earth creationist?

Jennifer:
That sounds like a good salesman. You know, two options. Which one do you want? This one or that one? 

Steve:
Let's take them apart. Each one. Number one, are you an old earth creationist?

Jennifer:
Not in the traditional sense here at the biblical chronologist. Definitely not. We are not trying to say that creation happened millions of years ago. We're not trying to push Adam back a million or 750,000 years ago. No, we're taking the Bible at face value. So we are not what would typically be thought of as an old earth creationist.

Steve:
Right. And you must be young earth creationist then. Is that the way it is?

Jennifer:
No. And here's the important point, that a recently created earth is not the same thing as a young earth.

Steve:
Go back to our illustration of creation miracles. Right. Some of those fish in that basket would have looked a whole lot younger than others.

Jennifer:
Are you a young fish creationist or an old fish? Right. Well, it probably had a mixture of all kinds of fish, but they all had just been brought newly created, recently created. And we definitely believe that based on the text of scripture, and the trust that we have in the biblical accounts.

Steve:
So we could literally say that this is a very old earth created approximately 7,000 years ago.

Jennifer:
Yes. And under the curse of sin currently. So that's what we are. So we don't have a label. Imagine that. Somebody needs to make up a name for the virtual history, recently created earth, with a very long virtual fallen history. Somebody needs to coin a term for that.

Steve:
Well, right. We don't have a label, but we do have, I believe, a very good answer for this conundrum that we have found ourselves in for so long now, and a very good topic to put on the table of discussion. This needs to be hashed out. This needs to be talked about. What we have presented here today really is toward the Bible believer. If you're struggling with even the idea that God created the world, go back and listen to our other podcasts. There's so much evidence of the reliability of the Old Testament accounts in the real world. But if you are a Bible believer and you believe God creates and God created this world, think on these things. The truth is, these are not hard concepts. This is a very simple concept. And again, we've said this before on other podcasts, sometimes, maybe all the time, the truth isn't hard. The truth ends up being so simple. It was right there all along, but we just didn't see it.

Jennifer:
Well it is simple and people will want to negate it for that. No, it can't be that. That's too simple. That's simplistic. But actually, it's not. It's actually an honesty on all sides. And there are some activities going on today in evangelical circles that honestly just need to stop. It is not honoring to the Lord to be going around loudly proclaiming that the earth is 7,000 years old and that all science that shows otherwise is deceptive. It's God's world and it's God's word. We want to honor both. And there's nothing to be gained from that. Trying to say the science deceives, the science deceives, isn't advancing truth in any way. And then on the other side of that coin, efforts to do backflips with the scriptural text in order to try to get it to fit the science, well it must be along geologic ages, must be millions of years in that text there somewhere, that is also not honoring to the Lord who tells us in Genesis that he spoke and it was done. We need to be able to accept both of these things and move forward in advancing the cause of truth.

Steve:
Yes we do. And we hope we put something out there on the table for you to think about and discuss. And we need to move on with our podcast, but we'll be coming back to this in future podcasts.

Jennifer:
I have a feeling that this isn't the last that it will be addressed on here. We would love to hear from our listeners with questions, comments, feedback, and we will use that as springboard for further content.

Steve:
This is real science and real Bible, discovering the truth, figuring things out, staying true to the Word of God, seeing the advancements that have been made in fields of science as blessings from God, all from God, to be able, as His creatures, as humanity, delve into and dig into His wonders, His creation, and come away with real answers.

Jennifer:
Well He's an infinite, gracious God. We don't have it all figured out yet. Nobody has reconstructed that virtual history, and no matter how far you go back, you're always going to find God when you come over that last hill. He's the same God that creates intricate DNA and cells and atoms and down to the minuscule and way back in history and into the grandness of this universe. It's far beyond what our human minds can comprehend, but it's just fascinating and wonderful when we can catch a little glimpse of it and our understanding can be broadened a little bit more.

Steve:
Yes, it is. Now we have a research update just briefly. Dr. Aardsma has put out a brand new article, yet another discovery. The Bible talks in the Exodus account about the pillar of cloud. We've gone into some detail on the podcast about the manna and in studying the Exodus, all the different locations that have been discovered. Well, Dr. Aardsma has now written an article concerning the pillar of cloud that led the Israelites through the wilderness. I don't know that we need to go into all the detail on the podcast about what this is about.

Jennifer:
No, we can't. This is just a research update.

Steve:
Let's just let you know about it. That's what we want to do is let you know about it. If you want to go to thebiblicalchronologist.org and the links in the show notes, download the latest newsletter from Dr. Aardsma, "Understanding the Pillar of Cloud."

Jennifer:
The Bible tells us the creation was supernatural. It does not say that the cloud was a supernatural phenomenon. Oh my goodness, just the amazing features in creation that God used to lead His people through the wilderness.

Steve:
Demonstrating the reality of these Old Testament accounts and that nobody could have made this stuff up. It's shown to be true in the real world.

Jennifer:
Now for Helen's view, as we draw near to the close of the podcast. Helen will be sharing today a eulogy for her mother-in-law, which would be my grandmother, Dr. Aardsma's mother, Margaret Ann Aardsma.

Helen:
I wrote the following tribute for my mother-in-law, Margaret Ann Upton Aardsma, who we remember on this day, her 92nd birthday.

1931. This was the year that the star-spangled banner was adopted as the national anthem. It was the beginning of the Great Depression. Astronomer Edwin Hubble and scientist Albert Einstein began research at the California Institute of Technology. Thomas Edison submitted his very last patent application. William Shatner was born. Charlie Chaplin starred as himself in the silent film called City Lights. The new citrus fruit, Tangelo, was developed. Snickers Bar was born. Fisher Price Little People toy line went up for sale. The hymn, "Morning Has Broken," was published, and the Nancy Drew books began being printed.

In a new Hampshire town called Manchester on November 14, 1931, a woman named Marion Tar Upton and a man named Gerald David Upton gave birth to their first child, Margaret Ann Upton. I first met Mom when she and the rest of the Aardsma family moved from Messina, New York to Cornwall, Ontario, Canada, my hometown. They attended my home church. The rumor was that rich Americans had moved into town. Well, that was the impression people had anyway. Mom dressed like a Sax Fifth Avenue customer, so it was easy to see why people thought they were well off. My first impression of Mom was that she was a classy lady. But she had a secret which she never told anyone. She bought all her clothes from the Salvation Army. She then did some sewing magic to turn them into gorgeous, classic fashion.

I quickly learned that Mom and family were in full-time Christian service, starting a brand new Bible school in the area, and that they were far from wealthy. They were stepping out in faith with very little promise of income. Most of the things I learned from Mom I learned during my courtship years with Gerald. I spent much time in her home. Sadly we were never blessed to live close by her after Gerald and I married, but we were able to visit her a few times over the years. I learned from her that it was wonderful to be a woman, and one didn't need to be wealthy to show class and elegance. She had a bearing of nobility which does not come from what you wear but from who you are as a child of God. Following God's call meant many hardships in her life. Much time was spent in hard work and poverty with often little earthly reward. Her faith to keep going was a testimony to me and many others. Her home was her love and she poured her creativeness into it. Plants, flowers, paintings. She surrounded her family with beauty from her own hands. She did this if it was a grand home on the St. Lawrence River or a small run-down home near a railroad tracks.

I remember Mom singing "Jerusalem, Jerusalem" at an open house for Seaway Baptist Bible Institute, SBBI. She was a woman of many talents. I still vividly remember Mom as my Sunday school teacher when I was a teenager. She taught on the world religions, giving a brief summary of each week by week. I learned much from that series. She was faithful and well prepared each week. Mom worked hard to develop family unity. She never spoke ill of her children to the other children. Actually, she rarely spoke badly of anyone. When I grow up, I want to be like her. She supported her man, traveling with him, making him late-night meals when he worked late, showing him respect and making a castle for him out of her home. She was an unsung heroine. Working behind the scenes can often be lonely and hard, but she has now gone on to her well-earned reward. She encouraged her children to use their gifts and follow those gifts into careers. Even though Gerald had planned on going to SBBI, a Bible school, she recommended to Gerald as he was near graduating from high school that he should go to university and use his God-given gifts in math and science, which advice he followed.

Mom always made me feel welcome and a part of the family. I probably wore out my welcome during my four years of courtship with Gerald, but she never gave me that impression. She had an open heart and an open home. Mom let go of her adult children during a very short time span, going quickly from a hectic household of four busy teens to an empty nest. Now that I have let go of ten children and have an empty nest, I can relate to how lonely those years must have been for her. She never burdened her children with her loneliness, she let them all go with her blessing and her love. She wrote us letters and cards in her lovely cursive writing, keeping in touch with us.

In 2023, the Great Depression is long gone, and we are the most prosperous nation in the world. The Hubble telescope is 326 miles above the Earth's surface. The theory of relativity has been shown to be correct. Star Trekkies are a whole culture. Most homes use LED light bulbs. Movies have computer-generated imagery. Poppet fidget toys are all the rage. The book Dogman, 20,000 Fleas Under the Sea is new this year. And Vegan Eggs is a hot new food trend. My life was forever changed by the birth of Margaret Ann Upton-Aardsma in 1931, for God gave me her son as my husband. We have been married now for 49 years. I benefited greatly by the godly diligent work of a mother for her son Gerald. God blessed me with ten most precious gifts, my children. And now I am a grandmother to 29 and counting grandchildren. These 40 souls would not have existed if Margaret Ann Upton-Aardsma had never been born. In 2023, as in 1931, some things never change. To love and be loved in return is still the most cherished gift exchange in the world. I am eternally grateful for a mother-in-law who showed me love and whom I loved in return.

Steve:
That was very nice. Our children called Margaret "GG". It stood for great-grandma. And she was a special lady.

Jennifer:
Loved getting letters from her. And she loved the Lord and passed that on to her heritage. 

Steve:
Well, as we celebrate the one who came into this fallen world to redeem it and set it free from its bondage to corruption, we talked about in the podcast, we want to wish you a joyful and blessed Christmas season. Because of our great Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, we can celebrate together in our hearts and we wish you a very Merry Christmas. And we will see you in 2024.