Noah's Ark on Ararat?

Steve:
Noah's Ark has never been found on Mount Ararat. A likely reason for this is that the probability that it landed on that particular mountain is quite low. The Bible actually never says the Ark landed on Mount Ararat. But the data that Noah gives to us in the book of Genesis could lead us to the correct mountain the Ark actually landed upon. We are discussing this in today's podcast.

Steve:
Welcome to the BC Messenger podcast. This is season three, episode nine, April 2025. And my name is Steve Hall. I'm here with my wife, Jennifer Hall. So glad you have joined us today.

Jennifer:
We welcome you and thank you for joining us and gathering around these topics. We discuss each month presenting a data rich apologetic for the Christian faith. And this is actually episode number 33.

Steve:
Yes, it is.

Jennifer:
So we are getting quite a library of these podcast episodes and all the variety of content flowing out of the Bible science approach to research that is taken here.

Steve:
You can go to theBCMessenger.com and find all of our episodes listed right there very nicely to go back and listen to this compilation... how'd you word it... library of information that we have theBCMessenger.com.

Jennifer:
Now today we're venturing into a new topic related of course all of our topics interweave at some point. But this particular episode we are delving into some details about Noah's flood Noah's Ark in the biblical account that we haven't yet discussed here on the podcast. But before we get into our featured topic, let's just do the rundown of content for today. First of all, Noah's Ark on Ararat? We will have a discussion on that. Then we have a quote of note, an illustration from a nine year old out of the mouths of babes sometimes come the most interesting insights into the world or illustrations. Then we have a report on my time at the Midwest Health and Wellness Expo. Now we were supposed to fit this in last month on the March podcast. We did not have time. So we have saved it for this month and we promise we will fit it in today. Talking about going to that event, taking Dr. Aardsma's anti-aging vitamins and this biblical discovery on the road. It was very interesting. We'll talk about that. Then Helen's View as she wants to share something from the life of Charles Goodyear. And it is so fascinating to study these scientists, these great scientists who devoted their lives to whatever mission that they had. She's going to share some about him. There you go.

Steve:
When we think of Noah's Ark, when we think of Noah's flood, when we think of that story, all of us have pictures in our minds, especially if we were raised in church. We think of pictures on nursery walls. We think of Arks with little animals sticking their heads out of the windows. And we also can think of music, right? Much of what we have learned in life had to do with music. You may or may not have realized that before. How did you learn your alphabet? Most of us didn't just memorize A, B, C, D. No, we learned a little song, right? "A, B, C, D, E, F, G." It took me a long time to figure out what an "elemeno" was. "L, M, N, O, P." We use music. Music's an effective teaching tool. 

Jennifer:
It's a very effective teaching tool. Verses or anything that you learned set to music, your mind will remember it so much more readily than just memorizing words on a page. And so music is great for that, but sometimes it can kind of lead us in the wrong direction when it comes to teaching as well.

Steve:
That's right. It teaches things that aren't necessarily true. And music's kind of a funny thing because even in style, right? You're learning something when it comes to music. This is all part of the wonder of communication that God has given to us in His world. And so there are certain styles of music that are good for certain lessons in certain places and situations. And much of the music that we learned when it comes to Bible stories, it's kind of happy-boppy, you know, fun.

Jennifer:
Maybe giving us a false impression of what actually the account was. You know, we were working on this episode when we chose Mount Ararat as our featured topic and it kept coming into my head that line from that song about Noah and the flood. "The Lord said, you're sitting right on Mount Ararat." I kept coming right into my head and I asked Steve, I said, did you, do you know that song? What song is that that says the Ark landed on Mount Ararat? And we realized that both of us grew up hearing this song.

Steve:
Right. Let me sing it. "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And he landed high and dry."

Jennifer:
And the whole song goes back and forth. "The Lord said, Noah... do, do, do. Noah said, Lord, cha, cha, cha." You know, and there's this conversation all throughout. And I think it's so funny. This is from a generation ago at least that this song rose in popularity. The Gaither, is it the Gather's? They sang it. The Statler Brothers. I think I heard it on a broadcast listening to growing up called Children's Bible Hour. But you heard it on a record.

Steve:
The Gaither's, a Gaither record. Now the message, yes, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, biblical truths, whatever, but presenting different ideas that maybe aren't accurate. Right? Noah landed on Mount Ararat. And again, as we mentioned a minute ago, even the whole feel of the song, you know, it just to me kind of shows, and we were talking about this, that we don't really probably have a real understanding of this account. And what took place.

Jennifer:
Right. Here's a few other lyrics from the song. God is saying nothing but fighting since creation day. I'll send a little water and wash them all away. Okay. Now we understand this song.

Steve
In the Arky Arky you'll escape.

Jennifer:
Yes. It's a fun representation. There's going to be some water. There's going to be some mud. It also says in this song, I believe I'm trying to find it... that after 40 days, after 40 days, Mr. Noah took a peek. He said, we're not moving Lord, where are we at? The Lord said, you're sitting right on Mount Ararat. So it's saying it was 40 days and they landed. Of course, we know that's not true. But so many different little things we can absorb there. And you can hear that about Mount Ararat in the song. And you can think, Oh, the Bible says the Ark landed on Mount Ararat.

Steve:
Okay. So that's our topic of discussion today. Does the Bible say that Noah's Ark landed on Mount Ararat? Well, in fact, the Bible does not identify Mount Ararat as the place the Ark came to rest. Now, I think many people know that, but there may be many people who don't. They did not know that because they grew up with these songs. And that's what everybody's always said.

Jennifer:
Or they thought they've heard of groups going up Mount Ararat to look for the Ark.

Steve:
That's right.

Jennifer:
So I mean, obviously, if you're going up a mountain to look for the Ark, you better be pretty sure that you're on the right mountain.

Steve:
Right. So the question is, what does the Bible say? If it doesn't say that, where did we get this idea? Well, very quickly, Genesis chapter eight and verse four does not say the Ark landed on Mount Ararat. Instead, it identifies "the mountains of Ararat" is where the Ark came to rest. The mountains of Ararat in Eastern Turkey. And by the way, that's a real place. That's this is a real event, real place at a real time in Eastern Turkey. Today, there is a mountain called Ararat. And then there is a region of mountains in that area. And the Bible is referring to those mountains as best we can understand it, the mountains of Ararat.

Jennifer:
Right. And it's really just tradition going back, however far in Christianity, that it was Mount Ararat. But we can't go on tradition alone with these types of things. Other areas of research here, such as the Mount Sinai research have demonstrated that the traditional sites are quite often incorrect. And you can understand that, early Christians trying to make determinations with really very little information to go on as far as the sciences and maps and all those kind of things. And so tradition gets established, but not necessarily from the best standpoint in relation to the data, in relation to all that we know now.

Steve:
Well, and I think Dr. Aardsma would agree that in his research, we are discovering that we pretty much get it wrong almost every time with our tradition. And the ideas that we have and we really do make a lot of mistakes, over half the time anyway. We are blessed today to be able to have the technology and the sciences have advanced to the point where we can now see more clearly what these accounts are telling us. 

Jennifer:
So if it wasn't Mount Ararat, then how could we possibly know what mountain it is? The mountains of the Ararat region, there are over a thousand mountain peaks.

Steve
A thousand mountain peaks? Yeah. And that's something. When we think about a mountain range, you think about an area like this. Step back. It's difficult for us sometimes to picture exactly what we're talking about here, but that's a lot... this is a big area.

Jennifer:
The Ararat region, which is agreed upon by scholars as to where that was in the vicinity of Lake Van. And archaeology has helped with the determination and other biblical clues. And so it's a broad area as far as what we're looking at, you know, hundreds of miles across this area.

Steve:
In the biblical text, and this is what's so neat and what we want to point out today in the podcast, the biblical text gives us some clues to help us determine where the Ark probably came to rest. Today, we're discussing these clues. They came from Noah himself. We're going to be talking about how science can be used to help pinpoint one particular mountain as the most likely resting place for Noah and his family and the animals that were inside of this Ark. So now our discussion today is coming out of an article that Dr. Aardsma published in 1997. We talk about ancient things on this podcast. And we're going back...

Jennifer:
This is back in the 1900s, folks. We have an article.

Steve:
Our children say that. What did they say? Back then. You guys were married back in the 1900s. A 1997 article published by Dr. Aardsma, which narrowed down step by step which mountain is likely to be the place where the Ark actually landed. Now, why was Dr. Aardsma delving into this? Did he just have a great interest all his life into where the Ark is? No. This is in correlation, of course, in studying the flood, the mechanism of the flood, what caused the flood in this world that we live in today.

Jennifer:
Right. In 1997, he had just really recently arrived at the correct date for Noah's flood, which is 3520 BC. But that date had just recently, I mean, within a year or two, just been determined at that time. And so this was very early research. Now, he was not looking for the correct mountain so that he could go climb it and look for the Ark. Now, he wasn't against that kind of thing. His purposes were different from that. And one purpose he had in mind at the time to continue to investigate the flood was to determine the depth of the water at certain days during the flood. And if you don't know what mountain the Ark rested upon, you don't have a very good way to measure that kind of thing. And so that was really what was driving him to say, okay, what mountain is the most likely one? And I will say, you know, from this vantage point, I mean, we're in 2025. So this was almost 30 years ago. All that the research, all the progress in the research from then until now is just enormous and huge. And so many of these early questions being answered play a role in all that has flowed out since then, including the climate change work now and everything. So, so these early questions, and this is the way science goes and the way investigations go, you answer a question and then it gives you enough ground to investigate more questions. And so I love reaching back this far. I think it's cool.

Steve:
If you go to our show notes, the first picture you'll see on there is this very impressive mountain. Mount Ararat is a very impressive mountain. It stands out all by itself in this plane, in this field. And this is the traditional Mount Ararat that people have thought that the Ark landed on because they thought the Bible said so. People have gone looking for the Ark. You probably read stories, heard stories on Mount Ararat in 2020. Young Earth Creationist Group ICR acknowledged, though, that despite many expeditions, Noah's Ark has not been found and it's unlikely to be found, they stated.

Jennifer:
I don't know why they're saying it's unlikely. They must feel like they have exhausted the possibilities on Mount Ararat. I'm not sure why they're saying it's unlikely. Because I remember growing up hearing about people going up Mount Ararat, John Morris and others looking for the Ark. I read online just the other day as I was working on this episode that "ark-aeology", A,R,K, is kind of tongue in cheek by mainstream scientists, their view on somebody going up and looking for Noah's Ark.

Steve:
So many have given up on trying to find the Ark. Of course, many don't believe it ever happened, this story, and they use that as part of their evidence.

Jennifer:
Right. And if you're new to the podcast, we need to point this out because so often our interactions on social media, people can't even get over the hurdle that, you're talking about the flood like it's real. Is this a parody? I have had people say that on our TikTok videos. "Is this a parody? If so, it's very clever."

Steve
Right. They just cannot believe we are actually saying it.

Jennifer:
Like if you surely don't mean that you actually think the flood was real. So yes, if you're new to the podcast, we do believe the flood was real, and it is based upon step by step by step verification. This is not a blind leap in the dark, let's just believe the story of Noah's flood... It is based upon very careful, very sound reasoning really. And you're welcome to investigate that, about the ancient Old Testament and all that we can verify all the way back to this ancient time. And so yes, we absolutely take it as a real world event with a real world explanation that'll blow your mind, which we're not going into that today. And Noah himself as recording information data, just like a scientist does today in his lab notes. Now we're not going to make you wait too long before we tell you what mountain is the result of this study from 1997 as the resting place for the Ark. We're not going to make you wait till the end of the episode or anything like that. We're going to get to that here quite shortly.

Steve:
Now let me interject here. Chronology is very important in this discussion. It's important in all of our discussions. We are the Biblical Chronologists here and it's important here because of the fact that many people get tripped up when it comes to the story of Noah because they say, well, sure, the Bible has its flood story. All great tales from ancient literature have their flood story. I mean, you have Gilgamesh, right? The most famous one other than the Bible's story, which very much resembles the story of the flood in the Bible, the story of Gilgamesh. What is Gilgamesh? It's this epic poem story based upon this King Gilgamesh who actually was a figure, I think in history, who ruled in Uruk in and around 2700 BC. Okay. So the problem we have here is traditional dates for the flood put the flood after Gilgamesh. 

Jennifer:
Yeah. This is a serious problem. The flood is traditionally dated to 2500 BC, give or take a little there. But if Gilgamesh obviously lived before that time, then it's pretty hard to say that Noah's account of the flood was original because there was this epic poem written before that.

Steve:
Before it. And so that's used by those who do not believe to mock and say, well, see, they just copied. It's the same story, not really, but a lot of similarities there.

Jennifer:
So it shows you that the Bible is just giving mythology, right? A legend that was passed down.

Steve:
But if we get the dates right, put the thousand years in, and we've talked about many times in back into biblical history, now our flood date is 35... give or take a few 3520 BC, and places it well before these other tales in the story of Gilgamesh.

Jennifer:
And that's a huge, that's a huge resolution there. Another thing is the establishment of government that we can see in archaeology has to be after the date of the flood, because that's what the Bible tells us, that God established government, city states, these kind of things. And sure enough, those kind of things are found in archaeology after the date of 3520 BC. And again, a harmony that's flowing out of this new date for the flood.

Steve: 
Right. As a matter of fact, if you search on Google, the story of Gilgamesh, you will see that they say this is the oldest written story anywhere known to exist. But they're wrong. The actual oldest written story anywhere to exist is Genesis. And so we're going to go there now and read this account.

Jennifer:
We are going to read Genesis chapter eight, verses one through sixteen. And we thought we'd do something kind of fun here. We are going to do a data alert as we read through this. (Ding) There's the sound of the data alert. As we read this chapter, every time we hear a piece of information, real world observations, numbers, things that could be quantified and could be scientifically examined, we're going to use our little data alert. (Ding) All right.

Steve:
This is really goofy. I love it.

Jennifer:
Well, it's important to note, like we said, Noah was an early scientist making observations just like a scientist in their lab notes today.

Steve:
Right. All right. Genesis chapter eight, beginning with verse one. "But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the Ark. And God caused a wind to pass over the earth and the water subsided. Also, the fountains of the great deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed and the rain from the sky was restrained. And the water receded steadily from the earth. And at the end of 150 days, the water decreased. And in the seventh month, on the 17th day of the month, the Ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. You're going to get tired of ringing that bell in a minute. And the water decreased steadily until the 10th month. In the 10th month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible. Then it came about at the end of 40 days that Noah opened the window of the Ark, which he had made. And he sent out a raven and it flew here and there until the water was dried up from the earth. He sent out a dove from him to see if the water was abated from the face of the land. But the dove found no resting place for the soul of her foot, so she returned to him in the Ark. For the water was on the surface of all the earth. Then he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the Ark to himself. So he waited yet another seven days. And again he sent out the dove from the Ark. And the dove came to him toward evening. And behold, in her beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth. Then he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove. But she did not return to him again. Now it came about in the 600 and first year in the first month on the first of the month, the water was dried up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the Ark and looked. And behold, the surface of the ground was dried up. And in the second month on the 27th day of the month, the earth was dry. And then God spoke to Noah saying, go out of the Ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons' wives with you."

Jennifer:
So with all of those dings throughout the reading there, we have a clear illustration of how information rich this passage is and others, but this specific one about the ending of the flood. You know, as we've been on this podcast just here in this moment, it's dawning on me too, as far as the Epic of Gilgamesh, it's very interesting to note that that is an artistic form, a poem, right? What Noah is giving us here in Genesis is not a poem. It is not an art form. It is purely information. And just from a likelihood standpoint alone, what's going to come first, all the information, all the data, and then flowing out of that, an art form? Or vice versa? And I mean, that doesn't prove anything, but that's just a new thought that I've had. I thought I'd share.

Steve:
Right. And it does read like data. I mean, this man is recording, you heard all those dings. All of that is more information. It's not like you said a song that's just kind of telling a tale.

Jennifer:
It's not, "The Lord told Noah, there's going to be a flood." No, there's an art form flowing out of this story.

Steve:
Right. But no, it's like the way I picture it is. I've watched Dr. Aardsma in his laboratory and his lab notes, right? And he's got this kind of like graph paper, and every day, you know, on an experiment, he's making notes, making notes, jotting down this observation and this observation. And that seems to be what Noah's doing here. Ding, ding, ding, ding. All these observations that he's seeing in his ancient format, however he's doing that, he didn't have pen and paper like we have today.

Jennifer:
He had cuneiform on clay tablets.

Steve:
Right. So he, but that's his lab notes. He's documenting on his lab notes. So maybe you never realized that before, never saw it in that way, that that is what Noah is doing.

Jennifer:
Now we can extrapolate from all that information quite a bit and we can take a lot of clues and from that we can deduce like a detective what mountain in Turkey has the highest probability of being the mountain where the ark actually landed.

Steve:
Now not you and me. No, we can't. We're not going to do this. It's already been done. Dr. Aardsma has already done this. He has deduced this. He has taken this account in Genesis very seriously as scientific data recorded and now applied it, the information that Noah left us. You know, it's amazing to think of it that way, that we have this data today that Noah put down on in cuneiform on tablets over 5,000 years ago that we can take and deduce from to get information about this event that took place.

Jennifer:
And it's a lot more than a poem. I mean, if the Epic of Gilgamesh was the oldest story ever, you're not going to learn a whole lot from that to help you in the real world today. But that is not the case with Genesis and so many of our episodes have demonstrated that.

Steve:
Right. So let's just say, where does it take us?

Jennifer:
Yes. Let's go ahead and say it. Let's give the conclusion of the whole matter right now.

Steve:
There's a mountain in the mountains of Ararat called Mount Cilo. It is actually 250 miles south of "the" Mount Ararat. Mount Cilo is the second highest mountain in Turkey. Mount Ararat, by the way, is the tallest mountain, again, very majestic.

Jennifer:
Majestic and imposing because it is kind of a standalone mountain. Right. But why does Cilo emerge, which in Turkey is called Cilo Daggi, Cilo Daggi, which is, they seem to put that term Daggi, (I don't know if I'm saying that right), after all the names of their mountains. So Dr. Aardsma has Americanized it, whatever, Mount Cilo.

Steve:
So why are we picking this mountain?

Jennifer:
Right. How does it emerge as the mountain that is most likely? Well, we're going to explain that now, but it is important because 250 miles is a big distance across the surface of the globe and also because the elevations of these two mountains are different. And so that's going to lead us to different conclusions about the flood itself in that area of the world.

Steve:
So we're going to take all these dings you heard, right? Well, maybe not all of them, but anyhow, all this information Dr. Aardsma has taken and narrowed the search down in his research to 41 mountains, out of, how many did we say? It's like 1400 and some peaks. 

Jennifer:
But the fact that, okay, so we have to get into some of this data... how can we narrow down even to 41 out of those candidates? Well, because Noah records that the Ark rests on the mountains of Ararat and does not record any visible mountains around it until 72 days later. All of this is in there in Genesis chapter eight. The tops of the mountains became visible 72 days later. Then we know that he was on a tall peak that all the mountains in the general vicinity were not exceeding that height, or the same as that height. They were they were lower. So that he's resting there, but he doesn't see any peaks. And so that right there eliminates the majority of the candidates in discussion. But still, we have 41. So then how do we narrow down out of those 41 down to this Mount Cilo?

Steve:
Now we are just going to pop these off very quickly. Very quickly. If you want to read more, the link to Dr. Aardsma's article that he did back in 1997, it is on the show notes. It's also on thebiblicalchronologist.org and you're welcome to go read it for yourself.

Jennifer:
There are six categories where he did a probability analysis on each of these 41 candidates so that we can find out when all the probabilities are taken together and multiplied and whatever you're supposed to do with probabilities, to find out which mountain had the highest probability. And as we said, it's Mount Cilo, and it's so fascinating because Mount Cilo has a 62... a factor of 62 higher than any of the other 41 mountains. 62 times more likely to be the resting place of the ark than any other of these mountains. And we know the second one is actually Mount Ararat, but it only has 1 as its score, and Cilo has 62 and all the others are way below one. And we know Ararat has been explored heavily. So all signs point to Cilo at this point. But how were those probabilities determined? What clues are in that text that lead us to this conclusion?

Steve:
Okay, there are six different categories that Dr. Aardsma used. The first one is the closest to the heart of Ararat, this region, around a place called Lake Van. You can go to Google Maps. We did this earlier and you can look it up. So that was the first category, mountain closest to the heart of Ararat.

Jennifer:
I think it's so humorous. In the narrowing down to these 41 candidates in the article on page eight, it's being discussed, you know, that the curvature of the earth, if you're on a tall mountain and then you take into account the curvature of the surface of the earth and the horizon and whatever, how do you determine what mountains would be visible from that tall mountain? Okay, Dr. Aardsma says, "A little math quickly reveals that the critical distance R at which mountain B will be visible from A is given by this equation." I love that. A little math. Just a little math here. A little math. Okay, here's the equation. Now, I enjoy math and I can teach it to my high schoolers to some extent, but this is out of my league right here, this little math. Okay, a small r equals large r, arcos large r over large r plus small e.

Steve:
Yeah, sure.

Jenifer:
Use that equation and you can narrow down to 41 mountains.

Steve:
Right, right, a little math.

Jennifer:
So we're here to communicate this to you, not to delve into all of these details, but I just found that funny.

Steve:
But again, this is an illustration of the probability factors going on here. And he did use a computer program, I believe.

Jennifer:
Yes, for these six categories that we're about to talk about.

Steve:
Okay, so yeah, so the first one there again was closest to the heart of Ararat.

Jennifer:
Around Lake Van and Mount Cilo ranked number five out of the 41 candidates in this category. Okay, moving on. Category two.

Steve:
Category two is the height of each candidate relative to its first-seen neighbor, neighbor mountain. So here's Mount Cilo's neighbors. About 25 miles away to the northeast is the first neighboring mountain, 17 miles away to the southeast to the next tallest mountains. The elevation of Cilo is 13,566 feet. Both of those neighbors are a thousand feet lower than Cilo.

Jennifer:
Right. Now there is a peak very close to the peak of Mount Cilo, which is pretty much the same mountain. Mount Cilo has another peak that is very close to the elevation where the ark would have landed. But the neighboring mountains far out-seen, as Noah's waiting for them to appear, as Steve was saying, they're 25 miles away and 17 miles away to the next tallest mountains. And so because of that 72-day interval there, we're looking for a mountain that doesn't have a lot of tall neighbors that would have become visible very quickly after they landed. So Mount Cilo ranks number four out of 41 in this category.

Steve:
Okay, the third category. Water heights when the first two neighboring mountains became visible. At least two mountains were seen on day 222 according to the biblical account. 

Jennifer:
Right. Because I mean, the Bible says that the tops of the mountains became visible. So not just one mountain emerged, but at least two on the day that he says that this happened. And so it's fascinating because those two neighbors that we talked about with Mount Cilo, 17 miles away, 25 miles away, they each have a very, very close height today within 50 feet or something, elevation. Now of course in the article, it's discussed that some of these things can change over time, but we are willing to accept those uncertainties because if we don't, we can't proceed at all and you can read all that in the article. But for the most part, the landscape is very likely quite the same as what Noah saw when he looked out from the Ark.

Steve:
So where does that one land? Number three?

Jennifer:
Oh, number three. Where do we score? Mount Cilo scores on category three as again. The fourth out of 41 candidates.

Steve:
Okay. The fourth category is the shape of the mountain. Highest ratio of height to width. 

Jennifer:
Okay. Because Noah was not able to see the mountain that he rested upon from inside the Ark as far as we know. There was an upper deck of the Ark. He had a window, but the Bible does tell us that in order for him to eventually look down to the ground, he had to remove the covering of the Ark to be able to see down below him. And I'll tell you what, you look at pictures of Mount Cilo and you imagine that family climbing up so they could look down over the top once Noah had removed the covering... I can't really imagine the panic they would have felt thinking about having to navigate down from where they were because this mountain is very intimidating in the pictures.

Steve:
And I want to back up a little further. Not just that, but I just, I cannot, once you understand this account, the way that we've understood it now, and delving as deeply as we have into the story, this account, the Ark... okay, you get the impression that Noah can see out of a hole or something, right? He has some windows somewhere and he's able to see around outside, but they have not removed the cover of the Ark. I mean, can you imagine what kind of fear would be in your heart and in your head having experienced what they have experienced? And remember, they're waiting on God to tell them to get out or, I mean, they're staying in this Ark. They're not leaving it.

Jennifer:
He's also responsible for the life of all those animals and livestock. And some of them would have left the Ark if the covering was taken off. And I mean, he doesn't want them to have lived all this time in the Ark and then make their way out and not be able to survive. So, so he's waiting until he feels like we can, we can make it outside of this boat.

Steve:
So yeah, our little bouncy tune about, you know, the Ark landing on Mount Ararat, it doesn't work. I mean, this is the wrong impression of this account. And we need to get this story right for things going on today in the world. And if you listen to past episodes of our podcast, you can understand that. We'll be talking about it more in the future, but we need to take it seriously, take the data here seriously and understand what we're looking at in our world.

Jennifer:
So for category four, this is where Cilo actually ranks one out of 41 for the ratio of height to width to match what we're reading there, that he could not see the ground and that he couldn't even really see the mountain through his window and all of that. So this is where Cilo rises up to the top candidate, but it is of course close to the top on all of these probabilities for each category. All right. So moving on to number five.

Steve:
Number five, the fifth category, it has to be "in the mountains." That was the next category. There are lakes, there are high plateaus, there's sizable valleys, big extensive foothills all within this region. So it must be in the mountains.

Jennifer:
We're looking for a mountain that has a lot of mountainous neighbors, even though they have to be shorter as we've discussed. So you can see the search is narrowing down more and more because it wouldn't be called "in the mountains" if it was one mountain rising up from the plane like Ararat actually is.

Steve:
I was going to say that that kind of knocks Ararat out there. If you take that seriously, literally, right? Ararat's not in the mountains at all. It is a mountain out in the middle of a big vast open plane.

Jennifer:
And I mean, Genesis could have recorded that the ark came to rest on a mountain in Ararat, but it does not say that... "in the mountains of Ararat." So again, how much can we consider it to be in the mountains and the details are given there in the article, which you can link to in the show notes. But for this category, Cilo ranks number three out of 41 candidates.

Steve:
Okay. And then the final one, the sixth category, association with the land of Shinar, a plane between the Tigris River and the Euphrates River. Today it is modern day Iraq. Noah's descendants in Genesis 11 and verse 2 migrated into the land of Shinar. So the category is, it must be the closest mountain to the area of the Tigris River leaving the Ararat region. 

Jennifer:
Right. The descendants in Genesis 11, the way the text presents it is that they accidentally came into this land of Shinar as they were journeying. And this was not the year after the ark came to rest. I mean, this was a couple generations later at least. But these descendants are beginning to journey. The Bible tells us this, and they end up in the land of Shinar. Most likely they would have followed a river as they traveled. So they wouldn't have, you know, died of dehydration on their travels and rainfall's scares in these areas, et cetera. So a river leading them to the land of Shinar, which is a clue, then that was also part of this probability. So the mountain that was closest to the Tigris River, which would have led them into Shinar got a got a ranking of one. And in this category, again, Mount Cilo ranks number three out of 41. So all of these probabilities taken together bring Mount Cilo up to be 62 times more likely than any of the other candidates that were examined.

Steve:
And that's pretty striking. It's not like you have some that are close, you know, pretty close together. Right. I mean, with the one that comes out on top, but it's standing out there all by itself, this Mount Cilo. Yes. Well, and I don't think you're going to take the story of Gilgamesh and be able to get that kind of data.

Jennifer:
I need to read the poem. I've glanced at it, but I don't think so either.

Steve:
I don't think you're going to get any old ancient tale and be able to say, we're going to take the data out of that to show the reality of the story, find the place in the real world today. I mean, no, that's not what this story is. It's completely different from ancient myths. And that is one of the takeaways we have with all of this, that this is real world history and data.

Jennifer:
Now I can imagine our listeners at this point saying, well, okay, has anybody gone up Mount Cilo? Find where Is the ark up there? So the best we have on that right now is that a colleague of Dr. Aardsma, a friend of his, who's followed his work for many years, did attempt to climb Mount Cilo. (Humming) Indiana Jones? I don't know what that means. 

Steve:
Jennifer hasn't watched many movies in her life. So that's Indiana Jones.

Jennifer:
Okay. So he went up Mount Cilo or tried to specifically to go to a spot that they had in mind, but unfortunately the Turkish authorities there turned him and the others away at the base of the mountain and they were not given permission to climb, which of course can happen in these foreign countries, and the way things are done.

Steve:
So if you want to go climb Mount Cilo, give it a shot. Let us know.

Jennifer:
Somebody one of these days needs to, right?

Steve:
Now we also have Google Maps today in satellite views. And there was a time some years ago, I was on top of Mount Cilo on Google and looking all around, you know, just for the fun of it. But it's still possible that the ark could be found. I mean, if it was buried in ice and snow, it's possible the thing slid. I mean, who knows, you know, and what happened? The earth right now is warming. We know that ice is melting and it's possible that that ark could be found if God wanted that to happen.

Jennifer:
I was reading just general information online about Mount Cilo. And one of the things I read is that there are some glaciers, small glaciers, I guess today. It was saying up near the upper regions of Mount Cilo they are receding today due to global warming as it was saying in the article. So what that tells us is if the ark landed near the peak, there aren't normally glaciers on the peaks of mountains, they're not a good place for glaciers to form on the very peak, but the ark could easily have slid down to a more iced, icy region in the coming centuries and then been covered by ice and snow. There have been other finds in archaeology where this obviously happened to different things. And if that happened, then the ark could have been disguised for many, many years. But with the receding of these glaciers, other things have been found and it's very possible that this will expose the arc to discovery at some point. And that would be a wonderful day, of course. Now we are after much broader things in the research here, but nobody here is against having Noah's Ark discovered on Mount Cilo or any other mountain.

Steve:
Right. I mean, we have the data we need and we are making, Dr. Aardsma's was making some amazing discoveries. But right, what an icing on top of the cake it would be to find that ark. So wrapping this up, does this mean that Mount Cilo was the mountain the ark rested on that we absolutely know that? Well, the answer to that is it probably is. And I say that because with this data that Noah gave to us and then Dr. Aardsma's research into it, I mean, a factor of 62 in likelihood is difficult to explain any other way than that this probably is the right mountain.

Jennifer:
But it's not a definite, you know, things could come along in the research that could change that. But being able to proceed in 1997, you know, with this kind of an answer to the question was definitely a big step. And definitely giving confidence that we're going to say it was Mount Cilo so we can proceed from there.

Steve:
It had a thousand four hundred and forty competitors. Pretty amazing stuff. And that's the data. Now someone may say, Well, I don't think I like your data. Well, that takes us into a coat of note that we have today. We had a young child in our life who exemplified a certain attitude that we can have that we thought, well, hey, that would be a great illustration to use to talk about the importance and the value of the sciences in Christianity and in understanding things properly.

Jennifer:
I love it when we get such a clear cut illustration, you know, just things that happen. And then we think, Hey, that really points something out here. So I was in the house, one of my girls was in there as well, and she kept wandering through the area where I was working and seemed to be waiting on something. And, and finally she came to me complaining saying, Mom, I set the timer for 18 minutes like an hour ago, but it still has seven minutes left. So I'm like busy on my computer, you know, and I said, Well, I thought, Okay, 18 seven. I said, Well, then you set the timer 11 minutes ago, not an hour ago. And then I thought of the, you know, this lingo from the podcast popped in my mind. And I said, "The data shows it was not an hour ago." And so her response to that was, "Well, the date is wrong then."

Steve:
Doesn't feel like eleven minutes!

Jennifer:
In her mind, there's no way it was 11 minutes, right? I've been waiting for so long and how is it still have seven minutes and don't tell me it's only been 11 minutes.

Steve:
Well, that is a great illustration because very simple illustration to understand tools like timers, what are they doing for us? They're helping to check where we may be mistaken. We possibly have the wrong perception of reality. And it takes humility to say I was wrong, right? It doesn't feel this way. But this tool is helping me in my accurate view, in my finite understanding to get an accurate view. So what should we do when the measurement, the math, the tool contradicts what we think to be true?

Jennifer:
Right. And I mean, Hey, if you really wanted to do a deep dive here, you could say, Well, you need to check and make sure your tools are working properly. And that's true. Maybe the timer is not correctly measuring time. You would also want to check and make sure you hadn't been sabotaged some way somewhere along the way. Did her brother come along and mess with the timer? So it was not giving her the right results. So you would want to check these things. But if you had no real reason to doubt the accuracy of the timer, then at that point you have to say, Well, I guess I'm mistaken in how I feel about this, and what this seems like it should be to me.

Steve:
And it doesn't make the tool evil because it disagreed with what your perception was. We have to be humble enough and desire the truth enough to realize the tool may be a gift from God to help us have more of a proper understanding. And we've talked about this in other podcasts. One great example is the radiocarbon dating and this being made an evil thing because it doesn't agree with preconceived ideas... So we have to be careful with this and understand these tools that we have, yes, we need to make sure they're correct and all of that, but they are, and can end up being a gift from the Lord to bring us into further understanding of the truth.

Jennifer:
So keep that little conversation in mind and we'll just leave you with that there on our quote of note. We've got to move now right into our section on the aging research and we have this report on the Midwest Health and Wellness Expo.

Steve:
Yes, Jennifer actually recently set up a vendor display at the Midwest Health and Wellness Expo that was up in, what's that area called? Michiana.

Jennifer:
Michiana Event Center.

Steve:
Yep, Shipshawana. Beautiful area, and she spent three days there. She interacted with hundreds of folks who came through this expo, talking to them about the discovery of the anti-aging vitamins. So she is now going to share with us some of the most common reactions that she got from people coming through, some amusing reactions, some really good questions that people had concerning the anti-aging vitamins. And also, I think Jennifer you're going to share with us some of what you learned by being in that particular environment that was all about health and wellness, health products.

Jennifer:
Yes, this was all new to us as we seek for ways to put our discovery here in front of people so they can benefit from it. There's no good in it if it just sits over here and people don't know about it. So we're constantly seeking for new ways. And so this vendor event seemed like a good opportunity. And one reason it appealed to me was because it was being put on by the Amish community up in that area. If you're familiar, you know there's a lot of Amish, even the old order Amish are up in that area. Dear folks, sweet families, and some of the vendor events I had looked at had been much more secular in nature, even borderline on wellness in relation to like… Occultic type stuff. Palm reading and things like that were at the event as well. And I wasn't interested in necessarily attending one like that. So this one here in Michiana seemed like a good fit because these people would be coming from a perspective of understanding the Bible and Genesis and being put on by this particular community. So I went up there, set up, talked to hundreds of folks. I gave out almost a thousand packets on my own there and that was the best I could do. I could have given out many, many more. The attendance at this event in past years has been 10,000. I don't know if that was the same attendance this year, but it certainly was heavily attended. There were hundreds of booths there at this event. Everything from dental implants to natural pain relief, organic grains, multi-level marketing companies that you've probably heard of, different brands that are on a wellness theme, clinics from other countries were even there represented where you can go for alternative treatments to cancer, for example. Some of the vendor displays were offering you tests that you could have done on the spot, hook you up to this machine, we'll read, give you a reading, and then we will recommend to you what supplements we think you could benefit from that particular display. Sustainable cleaning products, just pretty much everything you could imagine was represented there at this health and wellness event.

So I set up our display and began to get a bearing for my surroundings. The number one takeaway that I came to realize pretty quickly was that we as a culture today, we really are drowning in a sea of supplements and vitamin companies, wellness companies in general. Very hard for the customer to sort out. I kind of have a narrow perspective. I am only in the wellness industry, if you want to call it that, only because of this discovery. I believe in it and I believe God has called me to help to communicate it. I have never had a general interest in health companies out there. And so maybe I haven't realized. But as I stood there at my booth, I'm looking around right across from me on a banner is the word longevity. Of course, we use that word a lot for good reason here. Another company, Northern Nutrition, herbs and vitamins. So there you have vitamins, right, like us. Across from me also was a company called Pure and the man working that booth told me previously that company was called Genesis Pure. And so I'm like, okay, you know, there's so much similar terminology and not just in the, in those type of terms, but also mitochondria, cellular, anti aging, right? You go around and you see all this all over the place.

So that was my first realization. How in the world is a consumer supposed to sort out in their mind what we have as being unique compared to all this other? But that was another takeaway. What we have is unique. There was nobody else at any display that I saw that said they, they were presenting two newly discovered vitamins. I mean, sure, you could go get vitamins, you could get vitamin B three, you could get multivitamins, you could get fish oil, you know, all these different things that are known.

Steve:
A lot of companies want to say we have the best form of these vitamins. We have the best concoction produced whatever, but nobody's saying we have brand new, newly discovered vitamins. Right.

Jennifer:
And so as people came past my display, I tried to hit them with that very quickly. What we have here is 100% unique. I would try to look them in the eye, give them a packet. What we have are two newly discovered vitamins. These are not the same as the traditional vitamins or any other supplement out there today. They are completely unique. I just stopped them in their tracks, you know, gave them my little sales pitch. They were discovered through research way back into the ancient Old Testament. You know how people were living so much longer back at that time. Dr. Aardsma, who's actually my father, after decades of research discovered these two missing vitamins. These two vitamins are bottled together as liquid drops and they're very important for your health and function of the body, just like all the traditional vitamins. And I tried to, you know, let them know this is not the same as anything else.

Now, sadly, as I perused in the few minutes that I had, I didn't have a ton of time because I had to be at the booth, but some of the other displays and other products out there in the health and wellness industry are downright deceptive. I mean, really, they'll talk to you about things like signaling molecules, and they will not list what the ingredients are.

Steve:
And they'll charge you a fortune.

Jennifer:
Yeah, one man came past the booth. He saw how much one bottle of vitamins was and he said, well, this is a whole lot cheaper than that company across the way. On the other side, he said, they want to charge me $400 a month to sign up. And that was the company selling signaling molecules, which I won't name here, but you Google it and you find out that they're selling like salt water under these very fancy names, and lots of testimonials and convincing information.

Steve:
People know this. Some have discovered it and it just makes it all the harder here, not complaining, but, but this is what we're up against in this sea of information and vitamins and supplements.

Jennifer:
Yesterday, as I was getting ready for the podcast and I was talking through some of this, one of my girls was sitting there and she said, well, if those companies are tricking people, that's not good for you, mom, because people are going to think you're trying to trick them too. And I'm like, yeah, this is a problem.

Steve:
We've been labeled snake oil more than once.

Jennifer:
Yeah. And you know, you see what's out there and you will become cynical. There's no doubt. So, um, and then of course another takeaway. I thought, okay, if you go through this exhibit hall and you know, you try to restrain your impulse to spend, but you do come away with five or six items that were of interest to you, and what if they're all supplements? You know, you buy five or six different supplements because you are trying to help with some problems you're having or something. How are you, how is that customer, that consumer going to be able to differentiate what is actually making a difference for them? And again, how does the average person like me going in there or anyone else, um, how did they make a determination on even knowing... okay, I took this and then it really helped me with this. So even if your supplement is effective, as we definitely believe ours is, but you muddy the waters with so many other things, and then it's really hard for people to know the truth of the situation.

So those were kind of my takeaways. Another takeaway is that some people are genuinely interested. And so, you know, in this health and wellness, in trying to get our, our discovery out there, you just have to put so many poles in the water, you know, and eventually around along the way, you're going to connect with people who really are able to receive the information. And that definitely happened at that vendor event. And we're still continuing to see the ripple effects of making contact with those people.

Steve:
Would you say usually that's people who are having some sort of health issue, or it's just personality types?

Jennifer:
Yeah, it just depends on the person and how perceptive they are at what you just said. I did have one guy, he came past and he had kind of a commanding presence. And so I worked up my nerve to say something to him and I said, are you here to check out the products? And he said, no, I'm a speaker. And, and then I, he kind of was gracious to me. I handed him a packet. I told him what I had and he was floored. He was like, how did he discover to new vitamin? New vitamins? And then he said, I want to come back and get one of your books here, but I'll prepay for it. I, and then when I leave to catch my plane, I'm going to take the book. So, you know, in his case, he, he had enough background info to know that it's not everybody telling you they have literally have new vitamins. But other people just, you know, it just depends. You can't really predict how someone's going to react. But here was my most common reaction as I went through my little spiel. I would get to the part about people living so long back in Genesis and they would chuckle and they'd say, "Oh yeah, they sure did." But so often in the conversation, I would get this kind of reaction. "I don't know if I want to live that long!" You know, like, whoa, life's tough, you know, I don't, don't tell me I'm going to live hundreds of years. I can't handle it. And you know, I just, I understand that because it's shocking. It's out of our paradigm, you know, but I would just respond and say, you know what, God may have plans for you in this world far beyond what you ever imagined, right? Because that's true. And then sometimes I also would say, um, you know, I imagine there's some people who'd like to keep you around as long as they can, right? So yes, there was that.

Steve:
So did anybody act shocked that, you know, those kinds of life spans, I mean, if you're reading in the biblical account or understand it, we're talking not 50 more years to your life or 25, but we're talking about potentially hundreds and hundreds. Were they asking questions like that?

Jennifer:
Yeah. I mean, I had some people just staring at the banner and listening to me and saying, so are you saying we could actually live that long again? And so I would say, you know, this discovery, we're only seven years in, the research is still ongoing. What we have is important, no doubt, but it may not be the full answer. But if aging is a disease, as we learn from the biblical accounts, then we do believe it will be cured like other diseases and that the human body, your body, yes, is capable of living hundreds of years.

Steve:
And as we've said before, that really does test your faith in the accounts of the Bible. Right? You either believe that or you don't, that those people lived those ages and they could live that way again. Well, one of the questions that we get all the time, and I'm sure you must have gotten there was, okay, two newly discovered vitamins. What are they? I mean, if it's not vitamin C or vitamin D, what are you talking about?

Jennifer:
Right. And I think that I would ask that. I mean, you're in your mind, you're trying to think, well, okay, if this is not a vitamin that I've heard of, then what is this vitamin? What are these vitamins? So yeah, I definitely had people ask that. In that case, I would get them a copy of our fact sheet about the vitamins and I would explain to them what the chemical compounds are, methylphosphinic acid, methylphosphonic acid. I would usually relate that to vitamin C being asorbic acid and also we know of folic acid. So those are known to be very important and these are two new vitamins, just as important. So yeah, I would compliment them. You know, that's a great question. And when people ask me that kind of question, I give you a fact sheet. So here you go.

And then I had one fella who was very, very excited to tell me all about this special water that had all the bad stuff taken out and it was so, so good for you. And it probably is. I don't know anything about that specific product. But another guy... I love this because when somebody can reiterate back to you, and you know they have absorbed the information... so this fella's talking all about the special water and how we all need it. And the other fella who had already been talking to me previously was standing there and he said, "So you think all this stuff should be taken out of the water, but she is saying there's something that needs to be put in the water." And I'm like, "Yes, you're getting it. You got it." So loved it. Love that kind of interaction.

Steve:
Well it is always interesting to see how people react and respond to this. This is a big, big topic. And when you first hear it, it just kind of, whoosh, goes over your head, right? But you're glad for people to be asking questions and looking into it. And you really had some good conversations, some good responses there at this expo.

Jennifer:
Yeah, I did. I had a few people asking me if this was something called Vitamin O because they're trying to relate it to something they've heard of before. And our bottle apparently looks like Vitamin O, which is, you can find it online and it's just like oxidized water or something. Oxygen, the O stands for oxygen. So that again is more of a snake oil product. But they said, "Oh, well your bottle looks like the vitamin O bottle." I'm like, "Oh, okay. Well, I better see what vitamin O is because no, we're not that." The first person that asked me that, I'm just like blinking looking at him. I'm thinking, "I've never, I don't know what vitamin O is." So, but there you go. Somebody's using the word vitamin on something that is not a vitamin.

Okay. And then I had some people surprised at the size of the bottle. They thought it was a sample. I had some people actually just throw it down in their bag thinking it was a sample because so many of the tables were giving out samples. And I had to explain to people, you know, there are 450 drops in this bottle. So yeah, it's small, but it'll last a long time. And then people would be like, "Is this the only thing you have for sale?" And I'm like, "Yes, I'm here for this one product. We don't have a catalog. We don't have a product line. We are just about this one discovery of these two new vitamins," which says something of itself. Because if you were really in it for the industry part of it, you would develop a product line, not just one product.

And then I got to share a couple funny things before we move on. Of course, you know, you're going to get humorous, incredulous reactions from people. The lady beside me was with a dental company and we're setting up and she's like, "So what have you got?" And so I try to give her my spiel and I, you know, I hadn't even talked to anybody yet because we were just setting up. It hadn't even opened. And so her reaction, you know, kind of threw me off. She's like, "Okay, and you're actually 75, right?" How do you even respond to that? No... Then I had this very sweet little older Amish lady and I start telling her all about what we have. And she had just walked in because I was pretty close to the door where I was located with my booth. And she said, "You know, I was just thinking, looking around, if I get everything in this place, I'll probably just be flying around the ceiling." What she meant was all the wonderful stuff that all these companies are going to promise me. You know, I'm just going to be like literally floating on cloud nine by the time I take advantage of all these products. So that was cute.

And then this one Amish fella in his hat and everything, and you know, these are dear folks, dear families, I loved meeting so many of them, and their culture is just a neat quaint view glimpse into the past. But this man, he heard my sales pitch and he started going, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh!" He started chuckling and he just stayed right in front of my booth and he kept walking up and down in front of my booth, just chuckling. And then he would turn around and he kept chuckling. And I thought, okay, he's thinking to himself, "I am not believing that!"

And then let me see. Was there anything else? Oh, I love this one fella. He brought his friend back over with him and he said, "You know what? I'm thinking about this. Worst case, it'll kill me. And best case, I will live forever." And his friend was like, "Yeah. Take your chances." Right? And then, okay, this will be my last thing. We got to get off of this. I could talk about this for a while, but I had these two older men put me totally on the spot because I'm talking to them about how long people lived and how long we might be able to live today, and aging as we know it today is not the norm as it's always been, et cetera. So these two fellas look like they maybe could have been brothers or something, or friends, the one guy, he said, "Hey, guess how old I am?" And they had like white beards, white hair. And so I'm like, I don't know. I think my brain was a little fried because I didn't do the right thing. I should have guessed a really low number. Instead, I looked at him. I said, "85?" He goes, No, I'm 73 or 75 or something. And I'm like, "Oh, okay." Then the other guy goes, "Well, how old do you think I am?" I said the same thing, "85?" He goes, "No, I'm younger than my friend." So I'm like, "Okay, great. I messed that one up.

But anyhow, I love talking to all the people and getting to know folks. And we've had orders coming in since that time from up in that area. And we're very, very grateful for the contacts we made. And grateful to be able to connect with people on the common ground of taking the biblical record, and also the common ground of being willing to evaluate new health information for themselves and not necessarily looking for everything that's just in the mainstream.

Steve:
Right. And yes, it sounded like it was a very good trip, very profitable, made some good connections. And if you're interested in checking out these vitamins, they're available. We've tried to make it as easy as possible to obtain them. Where do they go? They go to our store. We have a new storefront now to get them.

Jennifer:
But if you go to the podcast website, it'll take you right to the storefront. There's a button right there. There's a shop button there. That's right. Very good.

All right. Carrying on with our podcast, we now have Helen's View and Helen is going to be talking to us today about a scientist who lived many years ago. Really in very much the same way, having discoveries that he was making, and a very interesting story about Charles Goodyear. Hope you enjoy Helen's View.

Helen:
I wrote this article in November 2007, which was 18 years ago while Gerald was working on finding "Vitamin x" and the discovery of the anti-aging vitamins was still in the future. Gerald and I have read several books over the years about Charles Goodyear. We have always found him to be inspiring. With this issue of Helen's View, I'm going to start a series on his life and work. Lessons from the life of Charles Goodyear, part one.

Goodyear was the inventor of vulcanized rubber. Vulcanized rubber is rubber which has been treated by a chemical or physical process to improve its properties of hardness, strength, odor, and elasticity. The year was 1839. Goodyear went on to patent the process on June 15, 1844. The entire plastic industry that we see today came out of the vulcanization process of rubber. Rubber comes from rubber trees which originally grew in the Amazon rainforest, but now grow mainly in Southeast Asia. One can tap a rubber tree just like a maple tree. A milky sap, honey-like substance, now called latex, is the primary source of natural rubber. From Christopher Columbus onward, the mention of rubber in various forms abounds. In Peru, Columbus observed bouncing balls made from the milky fluid. Spanish soldiers saw the natives of the Amazon using rubber to cover their cloaks. In 1736, a French astronomer reported that in Peru, they used the stuff to make shoes that were waterproof. In 1770, a very practical use for the rubbery substance was found. An English engineer accidentally discovered that it could erase pencil marks. The stuff came from India, and since it was rubbed during use, it was dubbed Indian rubber. The erasers were perishable and would go bad over time.

69 years passed before Goodyear came along and learned how to cure or vulcanize rubber. Rubber-sold shoes from Brazil began to be sold in America in 1820. Macintosh, a Glasgow, Scotland chemist, inserted rubber treated with nafta between thin pieces of cloth, which eventually became the garment that today still bears his name. A rubber boom took place just before Goodyear took up the vulcanization challenge. Raw rubber was treated with turpentine and lamp black and spread on cloth, producing a leather-like cloth. Shoes and clothing made of rubber appeared in all the large cities, manufacturing plants sprang up overnight in America. Profits were large as the raw material was cheap and the demand high for this new substance called rubber. The rubber business was booming. But when summer came, the shoes and clothing literally melted away. Loads of the melted and matted products were sent back to the factories. They smelled so terrible that factory workers went out in the dead of night and buried them deep in the ground. When winter came, the rubber garments stiffened to the rigidity of granite. The factories closed as quickly as they had sprung up. The rubber business was dead.

Enter Charles Goodyear. In 1834, Goodyear visited one of the failing factories in Roxbury, Massachusetts, to buy a rubber life preserver. Goodyear was bothered by the number of people drowning at sea each year due to the inadequate life preservers. He spent several weeks working on improving the life preserver. But on returning to the factory and talking to the manager about it, Goodyear learned that improvement of the life preserver was not the problem. The problem was to keep the rubber dry, firm and flexible in all kinds of weather. The manager told him that whoever could do this would be rich and famous. Goodyear was a godly man. Fame and riches in and of themselves were of no interest to him. What motivated Goodyear was that people were drowning. Goodyear wanted to help save these lives. He knew that a process for curing rubber had to be found in some way in order for this to happen. Goodyear felt that God was calling him to this task. And I'm going to give a quote here by Goodyear. "He who directs the operations of the mind," he wrote at a later date, "can turn it to the development of the properties of nature in his own way, and at the time when they are specially needed. The creature imagines he is executing some plan of his own, while he is simply an instrument in the hands of his maker for executing the divine purposes of beneficence to the race." It was in this moment of decision and commitment to the call from God that Goodyear's destiny was shaped. He undertook the task of curing rubber with unrelenting energy and passion. People in Goodyear's time saw things as they were. Following the collapse of the rubber boom they were convinced that rubber as a useful tool was a dead idea. Goodyear had the vision to see things as they could be, a cure for rubber which could be used to save many lives. Most people today think aging and dying at three score years and ten is just the way it is. All of us who are part of the team here share a vision of what can be, a cure for the disease of aging to save billions of lives.

Jennifer:
So interesting to hear about men like Goodyear. And he was unusual in the sense that his name has lived on in history because of Goodyear tires, of course. Not all scientists have that legacy. But yes, inspiring, and we're thankful to have heard that today.

Steve:
Well we're available to come to your group or your event and speak on any of these topics that we talk about on the podcast. There's so much information that we have here and if you would like for us to come we would love to do that. We'd love to hear from you. Thank you for joining us and we will see you in May.