October 2023: Manna Discovery, Part 2/ Apologetics Resources and more

Steve:
Hello and welcome to the BC Messenger podcast. It's October 2023. This is season two, episode three of The BC Messenger, real science, real bible, real history, and real world. And we're glad you're here. Last month we talked about manna. We introduced the topic of manna and that was part one. And today we have part two of the topic of manna. I am glad to be here with my beautiful wife, Jennifer, and the two of us host this podcast every month. And today I want to begin with a quote. If you get our show notes, you'll see the quote right at the top of the page. And the quote is this, "The day you plant the seed is not the day you reap the harvest."

Jennifer:
The day you plant the seed. Yes, it takes a visionary to be planting and putting those seeds in the ground and foreseeing, you know, that harvest that's coming down the road.

Steve:
Yep, we planted a garden this year, as many of you may have done as well. And we have been reaping the harvest for quite a few weeks now. We planted way too many tomatoes in our garden this year. And we have been getting the most beautiful, gorgeous tomatoes.

Jennifer:
We've used all that we can. We have made a lot of BLTs.

Steve:
I made a tomato pie. If you've never had a tomato pie, let me challenge you... especially if you're from the south. We found this recipe online. How did we get into this? We found this recipe online and it was really good. And you may think tomato pie. Go Google it.

Jennifer:
If you're from the south, you'll appreciate the concept right away. That's right. But Steve did make a delicious tomato pie. We have cut up a lot of tomatoes, put them in the freezer to make soups and chilies for the winter. So yes, we've had an abundant tomato harvest. We're also having a pumpkin harvest.

Steve:
Yes, we are.

Jennifer:
One of our sons grew a whole bunch of pumpkins of different varieties this year and has been selling them here locally. So that's been nice. In fact, in the show notes, there is a picture of his very first harvest of his pumpkins this year.

Steve:
But you know, when we put those seeds in the ground, Jen, when Sam, our son put the pumpkin seeds in the ground and we put the little transplant tomatoes and the plants in the ground, we didn't wake up the next day and have the fruit.

Jennifer:
No. And in fact, Steve, one of your most often repeated phrases at the beginning of the gardening season is, "I'm a little worried." I'm a little worried that these tomato plants aren't going to do anything. I'm a little worried that my pea plants and nothing's coming up.

Steve:
I'm a little worried that I use that phrase a little worried for a lot of things.

Jennifer:
But it's okay. You know, you do feel that way humanly. You think that this isn't taking off. This isn't going anywhere. And with the pumpkins with Sam, I kept saying, you know, I think you need to plant some more of those big jack pumpkins. I don't know if you have enough of those. And sure enough, now at harvest time, we're realizing we probably could have used a lot more big jacks. So, you know, the harvest time, eventually, the day comes. But it's not the day you plant. And sometimes the amount of time that goes by really can test our faith. Of course, we're making application here in the work at the biblical chronologist of planting seeds of new ideas and new understandings of things. And greater, greater light. But yet, all of this is looking down the road and trusting God for a great harvest in his time.

Steve:
Right. And it takes a visionary to see the potential of the seed being sown, and to see down that road, especially when that seed comes in the form of new ideas, new understandings. When the harvest, as you said, seems like a long time in coming.

Jennifer:
Yeah. And it's really encouraging to look back through history because we can see examples of a lot of people who during the day and time they lived in, they worked tirelessly, you know, against whatever the status quo of their day was that needed to be overcome. And eventually they saw the harvest. In some cases, maybe they didn't see the harvest and it came after their death. But William Wilberforce is a guy like that, that I recently was reading up on a little bit. And man, I mean, just reading one summary of his life online is enough to inspire you for months to come. I mean, just incredible. Now, what did William Wilberforce do?

Steve:
Well what do you think of first thing when you think of William Wilberforce? You think of slavery, slave trade?

Jennifer:
He was in the British parliament. He was converted to Christianity. And in that, he became very passionate about the Christian worldview. And so he then dedicated the rest of his life to abolishing the slave trade, first of all, and then eventually slavery as an institution. But decades went by before he saw the fruition. And in his early efforts he would be abandoned. He'd put a bill out in Congress and nobody would show up to vote. And he would be left with empty promises from the other politicians for support. And even in spite of even threats to his life was putting forth this cause and pushing forward, and to the eventual day of the harvest. And when parliament voted, finally, to abolish the slave trade, decades later, he bowed his head and just wept. And you can understand it when you read all that he went through.

Steve:
Right. And you know, to us today, I mean, something like slavery is just so obviously wrong, you know, I mean, to our culture today. But yet, back in that day, that wasn't the case. I mean, it was the issue of the day. And we can get the mistaken idea that Wilberforce walked into Congress one day and said, guys, we need to abolish the slave trade. Right. I mean, everybody agrees, right?

Jennifer
Yeah, good idea. Let's do it. Right.

Steve:
Right. And we thought of that. No, wasn't popular, wasn't going to get votes for these guys. And he had to fight.

Jennifer:
And he planted seeds for a long time, even at great personal cost. But praise the Lord, you know, for the victories that he was able to see.

Steve:
Was it worth it? I mean, lives saved and people helped. So much suffering relieved too. Yes. Yes. Okay. Well, Jen, let's get our bullet points for today's episode. What are we going to be hitting today?

Jennifer:
Our featured topic is going to be manna in the wilderness part two, moving right into a research update on continuing with the route of the Exodus and some very interesting, brand new information there from Dr. Aardsma, and a new article. Then we have a quote of note, an update on the truth in time ministry, a section again on the anti-aging vitamins, and a post that I wrote about many of the different customers that we have who take advantage of our supplement. And then Helen's View, giving her glimpse behind the scenes and talking about some of the things she's involved in on a daily basis. And that's it. As usual, we're packed with content, so we need to get right into it.

Steve:
All right, Manna in the Wilderness, part two. Last month, we introduced the topic of the manna discovery. And this month, we are going to, in our part two of this topic, give more of the specific details of manna, which are pointed out by the biblical text. We're going to have discussion points in this particular podcast talking about the melting point of manna, the taste of manna, how it was gathered and how it was used, how it kept the Israelites from starvation and some just some fascinating things today that we're going to go into. Matter of fact, we're calling them the fascinating facts that we're going to hit here in just a second.

Jennifer:
It's worth noting here as we open this discussion again that the weight of this discovery is really quite enormous for those in the halls of academia, those scholars who work on historical questions. For so many years now, and decades really, since the 1950s or so, there's been an anti-God, anti-Bible trend in universities and institutions of learning. The historical accounts given in the Bible have been relegated, of course, just to mythology, a little bit of history, a lot of myth, a little bit of kernels of something that happened, but mostly just dramatization and mostly just some people who needed to make a history for themselves, invent something that they could rely on so they could have traditions. But nothing taken at face value as being simply historical. And in that, there's been a tremendous loss for Christianity, for Judaism, for Western civilization. And the consequences have been huge. And for the first time, the tables are now sharply turning. And it's time for those who want to constantly say mythology, to have to explain how something like this manna in the real world could possibly be mythology. And so it takes big ships a long time to turn around. And so we're talking about a harvest that we're seeing, you know, probably years down the road. But I'm going to give a little quote here from the dedication of the manna book, as we realize that this is a turning point and things will probably never be the same. It says in the dedication of the book, Bread from Heaven, The Manna Mystery Solved, "To all who would deny the historical accuracy of the biblical Exodus narrative, checkmate."

Steve:
And you can get that book. You can order that book on the biblical chronologist.org. And I love that quote.

Jennifer:
Checkmate. That says a lot in one word.

Steve:
Yes, it does.

Jennifer:
Game over. I don't know. It's too soon to say game over. Of course. I mean, like I said, this is a seed being planted, but we're trusting God for a great harvest.

Steve:
Well, and it is. And it's just like Wilberforce. I mean, you know, and others, you know, these are new ideas. These are new truths. And we don't expect that things are going to just happen overnight. It takes a long time, as you said, for big ships to turn around. And you know, this culture is not in the mess that it's in for nothing. I think that it can be a mistaken idea by many Christians today just to simply think, well, things are just getting worse because things just get worse. Well, not necessarily. Bad ideas have bad consequences. And that's where we find ourselves. We were told many decades ago that the Bible isn't actually true after all. Your mom and dad meant well. Grandpa and grandma meant well. Bless their hearts. But they were mistaken. We've now found out that these things aren't true. And they have good reason for what they're saying in these Old Testament accounts, especially. So I always want to try to point these things out because for so many years, I didn't realize these things. I was just always a Bible believer. You know, you could have never convinced me that the stories of the Old Testament were false. And if anybody claimed they were false, they were just heathens that hated God. So there you go. But no, not necessarily true. We need to find these accounts in the real world if they're true stories. And that's why here is the Bible in real world history, real science, real Bible, real history and real world. And this manna discovery is a slam dunk. I mean, it is a ball hit out of the park and checkmate. Well, let's get into it. Okay, we have some fascinating facts that we want to get into now today. Again, this is part two. Go back and listen to part one if you haven't heard it. We're not going to do a lot of review here today.

Jennifer:
Right. Last month, we just laid all the foundation, explained a lot of things about the encampments, explained all kinds of related things that need to be understood to be able to understand the manna properly and understand how it was produced. And we went into a couple of fascinating facts last month, which I must say, I still find them to just be truly amazing. Go back and listen to that and we are going to move on today into eight more fascinating facts. And these are just the details that are each of these details and matching them up with the sodium acetate trihydrate, which is the biblical manna.

Steve:
We better get started. So number one, which is actually number three, but anyhow, for today. \

Jennifer:
Fascinating fact. Here we go.

Steve:
What the manna was compared to in the Bible. We're going to talk about how the Bible describes manna, what it compares it to, and how that relates to this discovery.

Jennifer:
You can imagine these Israelites going out and finding the manna on the ground for the first time. And then it's recorded in a couple of different passages there. And of course, humanly, we're going to want to take something that's unknown and compare it to something that we do know. This is like this, but it's not that, you know, but it seems sort of like it. And so what does the Bible say? There's three different things that it says it was like.

Steve:
Right. And the first one is, it says it was like hoarfrost, like the frost on the ground. Some of the versions use the word hoarfrost. Obviously similar to white flaky like appearance. And as we talked about on our last podcast, we can hold this manna in our hands. We can make this manna today with the recipe that is given in the book. And this definitely has the appearance of a fine, flake-like substance, like the frost on the ground, just like the Bible says. One of the versions say, when the dew was gone, the thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. And again, this is a result of what we talked about in our last podcast, the efflorescence coming up through the soil, in the night and appearing after the dew dries up, this fine, flake-like substance.

Jennifer:
The second comparison that we have in Exodus chapter 16 verse 31, it says, "The house of Israel named it manna, and it was like coriander seed, white." Now, how was it like coriander seed? On page 73 of the book, we can see a picture of coriander seed next to the manna substance. And we can see they don't look similar necessarily. But as we begin to understand how they used the manna, we can see the comparison to coriander seed. Coriander seed finds its most widespread use as an ingredient in diverse dishes, functioning to add flavor, bulk, and nutrition. You can't really eat coriander seed raw. I mean, you can, but it's much better ground up and added in to food dishes, flavor, bulk, nutrition. And that is similar, very similar to the way that the Israelites would have used the manna. We'll talk more about that on our later points.

Steve:
Right. And then the third description that we have in our English translations today is bdellium. In Numbers chapter 11 verse 7, the appearance like unto bdellium. Now, this one is a little harder to understand, for us to understand. There are no obvious similarities between manna and what we know of today as bdellium.

Jennifer:
What is bdellium? Right. It's a hard substance. It looks similar to a hardened pine pitch that you would find on a pine tree. So it's hard to see an immediate similarity between the bdellium and the manna. There are a couple of different issues with that word. The Septuagint text does not say bdellium. It says hoarfrost instead. And the bdellium appears in Numbers 11:7, just in that one verse. So there could be a translation issue there. There's also the possibility that maybe the manna on the ground, on the desert floor, was very shiny and sparkly in the sun. And perhaps the bdellium in the sun would have also been very sparkly.

Steve:
Lustrous appearance as the sun's shown on it.

Jennifer:
Right. So we don't know exactly what that's referring to. In the ancient text, there's a couple of different possibilities there.

Steve:
Right. All right. And now our second fascinating fact. We're going to talk about the melting point of manna. Let me read the verse out of the passage. The Bible says, "They gathered it morning by morning, every man as much as he should eat. But when the sun grew hot, it would melt."

Jennifer:
So that's such a clue. You know, such a data point there. I mean, we don't know the temperature exactly, of course, but we know that this substance will melt under some type of desert heat environment. And I know that Dr. Aardsma, when he was in the lab working with the different sodium substances and candidates, many of them didn't have melting points until up into 600 and some degrees. And so obviously that's a falsifier. I mean, that's not going to be manna.

Steve:
Well, the candidate that appears to be manna has a melting point, the pure sodium acetate trihydrate, of 136 degrees Fahrenheit. And again, as you said, this is actually a low melting point temperature for a sodium salt. Manna that would have been gathered in the wilderness would not have been solely, pure sodium acetate trihydrate. But it would have been mixed with other elements from the desert soils. Dr. Aardsma goes into all of this in the book. And that would have caused the melting point to decrease from the 136 degrees and causing this to pass this test of a melting point that is attainable in this hot region of the world.

Jennifer:
Right. You know, ancient cultures, they didn't have a way to measure temperature. Many times they didn't even have a sophisticated counting system of any sort. So knowing, okay, when the sun grew hot, it would melt, and then we have this sodium acetate trihydrate with a few trace substances mixed in, which we don't know exactly what those trace substances would have been, but they would have lowered the melting point. I believe Dr. Aardsma worked with a few things that were lowering the melting point down to 127 degrees. And so you can see that, you know, in a hot tent in the desert, that temperature would have been definitely something that could have happened on a regular basis. And the manna inside would have melted. So there we have yet another confirmation of all of these different data points about the manna.

Steve:
Right. Well, let's move on to our next one. We want to talk about what the Bible describes it as tasting like. On our last podcast, Jennifer and I actually had a packet of manna here with us. We don't have one today, unfortunately, but we tasted it last time and gave you some information on that. But what does the Bible say that the manna tasted like? Well, in Exodus chapter 16, verse 31, it says, "The house of Israel named it manna, and it was like coriander seed white, and its taste was like wafers with honey." Wafers with honey. And then in numbers, what is that other passage? Numbers 11, verse 8, I'm looking it up now. It says this, "The people would go about and gather it and grind it between two millstones or beat it in the mortar and boil it in the pot and make cakes with it, and its taste was as the taste of cakes baked with oil." So we have two different descriptions here. Wafers with honey, cakes baked with oil.

Jennifer:
Dr. Aardsma says on page 58 of the book, "I left the taste test to near the end of my investigations into manna for two reasons. The basic strategy demands that the most definitive tests be given the highest priority." And he talks about people taste things differently. It's a little bit subjective. And then, you know, the biblical record of the taste of manna, he says, is complex. Again, making the result less definitive. You have this "wafers with honey", and then you have "cakes baked with oil". And in fact, one of the passages literally reads, "Juice of oil." "Its taste was as the taste of juice of oil." So you have a sweetness, but also an oiliness described in the taste, and possibly even the things that they were making with the manna would have maybe had this type of taste to it.

Steve:
Right. When we've tasted it a number of times now, there is, at first taste, there's a slight sweetness that's hard to explain. But it's there. And then, of course, what hits you is the saltiness. It's sodium. So it's very salty. But then, there's an aftertaste. And it was one of the first things that I can remember about tasting that for the first time, that there was this... The best way to describe it is oily. It leaves an oily aftertaste. So it's very, very much exactly as the scriptures describe it. In the book, Dr. Aardsma describes it this way. "The initial sensation was of a brief, cool, mild sweetness reminiscent of artificial sweeteners. This was rapidly overwhelmed by a strong salty flavor, which I don't know how to describe. It was unpleasant in the same sense that taking a half a teaspoon of table salt would be. And then, most surprisingly, my mouth was left with a light aftertaste, or more precisely, a light after sensation of oil or fat. The sweet versus oil complexity of the biblical observations immediately clarified. Sodium acetate trihydrate elicited both sweet and oily taste sensations." And that's a great way to put it, the same experience that I had when I tasted it.

Jennifer:
Right. And when you order your sample packet of Dr. Aardsma's Real Manna, you can dip your finger in those fine flakes and taste it. And you can experience that same combination of flavors there. And don't dump the whole thing in your mouth. It is a very salty taste for a lot all at once, but getting a small amount and you can really taste those flavors.

Steve:
And again, this provided calories for these people in the wilderness who needed the calories. And we'll get into that again, maybe in a minute.

All right. Fascinating fact number four, how they divided up the manna. Exodus chapter 16, 16 and 18 says this, "This is what the Lord had commanded. Gather of it every man as much as he should eat. You shall take an omer apiece according to the number of persons each of you has in his tent. The sons of Israel did so. Some gathered much and some little. When they measured it with an omer, he who had gathered much had no excess, and he who had gathered little had no lack. Every man gathered as much as he should eat." Now, this can look to be saying that everybody miraculously just got the same amount every day, no matter how much or no matter how little they gathered. But it's very possible and quite likely that the idea being conveyed here is that the manna was distributed equally to all the Israelite citizens by order of the leadership, specifically probably Moses. We know that this encampment of all these people, this was a huge, huge endeavor. Moses must have had great leadership abilities.

Jennifer:
And also great trials in trying to deal with all of this. Oh my goodness.

Steve:
But even in this, you can see how the people were to gather what they would need for eating every day. And it does seem like that the gathering of the manna would have been carried out in an organized fashion.

Jennifer:
Right. And they brought all of their harvest from their section into a central hub, and it was given out. Here's an omer for you, an omer for you. And the harvest of the manna every morning would have varied depending on exactly the positioning of the flocks and the direction of the wind and that type of thing. I think that's what it means. Some gathered, what does it say? Yeah, some gathered much and some little. But when they measured it, they equally divided it. So that's interesting to think about. That takes us right into the next fascinating fact. Number five, how did they gather it? And how did they gather twice as much on Fridays? So first of all, they had to somehow get these fine flakes into piles in order to be able to be gathered up and brought in one theory that seems likely as to how it would have been gathered would have been by fanning it, creating a movement, an air movement that would have moved all those flakes into areas where they could be gathered up in piles. It really would have been a sight to behold. I can't imagine that really.

Steve:
In my mind, I picture a snow, like a snow covered field where there's just these fine flakes. We're talking about hoarfrost. It could have looked very much like you would wake up in the morning on a winter day and see where through the night there had been a very fine layer of snow come down on the ground. But it's not snow. And the Israeli said, "What is it, manna?" And yeah, a great theory that they would have somehow figured out how to blow this stuff, fan it into piles.

Jennifer:
And then twice as much on Fridays, how would that have worked? They were able to preserve it over the weekend, which we talked about last time. So they brought in twice as much of a harvest on Fridays, so they wouldn't have to gather it on the Sabbath. And it is, as we mentioned before, a recyclable product. It will dissolve in the humidity if it's left on the ground or it will melt in the hot sun and dissolve back down into the soil, and then be reproduced as mana the next morning. So even if there was something like 20%, 17% extra every day that was not gathered, and so that was being recycled down into the soil, that would produce enough for a double harvest on Fridays. And it would basically build up a little bit each day more and more extra until Friday rolled around. They gathered double the amount and then it would begin again. So I just find that incredible.

Steve:
Yeah. And if you didn't listen to the first podcast about manna, you need to go back and listen about the weekend and how all that worked. It is fascinating. Yes, very good. Well, let's keep going. Number six, how they used the manna. The Bible again describes, as we read a minute ago, it was like coriander seed. And we can take from that and other passages that it was used as a food ingredient, quite likely, at least most of the time.

Jennifer:
Yeah. I mean, Moses said, you know, when you boil it in the pot, when you grind it in the mortar, they were using it as a bulk. We can't think, you know, that this was like salt and they just sprinkled it on their food for flavoring. I mean, this was providing calories, which is going to be our next fascinating fact. But it was a bulk. I mean, if they had some kind of broth, some kind of liquid, maybe trying to make a meat stew or something, they were adding a lot of this manna to add calories into what they were eating. And what that would have tasted like, I really cannot wait to get enough manna produced from the lab or somewhere that I can try to cook with. Because making bread with it or making a soup with it, boiling it in the pot and how exactly would that have tasted?

Steve:
Well, you can imagine it's going to be very salty, very, very salty tasting. And we have to remember, and I'm getting ahead of myself, but I want to go ahead and mention that really we have to get into our heads that these people were in an emergency type of situation. Survival mode. They just needed calories to survive to get through this wilderness to where? The promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey. And, you know, they'll grow their gardens. They'll have their, they'll go back to regular life. This was never intended to be something they were going to be eating for 40 years. Again, I'm getting ahead of myself. We'll get there in a minute.

Jennifer:
Yes. Fascinating fact, number seven, how did it keep them from starvation? Well, first of all, they were facing starvation because there in the wilderness, there was not much food supply and they were on the move. I mean, even if they came across somewhere that they could purchase a whole bunch of supplies, they have to be able to transport those with them. And of course, finding supplies coming across caravans of merchants or whatever would have been rare, especially to provide for millions of people. And they did have their livestock, so they could have eaten some of those, but those were their capital. I mean, those were their livelihood and they were not going to eat that up and leave themselves with absolutely no industry going into the promised land. Although they would have had some cheese and milk and those types of things from the animals. But, you know, just like grain and flour and stuff that you normally use to fill everybody up, where are they going to get that in the desert?

Steve:
Well, and what they need, again, like you said, is calories. And this is just so fascinating to me, this part of it, they all are. But if you're familiar with health and calories and all of that, and maybe you've watched your calories in a diet or something, you would know that the RDI, or the Reference Daily Intake for Food Calories in the United States, is 2,000 calories for women and 2,600 calories for men. That's what an average man and an average woman need each day in their diet. Now, the Bible says that an omer of manna was distributed for each person. Our best understanding of an omer is roughly 3.64 liters. And that's quite a bit. But every day. But here's what, and again, you can read it in the book, Dr. Aardsma in his research shares with us that this manna, one omer of manna, would provide 2,100 calories per day per person. That's remarkable that an omer of synthetic manna, what we can make today in the kitchen, in the laboratory, turns out to supply the right amount of food calories needed for the Israelites. To survive. Now, let me read you something from Dr. Aardsma's book. "This provides independent corroboration of the validity of the manna recipe, which this new scientific analysis of the biblical record has deduced. More than this, it once again strongly confirms the historicity of the manna narrative. What did any ancient writer understand about food calories? These have been worked out by scientists only in the last 200 years. And yet we find that an omer of manna provides a day's worth of food calories. Not two days worth, not two weeks worth, not two minutes worth, not two hours worth. For anybody making this story up, there's a broad range of wrong outcomes and only a narrow range for the right outcome. And yet the narrative has the right outcome, thereby rendering untenable any other assessment of these ancient records that they are simply factually historical." That's fascinating.

Jennifer:
Yes, it really is.

Steve:
I can't stress how fascinating that is. I mean, this isn't going to happen by chance.

Jennifer:
2,000 calories a day. And that's what Moses was portioning out for them, or the delegates of Moses there in the distribution of the manna. Now we got to go to fascinating fact number eight. And I don't care for this fact because it's quite weighty.

Steve:
It is weighty.

Jennifer:
You know, when I first started understanding that manna appeared to be a sodium, sodium asitate trihydrate, and you taste it and it's salty, but oily and sweet and all of that. And you think about eating that bulk of it every day. And knowing what we know today about sodium being bad for you, your mind immediately begins to think, well, if they would have eaten that in the wilderness for that many years, they all would have died.

Steve:
Yep. And what happened? They all died. It is a weighty point, but what we have to do, as we always have to do, is take God's word for what it says, take God's world for what it is showing us. And when we find the truth, we don't always like it, but it can teach us things about God, and about who God is, how God works, how God judges. We learned so many things in life and in God's word and God's world about how good he is, how loving, how kind. But we also learn about God as judge. God can take bad things and turn them into good things, and God can take good things and through our rebellion and desire to do our own thing and through our cowardice and fear and grumbling and complaining, he can turn good things into bad things.

Jennifer:
Yes. Manna was the true solution for the Israelites for their need for food and calories, but it was only intended to be short term because they were supposed to be entering the promise land, at the most within a few years of the Exodus. The passage through the wilderness from Egypt to Canaan was supposed to be brief. That was God's original plan for them. But instead they fell into fear and complaining to the point where God judged that generation and delayed their entrance to the promise land for 40 years. And within that 40 years, everybody age 20 and up died. And it's just a staggering thought to think that the bread from heaven, the manna that God provided for them miraculously, "what is it", was a miracle provision for them. And then it turned into God's judgment on them after they consumed it for such a long time. And all of that sodium wreaked havoc in their bodies, as we know it would do today. Heart attacks and all the things that can come from that.

Steve:
Sure does make sense that that is what transpired in the story, what happened. Let me read the account in Numbers chapter 14 of this judgment from God. "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, 'How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who are grumbling against me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel which they are making against me. Say to them, 'As I live,' says the Lord, 'just as you have spoken in my hearing, so I will surely do to you. Your corpses will fall in this wilderness. Even all your numbered men, according to your complete number, from 20 years old and upward, who have grumbled against me. Surely you shall not come into the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb, the son of Jephuna, and Joshua, the son of Nun. Your children, however, whom you said would become a prey, I will bring them in, and they will know the land which you have rejected. But as for you, your corpses will fall in this wilderness. Your sons shall be shepherds for 40 years in the wilderness, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness until your corpses lie in the wilderness. According to the number of days which you spied out the land, 40 days for every day you shall bear your guilt a year. Even 40 years, and you will know my opposition, I the Lord have spoken. Surely this I will do to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall be destroyed, and there they will die." Have you ever wondered when hearing this story or thinking on this story how, and you've already explained it, how all these men, or people, and it specifically says men, from 20 years old and up would have died in the wilderness within 40 years?

Jennifer:
I never even thought about that until this whole manna thing was brought to light. You just think, well, God judged them, and they all died off. But I mean, that's the real world part.

Steve:
Well, think about it. You know, you're 20 years old, 40 years, you're only 60. Right. And it's not like some of them made it for the full 40 years. So 60-year-olds don't just normally die off. Or if you're 21, you're 61. If you're 23, you're 63. And they died by that time. Many died sooner. So the very reasonable answer after understanding the manna discovery is that the heavy amount of sodium intake would have contributed to this judgment from God. Long-term consumption of excess sodium is known to elevate the risk of chronic disease. Manna, consumed by the Israelites, would have resulted in sodium-level intakes, now get this, around 260 times larger than what is considered to be adequate sodium intake. As we know today, that kind of sodium intake over a long period of time will lead to chronic heart-related disease, or what we call cardiovascular disease. Now, sodium isn't toxic. Again, Dr. Aardsma goes into all of this. You're not going to get poisoned by sodium. There's calories there. But long-term.

Jennifer:
Especially that amount of an overload in their diet regularly. Like I said, I mean, this is the real world. And real world can be really exciting. It can also be very, very heavy when we come face to face with the fact, with the knowledge that God just didn't strike them dead by some miraculous unknown thing, but in fact, it was a sodium overload in the diet from the manna. I just, even to this day, I mean, for one thing, an application comes home very quickly, close to home of complaining and doubting God, and not trusting his promises, and not boldly going forward when he has told us what we need to do, and instead we doubt and we question and we complain. It was the complaining and the evil report of the spies that led to this.

Steve:
Dr. Aardsma points that out in the book again, that if the spies who went into that land had not given that evil report, the manna, or the excess sodium intake, would have ceased right then and there.

Jennifer:
When they came to the edge of the Promised Land and took possession of it, they would not have had to eat manna anymore. The Bible says when they entered the Promised Land, the manna ceased. And we know why from science. We understand.

Steve:
So I think that's the most unexpected thing that comes out of this whole manna discussion. And it took me a number of weeks and months of processing and thinking through this to realize how to think about all of this and understand it in this new light. But still, it matches the biblical account. The data that we are given is explained point by point by point with this discovery of how manna would happen in the real world.

Steve:
This discovery is an un-inventable concept. It is a bomb that has fallen in academia. I do believe, and it may take some time, but things are never going to be the same as the word about this gets out. We said at the beginning of this discussion, it takes a long time for big ships to turn around. But seeds are being planted. I hope you all listening to this podcast will help us get the message out. Some people that hear these things won't like what they're hearing, for whatever reason. Some will reject it because it goes against everything they've always believed. They've already got their paradigm made up. They know what they think. Some will reject it because it doesn't go with what they've always thought. But the truth of the matter is this is either true or it's not. It doesn't take a scientist to see the obvious that is sitting here in front of us. If you have that many people with that many animals in that part of the world, and science can show us, arranged in the way that they were arranged, that if you could recreate that scenario today, that tomorrow morning, if you could recreate that scenario tonight, tomorrow morning you would wake up with fine, flake-like things that look like hoarfrost all over the ground that can supply 2,000 calories per person in an omer. That's providing calories.

Jennifer:
That can be gathered up that's going to melt in excessive heat.

Steve:
If this is true, then there is no more argument. That is what the Bible is describing, as Dr. Aardsma said, "What did ancient writers know about an omer of manna that supplies that many calories?" I mean, this is just obvious. So it doesn't matter if someone likes it or not. It doesn't matter if it agrees with my paradigm. It's either true or it isn't. And the word needs to get out.

Jennifer:
Right. If somebody's going to make up a fairy tale, they will never make something up that's going to be able to be explained in the real world like this. And you know, my mind goes back to the William Wilberforce discussion at the beginning because it does take courage to get on board with something that is previously unknown or seems kind of unusual or strange. And you have all of those British politicians who didn't even show up for the vote because they just didn't want to put themself on the line like that. They didn't want to put their reputation at stake, that they were going along with somebody with such far-fetched ideas and who wanted to overturn the British way of life. So we have to face that as well. You know, am I going to be the guy that doesn't show up for the vote, or am I going to boldly be able to help move forward some ideas that are going to have far, far-reaching consequences?

Steve:
That's right. And one of the things that caused the Israelites to get into the situation they got in was fear. They didn't have the courage to stand up and go do what God said or accept the reality that God had brought them to.

Jennifer:
And it wasn't what they thought. You know, I think they were ready probably the night they left Egypt. They were ready like, promised land, we are there, tomorrow morning, we're there. And instead, God took them to Sinai, God took them to Rephedem where they didn't have water.

Steve:
This is the way God always works.

Jennifer:
God took them to a battle with the Amalekites that they weren't ready for. They weren't expecting. And so after those chain of events, well, this isn't what we thought. Well, then this whole thing of going up into the promised land, forget it, we'll go back to Egypt because all of our children are going to die here in the wilderness. And so because it wasn't what they thought, it wasn't what they had expected, then they faltered on believing God. And we can do the exact same thing today. Well, certainly I would never have thought it would be that.

Steve:
Right. Well, we do hope that you will help us spread this word, spread this message. It's very exciting. And it turns the tables, as we said a little bit ago. It's the first time the tables have been sharply turned like this. Our desire, our heart and our desire here is that people just simply see the truth, whatever the truth is, that you see it, that these stories are real. This God is very real. This culture is in trouble that we presently live in. And we need to understand who God is, what he's like, how he works. And we have some real-world stuff here, folks, that I hope that you will take advantage of. Maybe you have a young person in your life. Maybe somebody's been to college and some professor has talked them out of what's true. This is stuff you can share with them. This is stuff for the atheists. This is stuff for anybody who's doubting the reality, the validity of the scriptures.

Jennifer:
Well, hey, thanks for following along with us on this two-part discussion about the manna in the wilderness. And again, you can definitely get the book, get a packet of manna with the book. You can read it all in detail, see all of the illustrations and the different artwork tables, photos there, and the explanation of the path of discovery that Dr. Aardsma went down with this. And then you can have that packet of manna, hold that in your hand, experience it just the way the Israelites did. And what a unique thing to hand to somebody. What a unique piece of literature for your library. Even a great gift idea as Christmas is coming up here and something that you can be sure nobody else is going to get for Christmas. They won't duplicate your gift.

Steve:
We do offer some unique gifts around here. You got it. We got to get the prize for that. All right, let's do our research update here. The location of Mount Hor. Dr. Aardsma has written his latest article, The Route of the Exodus, Part 7, The Location of Mount Hor. Seven of the 11 stops from Egypt to Sinai in the route of the Exodus have now been identified. Sukkoth, Etham, Paihah, Hyroth, Mara, Rephedim, Elam, and Sinai itself, which is Mount Yeroham. After Sinai, the Israelites lived in a place the Bible calls Kadesh Barnea. For multiple decades, they spent most of the time in their wilderness wanderings in this place called Kedesh Barnea, which has been identified. After Kedesh Barnea, the Israelites camped at Mount Hor, a place the Bible calls Mount Hor for 30 days. And it was at this mountain, if you know the story, and familiar with Mount Hor, this is where Aaron died and was buried. This newest research article from Dr. Aardsma identifies this location and thereby yet another puzzle piece falls right into place, understanding the route of the Exodus. The biblical text comes to life in new ways now that we know exactly where these events happened, where they took place. Due to the missing Millennium Discovery, these locations have now been identified. I encourage you to go to the website, get the newsletter or the show notes. There's a link there. You can get Dr. Aardsma's latest newsletter, the route of the Exodus, part seven, the location of Mount Hor.

Jennifer:
There's a word used in the text there in the Old Testament that nobody's really ever been able to understand what it means. I believe the word is atherym. And now knowing what mountain this is, Mount Hor, and the unique features of that mountain, a very interesting explanation comes to light for what that word could have meant in that ancient text, and what most likely it did mean as you read the story and understand the events that took place there.

Steve:
Yes, and we'll be talking more about this in a future podcast. We have our quote of note today. Jennifer, you want to give us our quote?

Jennifer:
Quote of note. This is from an individual on social media, GF, are the initials. And this person says, very candidly, "I have tried for probably eight years to believe. I've read the Bible and gone to church, but the fantasy-like adventures, my lack of faith, belief without evidence, and the fact Egyptian history in the Bible is very wrong, makes it hard. Do you know of any way I can prove it to myself?" This was a young lady asking this question, presumably a college age young lady. And we replied to her, gave her some links and information, as many other people were also trying to do, to offer her their insight to her question. But don't know what came of that, don't know if she was able to avail herself of what we were offering her. But there we hear somebody who's really seeking for some answers. They don't really want to let go of their faith, but they just can't quite anchor it down the way they would like to be able to. And do you know of any way I can prove it to myself? Of course, faith always comes into play, but God gives us the evidence we seek. And I sure do wish we could sit down with this young lady, talk to her about manna, talk to her about Mount Hor, talk to her about the Exodus in the real world, real-world history. And we just pray that God will reach her with the answers she's looking for.

Steve:
Yes, amen to that. Let's talk about our Truth in Time update this month. The Truth in Time ministry is myself and my wife here, Jennifer, and our children. And we schedule meetings, come into churches, usually it's churches or other special events that are taking place. We are really wanting and would love to get into some college type of venues, speaking to young people about these discoveries. We are now scheduling for 2024. We sing, we present the Bible in real-world history. Some of the same things we talk about here on the podcast, different format, of course, when we're speaking in front of people. But we speak on these same topics, we're available to. And of course, we do love to sing together with our family. You can go to truthintime.org and see some of our itineraries, see a little bit of a picture of who we are and what we do.

Jennifer:
We're out a good bit this fall, pretty much all that we can handle with our busy family and everything. And we would love to get you scheduled in for 2024. The public speaking ministry and music ministry is called Truth in Time. And we had something interesting happen with our music ministry. Two of our daughters recorded a song and we put it on our little family music channel on YouTube, and it took off in the algorithm there. These two girls that are 10 and 8 years old singing, "Are You Washed in the Blood?" has gone out to over 300,000 people on YouTube. And we're praying that God will use that to open more doors for the Truth in Time ministry to come in and present music and sessions on the Bible in the real world. And I did want to give a quick update too, because Truth in Time in the future is going to be offering tours to Israel. We've discussed this. All these locations now, even including Mount Hor, which unfortunately is not within the bounds of modern-day Israel. But as many of these sites as we can possibly visit and tour, brand new, you know, route of the exodus tour, is going to be happening with Truth in Time. But some months ago, we told our listeners that I was having to get my American citizenship in order to travel on a U.S. passport with Steve. We explained all of that. So I will say that here, as we record this, in the coming week, I will be doing step three of my citizenship process. It's happening. It's moving along.

Steve: (stopped at 56:45)
Yes, it is. Our next section on the podcast today is our anti-aging section. I want to tie this into the manna discovery that we talked about a minute ago, because it's important for people to understand and realize that the same science-bible method that went into the discovery of manna is the same method that has gone into the discovery of the vitamins. As significant as this manna discovery is, it is of utmost importance that people are made aware of the discoveries that have happened here in the field of aging and that people take the appropriate action for themselves and for their loved ones. We now know how it all worked, the manna in the wilderness. Dr. Aardsma spent a year in the research lab solving that mystery. We also know how it worked, that men and women and boys and girls were living the ages described in the early part of the book of Genesis. Dr. Aardsma has spent decades in the lab solving the mystery of the lifespans. Really, this is what drove him, Jen, to discover the manna and pushed him, because he's trying to find a way, just to be very candid and very honest, trying to find a way to open people's minds, help them to understand that what's over here, though it might sound fantastical and even crazy at times, it is based on a solid Bible/science method.

Jennifer:
A research method that brings about real results in the real world.

Steve:
That's right. Jennifer, you wrote a post just recently and put it on social media that was really good about the putting the gold back in those golden years. Is that what it was?

Jennifer:
Well, yes. The Dr. Aardsma's vitamins is on an account we have on Facebook and Instagram. If you'd like to join us there. I shared a graphic, a picture there with a sign with lettering on it and it said, "Good news! Made it to my golden years. Bad news. Ain't no gold." That's a cute little thing. You can put a laughing reaction on that. But I did write this post. It says, "Put some gold back in those golden years. I could tell you about two men in their 80s still actively farming. I could tell you about a man in his 70s building his own house. I could tell you about a woman in her 80s who organized and planned a family activity in her local church. Oh, and she made all the food for it as well. I could tell you about an 80-year-old man still not retired from the local merchant where he has worked for most of his life. I could tell you about a woman in her upper 60s actively running a shipping business. I could tell you about a man in his early 70s still pastoring. I could tell you about a couple in their mid to late 80s thrilled to still be living on their own healthy and active. I could tell you about an evangelist and his wife both in their late 60s who energetically keep up with a busy travel and ministry schedule both in the U.S. and overseas. I could tell you about a man who is healthy, trim and active in his upper 70s, a leukemia survivor. I could tell you about a 75-year-old lady who calls me from time to time just to chat, says the sores on her arms are healing up, raves about how great she's feeling, hopes to get into her own house soon where she can get a dog, has been writing songs, and wants to get a better guitar. I could tell you about a 69-year-old woman whose fingers have straightened out after having painful debilitating arthritis. These are all real people. These and many more are my 'customers.' I am so privileged to work on the customer side of the anti-aging vitamins. Do we have clinical studies to 'prove' that these folks are doing well because of the newly discovered anti-aging vitamins? No, nothing official yet. But I would rather see real life people than read about some studies somewhere anyhow. I am so glad I get to see them, answer their calls and questions, and help them place orders. Yes, they are my 'why.'"

At the bottom, I have two asterisks. "Do I always get glowing reports and never hear of my customers struggling or having health difficulties? No. Sometimes even serious health issues can pop up. This thing of aging is no joke, but I can honestly say that those kind of reports from customers are few and far between." And the second note is, "Don't mistakenly think that the anti-aging vitamins are just for older folks. They are needed by everyone. Invest now for your golden years, no matter your age. And who knows what those golden years might actually end up looking like?"

Steve:
Yes, and the research on the anti-aging vitamins continues. Great progress has been made. The third edition of "Aging: Causing and Cure" has just been finalized just like this last week. And we are getting ready to get that printed and put out in publication. And again, great strides have been made and we are just praying that the Lord can help us get the word out about these things.

Jennifer:
And are thrilled to see the difference that it's making in real people's lives as I shared there in that post some of the many examples.

Steve:
All right, the next thing on our agenda here is Helen's View. And Helen will now share a little bit more about the background of things that go on around here. This one is called "A Day in My Life."

Helen:
A Day in My Life. I get up sometime between 6.30 and 7 a.m. I open up the big doors of the ARP Campus building, both front and back, and let the breeze go through the building. I walk around the property just relaxing and praying before I deal with the many emails and orders. Breakfast consists of four tablespoons of orange juice mixed with two cups of water, two tablespoons of homemade peanut butter, and half a banana. I read a few verses from Proverbs while I eat. Frozen turkey burger, lunch, and frozen homemade asparagus soup, supper, are set out to defrost. We have our big meal at noon every day. Checking my business emails and collecting my online orders is my next task. Orders are sent to the shipping room for filling. Caleb arrives around 7 a.m. I talk to him about the weed whacking that needs to be done, and also moving some heavy boards for me. Caleb also has his list from Gerald so he is set for his workday. My student employee arrives at 7.30 a.m. I work with our local high school and have senior students come to work at MLF as part of their business class. I mentor them in everything small business, as well as character development. Some of them are real characters. The students get paid for their work and for many students this is their first job. They get graded by me and the grades go into the school as part of their grades for the year. I love working with the students and enjoy helping them get launched. I work with my student for three and a half hours every morning. This morning we were working on filling some products from Mulberry Lane Farm, putting them in boxes and getting them ready to put on pallets. Four pallets weighing 1,500 pounds each will go out this week. Mid-morning a semi truck arrives and Caleb helps me get two full pallets out to the truck for pickup. At 11 a.m. I check all my emails and print off more orders that have come in. I fill those orders so they can go out in the mail after lunch. I check my garden and flowers and water where needed. I pick some tomatoes, cucumbers and green peppers for my salad for lunch. I start lunch drinking another large glass of my orange juice water drink while I make lunch. It is shepherd's pie for lunch using our garden potatoes and our garden corn. Yummy! Whatever dishes have accumulated get washed. The rest soak in the sinks to do later. Candied peanuts have been cooking on the stove top to be used for snacks. They get stored in mason jars. A nice treat with a little added protein. Gerald and I chat about various things during lunch, very efficient business meetings, and then sit outside in the fall sun to relax for a few minutes before heading out to our afternoon activities. At 12 30 p.m. Caleb and I work in the shipping room and wrap two pallets to get ready for pickup. He also helps me for about an hour bagging up organic soybeans to put in the storage rooms for sending out later. I enjoy the conversation as we work. Today we were brainstorming some new Mulberry Lane Farm business ideas which will probably commence in the summer of 2025. Stay tuned! Caleb heads off to work on constructing a very large shed with Gerald in the backyard. The afternoon activities include answering emails, opening incoming mail and parcels, making phone calls, ordering supplies, and paying bills. A semi truck delivery arrives and Caleb helps me unload the pallets. A quick run into Paxton, four miles from us, is necessary to pick up something from the drugstore and then a drop off at the bank. I stop at our local thrift shop in Paxton for a bit of fun, a simple pleasure that saves me money, and all the money from the thrift store gets turned back into the Paxton community. A win for all. My grandson Sam arrives with the pumpkins and gourds I ordered from him. They are gorgeous. I'm so proud of him and his garden crop. I set up four potted mums in front of the school as well as the pumpkins and gourds. We chat about football for a bit and then he is off to practice. I save checking my social media for later in the afternoon and then make a short post. This is a little break in a work filled day. See my social media links below if you want to follow along on my journey. Checking the news is next just to make sure the world is still in the same mess it was a week ago. It is. I don't linger. It is too depressing. Around 4 p.m. it is time to get Gerald's yeast pancakes going by making the oat milk and getting the pancakes to rise. More dishes that have been soaking now get washed. Company coming for dinner on Sunday evening so I run the robotic vacuum cleaner for the entire apartment then head outside to do some badly needed weeding in the flower beds. What is a day without mouse chores? Down to the basement to take care of those little critters. Empty trash, sweep floors and bleach, mouse cages and bottles. This is my least favorite part of the day but I remind myself that this is good character development. On the way to the basement I grab a large broom and sweep one hallway. These are long hallways. On the way back another hallway gets swept. Today is trash day so all the trash goes into the dumpster for tomorrow's pickup. As I empty the employee bathroom garbage I see that the bathroom needs cleaning. Oh dear it must be done now. Supper is at 5:30 and I make Gerald's pancakes. I eat up yesterday's leftovers, chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy. Now that the days are getting shorter we need to get out earlier to take our daily two-mile walk. We head out into the country around 6 p.m. and enjoy the serenity and calm of the country two blocks from us. We never run out of things to talk about. This is my favorite part of the day. The walks have been so wonderful with the cooler evenings now coming on. At 7 30 p.m. I wash up the rest of the dishes. I'm tired at this point and it takes every bit of energy to finish cleaning the kitchen. Listening to some fast paced music spurs me on. I pour a bath in our double tub. How we enjoy this relaxing and refreshing time. Putting this double tub in was the best thing we did when we built our apartment. One feels the stress just melt away. We head to the bedroom between 8 and 8 30 p.m. I read to Gerald while he eats his evening popcorn. We are currently reading a six-volume set of books by Winston Churchill on World War II. What a brilliant man he was. He has a way with words that beats all. I'm learning a ton about geography. Where in the world is Lithuania? I have a globe in my bedroom. I love learning about world politics. It is sobering to contemplate the evil in the heart of man. Around 9 p.m. or so we watch something online. We are currently going through Perry Mason's old TV series from the 1950s. Not to be confused with the new Perry Mason from 2020. By 10 p.m. I'm falling asleep and wake up around 10 30 when it's time to go to bed and then ask Gerald, "What did I miss?" He has the patience of Job. I turn on the noisemaker, the air conditioner, the fan and hit the hay. Sometimes I wake up during the night and can't sleep. All of my problems that are just molehills turn into mountains. I simply put on my headband headphones and listen to a talk or sermon until I go back to sleep. I'm currently listening to Jerry Bridges on discipleshiplibrary.com. And so ends another day in my life. Every day is different. Every day the same. Every day a gift. "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands just as we commanded you so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need." First Thessalonians 4, 11 and 12. Thanks for listening in. I enjoyed writing this up for you and I hope it's a blessing to you.

Jennifer:
Always interesting to hear from my mom, Helen. And I will say, go to the show notes. Look at the link there for Mulberry Lane Farms. MulberryLaneFarm.com. You can purchase some of the many organic supplies, and our family loves and recommends the steel cut oats from Mulberry Lane Farms. They make a delicious and very healthy breakfast. Very easy to prepare. And as you make a purchase there, you are helping to support the work that goes on here at Aardsma Research and Publishing. So we hope you have a great harvest season. This is October. Next time we'll be together will be November. That's hard to believe. And it's a beautiful time of year here in Illinois as the harvest begins to come in and all the fields turn golden. The soybeans are looking gorgeous. A beautiful golden carpet getting ready to be harvested and brought in here at this time of year.

Steve:
Yes, there's only two episodes left in 2023 of the podcast. And as promised in our January podcast, we plan to address a hot topic in Christian circles this year, the age of the earth.

Jennifer:
Yes, we promised that I think in January, right?

Steve:
That's right. We would hit it before the end of the year.

Jennifer:
We're going to get to it this year, so we are running out of time.

Steve:
We're going to try to keep that promise. And we may hit it next month. We may not. We're not for surges yet.

Jennifer:
It'll be either November or December. You can be assured that we'll do our very best to address that age of the earth topic.

Steve:
Don't miss a podcast. Hey, we'll see you next month.

Jennifer:
Thanks for joining us as we seek to labor here at The Biblical Chronologist for the Lord of the Harvest.