Otzi the Iceman

Steve:
Back in 1991, a group of hikers were going through the Alps, hiking in an icy region, when they stumbled upon the remains of a man frozen in the ice. Assuming it was a modern hiker, they reported it, little did they know, they had discovered a man who had lived over 5,000 years ago preserved in the ice. What does this have to do with Bible chronology and Bible science research? That's our topic today on the BC Messenger podcast as we discuss Otzi, the Iceman.

Hello and welcome to the BC Messenger podcast. My name is Steve Hall. As always, I'm here with my wife, Jennifer Hall. This is September 2025, episode number 38, where you're going to hear real science, real Bible, real history, and real world. Thank you for joining us today.

Jennifer:
We welcome you and we definitely are going to touch each of those four things today. Real science, real Bible, real history, and real world are all coming up on today's episode. As we look back at this piece of super ancient history, this rare and remarkable find that you described for us there in the intro.

Steve:
Today, we are discussing an unusual piece of history, which does relate to Bible science research, an amazing story of discovery, really not that long ago, only back in 1991 was this found, with numerous intriguing applications.

Jennifer:
Anytime we look back at history, it's fascinating and it brings things into proper perspective. The more narrow perspective we have, the more short-sighted we are, the less that we're able to really grapple with the issues of our day or the issues in our own personal lives. The more perspective we have that we can learn about our own personal history, the history of our world, the history of mankind, it really helps to put things into the needed perspective. We just had a family reunion recently and as part of the activities there, we were able to learn some of the history from my grandfather's side of the family. I loved having all my kids there for that, not all my kids, many of my kids were there for that. I don't know if they can appreciate it yet. They probably can't because at my age, I'm just starting to really begin to appreciate the real lives that were my ancestors, the real lives that they lived and the hardships that they experienced. You can connect the dots as you live your own life and you can begin to imagine what they must have faced and be so grateful for the life they lived, the heritage they passed down. But today on our episode, we're reaching way far back into history into such a rare and unique glimpse into a world that is long gone for all of us today in 2025.

Steve:
Well, I think what you're saying is these are real people. You begin to realize that these people who live before you were real, just as real as you are, and had real lives and had joy and had suffering and had all of these things that we face and experience today. And yes, we are talking today about people who lived thousands of years ago, and information that's in the Bible that tells us about these people's lives, and also information that's in scientific research and study, as we're going to be seeing about a man today, and bringing those two things together to show the reality, which is what we do here, the reality of the information in the Bible being real world history. That these things really happened those years ago, that the Bible really is giving us very important data and information about the world that we live in today. And here today, we have a man, I mean, this is an unbelievable find, a man who lived over 5000 years ago, whose body was preserved in ice all these years. Not only his body, but many things that he had on him. And then Dr. Aardsma showing us through an article he wrote quite a few years ago now, how this all ties together with biblical chronology.


Jennifer:
Are you going to let me give the rundown of the episode today? You're so excited to talk about Otzi that we haven't even let our listeners know what the plan is today.

Steve:
That's right. Thank you. I forgot all about it. So, yes, Jennifer, give us the rundown for today's episode.

Jennifer:
So our featured topic, obviously, Otzi the Iceman. We're going to talk all about him and how he relates to biblical history. And then we have an aging research section, which of course also comes from biblical history. We have a testimonial sent in by a 68 year old gentleman. We're going to share that with you just in his own words, what he sent to us. And then we are closing out the episode today with an interview. Actually, it's myself being interviewed by my mom, Helen, on this month's episode of Helen's View.

Steve:
Okay, it's going to be great. Well, Otzi the Iceman. Now, we're going to talk about this story that maybe you've heard of before and maybe you haven't. Maybe this is the first time you've heard of it. Now, we're calling him Otzi the Iceman. That's what he is known as. It's spelled O-T-Z-I, the Iceman. We looked up the pronunciation and we think we're right on the way this is pronounced, Otzi. The reason this Iceman is called this is because he was discovered, his body was discovered in the... let me see if I get this pronunciation right, the Otztal Alps. It's spelled O-T-Z-T-A-L. Otztal.

Jennifer:
We saw a YouTuber saying that he was in the very spot where Otzi's body was discovered, which was breathtakingly gorgeous, way up high there in the Alps. Then he had a local man come into the frame of the video and he said, "Show us how the locals pronounce this." The man said, "Otzi." We're trying to do our best, but we're not a local from the Otztal Alps.

Steve:
I think we're pretty close.

Jennifer:
For years, I've said "Otzi the Iceman," which is the American pronunciation, I would say.

Steve:
Well, back in 2002, Dr. Aardsma did an article on Otzi the Iceman and biblical chronology. We wanted to bring this out in the podcast today and talk about this, showing the reality again of real people in biblical history, and tie Otzi into biblical history. Put Otzi on the timeline along with the biblical timeline and show, "Okay, well, who is this man? Where does he fall?"

Jennifer:
This article from 2002, which, you know, that's a little ways ago now, I was thinking our second child was just an infant when this article came out in July, August of 2002. Now, he's a young man with a wife and a little baby girl of his own. The years have gone by, but looking at this article about Otzi, the data-rich apologetic that we present here at the biblical chronologist has been happening for a long time. This article is full of graphs and charts, just numerical information, lots of data, hard data in this article. This is not just somebody making up, you know, spinning a fancy tail about this man, Otzi, but everything is very concrete. And that's the way it's been here all along. It still is here in 2025, even though Dr. Aardsma's work has moved on into much more difficult territory than these kind of topics like Otzi. But this is just a fun topic, an easy one to understand. And it brings forward so many of the important and positive and helpful ways that the research is done here.

Steve:
Well, let's get our bearings here. Again, what happened? How did they find this man? These hikers were in the Alps back in 1991, going through a region, I don't remember the altitude, you can look up all these details later if you'd like to, but there had been an unusually warm year that year and some ice had melted back. And they happened upon this body, assuming of course that this was probably a more modern hiker who had tragically died on the trail and had been covered by ice. But again, little did they know when people began to dig him out and find what was on him and his clothing, they began to realize they had discovered something much, much older than just, you know, a decade or two, a hiker. Ever since then, this person who's called Otzi has been studied, his tools, his clothing has been studied, and it has been realized, as we'll talk about, that he is, no, not a few decades passed away, but thousands of years his body has laid here. And what an opportunity to look at a piece of history.

Jennifer:
He was still half frozen in the ice, his body, when the hikers found him. And I love the wording Dr. Aardsma has in the article here. The team which came to remove the iceman's body assumed this was simply another such case of a modern climber, you know, recent decades or centuries, having an unfortunate accident. "They soon changed their minds. Modern climbers do not carry flint knives and copper axes." And so they very quickly began to realize, okay, this fella is going back a long, long time. "And so it was soon apparent that the body was that of a man who had lived and died thousands of years previously."

Steve:
Dr. Aardsma points out much of what we know of ancient people come from graves where they have died, where they passed away. Otzi wasn't buried.

Jennifer:
"Otzi."

Steve:
Otzi, I'll get it right. Otzi is preserved in the very place with the very items he had on him in his daily life. And that makes a difference.

Jennifer:
Yes. He is in fact the world's oldest frozen mummy. So that's very interesting. That we have today. And I saw, you know, he was discovered in 1991, but even back in like 2016, he was still being studied and more and more was still being found out. You know, mankind has an insatiable desire to learn about our past. And to find this man in the middle of his daily life from 5,000 plus years ago. Yeah. I mean, that was a sensation in the science and history world that lasted for a long time. And it's remarkable all that they can know about that man's life based upon what they found there.

Steve:
An archaeological gold mine is really what Otzi has turned out to be. And so Dr. Aardsma, picking up on this story, seeing this became a huge deal back then in the world, and everybody was talking about Otzi, Dr. Aardsma readily admitting he's not an expert on Otzi, but he is an expert on biblical chronology. And the desire to take this find and make a contribution to our knowledge in the field of biblical chronology. And you find out as we get into this, you'll see these two things, Otzi and ancient biblical history compliment each other very nicely. And we get a picture. We get a view, a little like a window into that ancient of history. Dr. Aardsma points out in his article, there's a lot of references to Otzi's antiquity related to things like the pyramids of Egypt, which he does predate. But there really hasn't been, or at least in the time when he wrote this article, there wasn't much that was related to Otzi and people like Moses, Abraham, Noah, these men who the Bible talk about.

Jennifer:
Right. Where did he fall in with them? I mean, that's how far back we're talking. And so, yes, timeline. There we go. We got to bring up the timeline of history. We got a place, Otzi, on there properly. And we have got to get our biblical chronology correct, which we've talked about many, many times on the BC Messenger podcast. And when we have our biblical chronology correct, and we know through radiocarbon dating, when Otzi died within just a very pretty narrow amount of years there, then we can place him on that timeline and we can see him in relation to the history that we read in the Bible.

Steve:
Now, before we discuss the timeline, let's paint the picture of Otzi a little bit more here with what we now know about him. It's so interesting, what they found with Otzi.

Jennifer:
And all that they've been able to investigate, you know, even from the last meal that he had eaten to what his shoes and socks were made out of. But we should explain too, how did Otzi die there on the mountain? Apparently, he died of an arrow wound in the shoulder that they believe hit an artery and he would have bled to death there up in those mountains, which is sad and makes you wonder what his story really was. Why he was being hunted down like that.

Steve:
Was he murdered? Was he a criminal? You know, we'll obviously never know the answer to those questions, but that's his story, what happened? Otzi, we have been told you can look these things up on Google and find out for yourself. But we have found out what his shoes were made of. Bear skin soles, deer hide uppers, cow leather shoelaces, and tree bark socks. Isn't that something.

Jennifer:
How do you make socks out of tree bark? I feel like that's a lost art today.

Steve:
Yeah, right. That probably is.

Jennifer:
So cool though.

Steve:
We can't get along without a microwave today. He wore a coat made of hide from different animals all stitched together. Animal fibers, he used apparently as thread to sew things like his loincloth and leggings. He had a bear skin cap on his head with a leather chin strap. Amazing. Remembering, this guy, we're talking about over 5,000 years ago. Apparently, he had a first aid kit on him with different plants that would have been carried around by Otzi to heal wounds, to fight parasites. They've been able to get into his stomach and research what he had eaten. I read where they can see what his last number of meals were before he died. Certain types of meat from some mountain goat. They found processed wheat, probably from bread, in his stomach.

Jennifer:
Something you told me was that he had a basket or a container of embers wrapped in leaves, which would have been his equivalent of matches. A box of matches. So he's well equipped for survival there in that environment. So obviously, this is a very relatable guy. We can understand everything that he was needing to have and why he had it. He was pretty advanced, really. He certainly wasn't a caveman who was naked and trying to slaughter an animal with his bare hands and eat it or something. He was pretty advanced. He was obviously living a full life, a busy life there up in those mountains. So, the question I would have if I was hearing all this for the first time would be, "Well, when did he live? What's the date of Otzi?"

Steve:
Not only that, but where on the biblical timeline does this place him in that part of the world? What was going on in the world that biblical history shows us was going on? Do these things go together? Do they match?

Jennifer:
Right. I took a picture of our homemade timeline that we've had for years now. I'm looking at that picture now where I have Otzi placed on there. How do we know when Otzi died? Well, it is through radiocarbon dating. They radiocarbon dated all kinds of things with the find of Otzi. He left them many things. Anything that was once alive can be radiocarbon dated, I believe is the case. So, all of his things made out of whatever tools and himself. There's a whole bunch of radiocarbon dates that were done. And they all center in on approximately the date of about 3300 BC. The exact date of his death appears to be 3335 plus or minus 25 years BC.

Steve:
That's when Otzi lived.

Jennifer:
If you look it up, an AI answer is going to tell you he lived 3300 BC somewhere right in that range. Here we go. I should have looked at this in the article to start with. "Many samples both directly from Otzi's tissues and from items associated with Otzi, for example, the wood from his axe handle, grasses from his cloak, etc., have now been radiocarbon dated." He has plotted 17 of those dates on this graph. "As usual, radiocarbon does not yield a single date, but it yields date ranges for a sample." But all the dates are nicely grouped together there on all that radiocarbon dating. So, as we have done in the past, we want to point out radiocarbon dating is a wonderful gift from God. It is an amazing tool. Those who want to discredit it and say that it's completely unreliable, it's completely based on assumptions and whatever, need to look at something like this. Here's Otzi discovered, and everything about him is radiocarbon dated, and we don't get a wild, ridiculous, all over the timeline results. No, everything nicely groups around one date to where you can feel pretty confident that all those tests being done are giving you reliable results because they're all coming out very close together in the same general time period. So let's just reinforce that date again. Otzi died approximately 3300 BC.

Steve:
3300 BC. Okay, Bible history. What's going on at 3300 BC and what went on before it and after it? And can this work out with biblical history? Now, quick review. What happened in biblical history? We go all the way back to the book of Genesis. We have the creation of the earth. Of course, we have men multiplying on the face of the earth after the creation. 1500 years into the creation into the earth's existence, there's much violence in the world, and God brings judgment upon the earth with a flood. Of course, that's the story of Noah. Now, when did the flood take place? Well, according to modern biblical chronology, the flood happened around 3520 BC.

Jennifer:
Then after the flood, some of the most notable biblical events are the beginnings of the nation of Israel with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And then of course, Israel being taken into Egypt and the captivity and then the Exodus, all of that. And then we get into Jericho and then we go down farther and get into King David. So that kind of gives you, right, those are the major landmarks of biblical history on the biblical timeline.

Steve:
Now, the flood, going back to the flood, according to the biblical account and according to the evidence in the world, the flood wiped out, you know, the northern hemisphere, anybody alive, and terminated civilizations throughout the northern hemisphere, the Neolithic civilization, the Ceide Fields of Ireland. Dr. Aardsma talks about all of this, the Chalcolithic culture and all of that wiped out. So, Otzi...

Jennifer:
Yeah. So, I mean, we could just ask ourselves this question, when do you think Otzi, you know, do you think he lived like closer to the Exodus or do you think he was, you know, do you think that he was maybe like Noah's grandson or something off the Ark?

Steve:
Well, I think...

Jennifer:
Yeah, I think that maybe he was... I think Noah probably had a bear skin cap. I don't know.

Steve:
Noah? Yeah.

Jennifer:
We're trying to make a point. Hopefully our listeners can understand the point we're trying to make that if you just take an isolated piece of history and you think, you know, when would I think that this should have happened? When do I think this guy lived? Well, we need something concrete to help us to figure that out, more than just our own opinions or our own ideas. Now, of course, we could talk about the metals that he had, and that kind of thing, and that would help to narrow down the range, which is something concrete. But we already talked about the radiocarbon dating and so we don't have to guess, when do I think that he probably lived? No, let's get our biblical timeline with all these events and let's place Otzi right where he belongs in the context of that history.

Steve:
And so yes, chronology is key. If you can't place it on the timeline with a date or a pretty close date, then you're just lost. You really don't know what you're looking at, and any fantastical story can come of it. So yes, we have placed him on the timeline 33ish 3350 or so there. And so according to modern biblical chronology, he is after the flood, and that's important. So important to be able to know that. Now, this is a problem for the traditional dates of biblical history. Once again, at the traditional dates, there's all kinds of problems. The flood, according to the traditional dates, is at 20...

Jennifer:
About 2500, 2400, that's your traditional date for the flood. So if you have Otzi being preserved and he lived 3300 BC, he was preserved all through the flood waters. Some creationist groups want to say that the flood wrecked the entire face of the entire globe and destroyed everything. And so therefore, it's pretty hard to have this man lying there as he died there in that alpine surroundings, if he literally did live and die before the time of Noah's flood. But what we're saying is, of course, we have modern biblical chronology, corrected chronology, with the missing thousand years being put back in place, and then we know that the flood happened 3520 BC. And so did Otzi live and die before the flood or after the flood? We can easily answer that question now.

Steve:
Exactly. So that's our first observation here, to be able to understand that, okay, this works. Here's this man that was found, who lived so many years ago, and he lived and died after the flood. Now let's talk about that. What would that have looked like for this man? Who was he? According to biblical history, according to the information that we have recorded for us in the most ancient document that we have, the Bible, where on the timeline would this man, Otzi, have fallen? What was going on in the world at that time?

Jennifer:
Well, he also died after the Tower of Babel, when the peoples were dispersed all over the globe. We can see that on the timeline as well. It's very interesting to me to realize that this man, Otzi, lived and died before Abraham was born. Like, wow. Because when I think of Abraham, sometimes if I'm not careful, I kind of think of this man who just kind of lives in spiritual world somewhere, and he was just this godly man in the desert. And boy, those people were just so close to God back then. And I forget how real somebody like Abraham was, because I can see how real Otzi was. I can see the remains and all that they've studied. And then I realize, wait a minute, Abraham wasn't even born yet. And this guy was living this kind of a life, and it just brings the biblical peoples back down into the real world where we all live. And the kind of things that Otzi was doing, I can easily extrapolate and think, well, my goodness, I mean, how real, just how real these lives are that these people lived. Dr. Aardsma points out in the article, and I can see this on my homemade timeline as well, guess who was still alive at the time when Otzi lived and died? Guess who?

Steve:
Well, he was only a few centuries after the flood, according to the timeline. And people were living a whole lot longer back then, according to the Bible, than they are today. So you're talking about Noah? Noah himself would have still been alive when Otzi died on that mountain.

Jennifer:
I can see on my timeline, Noah died right near the time when Abraham was born. So there you have Otzi living during Noah's lifetime. Incredible.

Steve:
It is incredible. And again, it's demonstrating, and I think this is one of the main things we're trying to show today, real world piece of evidence that's today sitting in a laboratory or in a museum, I'm not sure, that is connected with biblical history, and it works so well to show the reality of this biblical history.

Jennifer:
Well, I just wanted to point out real quick, who were the contemporaries, the biblical contemporaries of Otzi, like who had been born pretty much probably at the same time as him? I pulled out Aging: Cause and Cure, Dr. Aardsma's book about the life spans and the longevity to look at the dates, the birth dates of some of these guys that are listed in the genealogies and all of that. So I'm looking here, of course, Otzi died around 3300. Well, we have, you may have heard of this guy, Peleg, was born 3418, and he lived 239 years. So he was probably alive at the same time as Otzi. Another guy named Rue, and a guy named Sirug. And then Tara, who of course is the father of Abraham, would have been born within 50 years of Otzi's death, 3297 for him. So Eber, Peleg, Rue, and Sirug, those guys in those genealogies are definitely contemporaries of Otzi, as far as their age, their ages, and when they were born, basically.

Steve:
Amazing to put that together. Biblical data with this man and when he lived. Yeah, fascinating. And that also brings up the point that these people were living a whole lot longer than we do today. And this can be a mistake on the part of those researching this man and his body, because I think what they say is they date his age around 45.

Jennifer:
Right. Looking based upon his physical appearance and characteristics, whatever, they think he was about 45.

Steve:
But in reality, again, understanding the Biblical history and data that we have, this man was probably a whole lot older than 45, even though that was his outward appearance.

Jennifer:
The conclusion of the article on that section on that point is that his true age probably was in excess of twice of 45. So he was probably closer to 100, maybe in excess of 100 years old. The average lifespan at that time was a couple hundred. I'm looking for it here at that time.

Steve:
Life expectancy of a newborn at the time of Otzi's death was still in excess of 200 years old.

Jennifer:
Now you could ask the question, well, how come the researchers don't know that about Otzi? I mean, how come they can't figure out how old he was? Well, I mean, this is the question.

Steve:
If you're not suffering from aging disease the same way we do today, then what do you look like when you're 100? What does a 200-year-old man look like who's not aging the way we age? Right. And this man obviously had a hard life. Obviously, he's living in the Alps. He's advanced but still crude in the things he's carrying. So he's going to have an appearance of some wear and tear and all of that. But his actual age, I don't know that we could know that.

Jennifer:
Right. And so the Bible sheds very unique, 100% unique piece of information on that, that if you take the lifespans seriously and you place Otzi on the timeline back in that day, then no, he didn't die before he was 100. And physically, you wouldn't know that from looking at him that he could have been that advanced in years. And also, just thinking about the fact of the number of years it had been since the Tower of Babel and here he is way up in the Alpine regions. I mean, it's going to take a long time, a lot of years to get up there and to be able to sustain life. You're going to have to have a lot of experience and a lot of water under the bridge, so to speak, to get you to that place.

Steve:
Let's talk about that for a minute. Let's talk about Otzi's ancestry. Could we know anything about that as we put him upside along biblical history? Dr. Aardsma points out in the article that, again, Otzi would have lived only a few centuries after the flood, this event that took place in the real world. Yet the equipment that he had on him that we have now studied and found is well adapted to life there in those mountainous regions in the Alps. That implies that the Alps were his home, that he had lived here for quite some time now. He had become accustomed to that area.

Jennifer:
We know the depth and duration of the flood in that region and it seems that the population must have been entirely exterminated. We know that there were some tiny people groups that did survive the flood, which I know is a controversial idea, but the Bible itself tells us there were Nephilim before the flood, there were Nephilim after the flood. But the most reasonable choice for Otzi in that region of the world to be living a few hundred years after the flood is that he was indeed a descendant of Noah.

Steve:
Yeah. And that's something to think about, that this man who they found is most probably a descendant of Noah himself. Well, we have that story in the Bible of Babel. After the flood, these people would have stayed together, followed the river line down the mountains. We have that whole story that the Lord had to come in and disperse them and changed their languages and all of that. And it's very likely Otzi was part of this group. I believe Dr. Aardsma talks about that he thinks he may have been a child at that time, a young person.

Jennifer:
Yes. Page six of the article is saying that Otzi would have been at least 15 years old at the time of the dispersion. And that is an assumption based upon a lot of trains of thought leading to that conclusion. The date of the dispersion is not that easy actually to determine just from the biblical chronology alone. You get a pretty wide range for it. And so it's interesting, Otzi helps to narrow down that range. And so you can read about that in the article. But the range of dates for the dispersion becomes 3370 plus or minus 50 years BC. So in there, definitely you can fit the date of Otzi's death, depending on the uncertainties and things there. But it all works together quite nicely. And then we can begin to piece together the story of Otzi's life. And of course, none of this is known for sure, but all the biblical clues pull together a very interesting, very probable story for Otzi's life that we could never know just from studying his remains and his tools and all of that. There's a section in the article, Otzi's Life and Times, and then there is A Reconstruction, and both of these sections are so interesting.

Steve:
I think maybe the best way to do this on the podcast is I'll just read this little section in Dr. Aardsma's article on the reconstruction. And again, remembering like you just said, we could not know this, we could not have this picture, of course, all the details aren't going to be exactly right here, but probably quite close. We couldn't have this unless we were able to see the biblical history, the biblical timeline, and know and have that information, that data that's in these accounts in Genesis, and then bring it alongside this that we have found in the Alps. This piece of evidence that we have been able to research and study.

Jennifer:
Before you read the reconstruction, let me just give these couple of brief points from the section Otzi's Life and Times. Noah himself was still alive when Otzi died, as we explained. So Otzi was a contemporary as well as a descendant of Noah. Now here's Noah, you know, he's outliving all of these descendants and there's very good reason for that, and you can read about that in the book, Aging: Cause and Cure, but hundreds of years he's living past the time of his own descendants. Anyway, it is quite possible that Otzi had personally met Noah. This possibility is suggested by simple population growth estimates. And then Dr. Aardsma, as I said, data rich apologetic, you know, he's going into population growth statistics and the numbers of people in the world, in that area of the world, within the timeframe following Noah's flood as time went on. It does say that by the time of Otzi's death, Noah's descendants would have numbered in excess of 160,000. And that's fascinating. And there's more here as well. But let's get to this reconstruction, which, as we were just saying, these rough estimates give us a reasonable idea in first approximation of the world in which Otzi grew up. Filling, I hope, Dr. Aardsma says, some of the vacuum left by the secular scientists and popular press in this regard.

Steve:
Right. So this is a brief, imaginative and yet historically, archaeologically based reconstruction.

Jennifer:
And biblically based.

Steve:
Right, of Otzi's life. So here it is.

"Otzi was born to Noah's clan as they migrated out of the Ararat region, following the river year by year toward the southeast. They moved with some knowledge of where they were going back toward the good old land of Noah's birth. A century previously, the rivers of this region had been busy with commerce. Irrigated fields had lined their banks and urban centers were a common sight. But now the clan moved when and where they pleased, unhindered, unchallenged. There was no one to stop them. The region had been completely depopulated by a great flood of water some decades previously. Otzi had reached his early teens when the clan came to a broad and lovely plain. They determined to make this spot their permanent home. Here they would settle down and they would begin to enjoy the good life. They would irrigate the fields once again and re-root the urban way of life which the flood had extinguished. They would establish for themselves a unified ethnicity and a high civilization in the land of their ancestors of the sort that the ancients had known. But their plans were ruined before the city and the tower had progressed very far. The clan came down with a previously unheard of cognitive disturbance which altered verbal communication. It only affected a few individuals at first but within a few days nearly all were afflicted with it. In the virtual communication blackout which followed, imaginations ran wild. Unfounded fears mounted to panic and people fled. Otzi struck out with his family, his mother and father and brothers and sisters. They worked their way back up the river with their livestock and other possessions in the direction they had originally come. They traveled on for years. Most members of the group had been born into a migrant way of life. The land was wide open before them, food was abundant and they saw no reason to settle down. They came eventually to a region of soaring mountains. Here was a new sort of good land with a great variety of natural plant and animal resources in close proximity to protected valleys, occasioned by the rapidly changing altitudes of the mountain slopes. Copper ore too protruded from the mountain sides in places, and the high altitude snow fields guaranteed that there would never be a shortage of fresh water, even in the hottest, driest summers. They moved into one such valley. Their descendants still inhabit it today."

Well that's a brief imaginative reconstruction of possibly what Otzi's life looked like. But probably quite accurate as we see the information in the Bible set alongside this data that we have from this body that was found in the Alps back in 1991.

Jennifer:
Taking it all as real world history and piecing it together. It's hard to get extremely high precision with dates and things when you're peering back over 5,000 years, but there are so many clues and so many different pieces of evidence that we can put into place, that we can read this story knowing that it's probably not too far off the mark for who Otzi was and what his story was in history. And boy can we learn a lot from this one person's life that was preserved in such a rare and strange way up there in that high altitude. And boy does it bring to life the biblical history, in yet again an amazing way when you get it all pieced together properly.

Steve:
Check out the article it's entitled "Otzi the Iceman and Biblical Chronology" and is from July, August 2002, volume 8, number 4. Now let's mention this. In this article Dr. Aardsma is giving some information about the mechanism of the flood. It's important to understand that he has gone through some changes, it's an evolution of thinking, as he has progressed in the science here. He has left his older articles with what they said to show how this changed over the years.

Jennifer:
To show the train of thought and the corrections that he has made to his own science along the way.

Steve:
Well the mechanism of the flood that he states in this article was later overturned. It's basically the same principle as a whole.

Jennifer:
The same general idea, right.

Steve:
What happened in the earth.

Jennifer:
And we just bring this up to point out that this is how good science works. You don't get married to one idea, to one theory, at the exclusion of all else. You are open to the fact that it could in fact be overturned. And when it is overturned then you are honest about that and you progress with that information and make a new theory. And so that is what happened, but it did not really affect how the flood played out in the earth, it's just how it was caused is how the idea changed there. But this brings up something I read recently that I just have to mention. I read a really good article that was talking about questioning the science. You know you hear that term all the time, that somehow as lay people and kind of the mob mentality we're supposed to go around just questioning the science. That is not what that phrase really should mean. What that means is that scientists are supposed to question the science. They are supposed to ask the tough questions and put their theories to the test, put other people's theories to the test, and in that questioning process become closer and closer to the truth. And so that's exactly what you see in this article, in that one little section, is an example of a scientist questioning his own science eventually, and then having to refine it and update his theory accordingly. In this particular case about the mechanism of Noah's Flood.

Steve:
Yes that's right. So much there to think about and look up some things on Otzi. But look at it again in a different lens with biblical history behind it, and this man's life. How neat to have that piece of evidence that we have in the world. Who knows what we'll find in the future and what else is out there to be discovered, and continuing to show the reality of the biblical accounts with the evidence that we have in the world.

Jennifer:
All right, let's move on into our aging research section, and we do have a communication that was sent to us by a gentleman who has been part of the aging research, part of the vitamin work here from early on. And so I think Steve's going to read for us this email that we just received August the 12th.

Steve:
Yes, this is from a fellow by the name of John, "John O" I'll call him. And we do have a testimony from John recorded on our website, on the biblical chronologist website, that you can go and read. The link is in the show notes. But this is an email that he sent recently, and let me just read this to you from John.

"Hello Steve and Jennifer. I am delighted to be part of the MEPA (and he puts MePA but it's also MePiA) trial."

Jennifer:
This is the anti-aging vitamins. He's naming the compounds there. The compound, the initial one that was discovered is what he's calling the MePA.

Steve:
Right. "I've been taking MePA since 2019 and have followed all of Dr.Aardsma's recommendations from MePA/MePiA to the vitamin NR started last year. I'm 68 years old and I'm in excellent health. I take no medications or vitamins other than the aforementioned. I exercise regularly, vigorously, four to five days per week, along with other enjoyable physical activities, and eat a diet with lots of various plants, fruits and vegetables, along with red meat and chicken. I honestly think I'm in the best physical condition of my entire life. I've always stayed fit, but as best as I can compare, I'm about as strong as I was at age 30, but more full bodied. My health statistics are well monitored by a fitness watch, low blood pressure, very low resting heart rate. I'm able to participate in any physical activity that I desire avoiding foolish and risky endeavors common in one's youth. I am hesitant to proclaim my health to strangers as if I'm boasting. I know it is a gift from God. I talk about this to my friends and family trying to keep an open dialogue and keep a sense of humor. One of my sons says I'm determined to make MePA/MePiA work whether it works or not. Another acquaintance who is a vegan got super annoyed and said, "Your health is not because of the magic drops you're taking, it's something else!" I seem to have what an austere vegetarian diet is supposed to deliver! Sincerely, John.

And he did tell us please feel free to share this, and so we thought we would. We thought we shared on this podcast episode and it's very encouraging and very interesting to hear that testimonial. So yeah, John's been taking this since, as he said, 2019 so six or so years of taking the vitamins.

Jennifer:
His first reports that he sent in to us were in his early 60s and now he's in his late 60s says that he is in the best physical condition of his life, which is amazing and glory to god for that. If you don't know what we're talking about with all of this, you need to go back and read the book I've mentioned already a couple times on the episode, Aging: Cause and Cure. We will link to that in the show notes. It's a free download, it's all about the pre-flood longevity and what happened in the earth, and the two vitamins that went missing after the flood. And you know a guy like John, part of John's story that is on our website is that he lost his wife to breast cancer I believe some years ago. And that breaks my heart and I'm sorry that he went through all of that. He talks about how so many of their friends and acquaintances at the time were trying to be offering them well-meaning quote "cures" for what she was dealing with. And he was able, when he saw Dr. Aardsma's work later on after he had gone through all of that, it gave him a perspective and ability to see something substantial in this research, compared to many of the different things that had been tried to be offered to his wife as a remedy for what she was dealing with. Because there there are a lot of wild claims out there, and there's a lot of crazy you know so-called science. But I'm thankful that John was able to see the trustworthiness of Dr. Aardsma's work, and I'm so grateful that he's been blessed by it, helped by it in his life, and that he wanted to share.

Steve:
That's right. Well let's go into Helen's View, and this month on Helen's View, Helen interviews you Jenn. Helen at times does this, she interviewed me some years ago now, and some others as well that have been involved in the work here. And this is Helen's View, a view behind the scenes. Jennifer and I have been in the marketing and communications for Aardsma Research and Publishing and the Biblical Chronologist. It's been over six years now, and we do this podcast every month. And Jennifer has a heart to help people. She's compassionate for people who are suffering. I think I know her probably better than anybody in the world. She truly does. She wants to help people, and believes very strongly in the research here, the science here, her dad and his research. The reality of the ancient Old Testament accounts in the Bible, the desire to demonstrate this and show people the reality of these things. And so here's a little behind the scenes view as her Mom Helen interviews Jennifer, and you get a little bit of a picture here of her life and our family, and the work that goes on here. So hope you enjoy this Helen's View, interview of Jennifer Hall.

Helen:
Welcome to Helen's View. Today I'm doing something extra special. Jennifer is in the studio with me and you're all very familiar with Jennifer, of course. But I thought it would be fun to do an interview with her and ask her some questions about her life, and of course she is my daughter and I am her Mother. So let's just get right into it. Jennifer, name all the places you've lived and why you moved each time.

Jennifer:
Wow, okay. Well, thanks for having me on Helen's View. I've looked forward to being on here. And I guess our listeners hear from me a lot, but I'm looking forward to just sharing some things from a different perspective today. All the places I've lived. I don't really remember all the places but, I was born in Canada, lived in three or four places there. Then we moved to Southern California, lived in a couple different locations during that eight year period. Then our family moved here to Illinois, and I very shortly after that went down to college in Pensacola Florida. Lived there, married Steve, lived in north Florida for a year. Then we went to Virginia and lived there for 19 years where Steve was in the ministry. And then had a few different homes that we lived in there, came to Illinois, and have been here for six years now, just past our six year anniversary of moving here to Illinois, and lived in two different homes during that period of time.

Helen:
That's a lot of moving!

Jennifer:
Yeah, it's been a busy 48 years!

Helen:
Yes for sure. What is your earliest childhood memory?

Jennifer:
Well I have two early memories. I don't know which one is earlier. I have an early memory of going on a walk with Dad, this would have been somewhere in Canada, going on a walk through a field and seeing a little garter snake with him, and the tongue of that snake going in and out of its mouth. So I remember that, and I probably was only like three or something. And then I also have early memories of going to evening church service also with Dad, because I think you were home with little tiny ones, and he and I would go to the evening service together. I remember the lady playing the piano, and I remember the song In My Heart There Rings a Melody, and again I think I was probably only maybe three or four at the time. So those are two early memories that I have.

Helen:
That's neat. Tell us about accepting Christ as your Savior.

Jennifer:
I was three and a half when I heard the gospel, which I believe was presented in a backyard Bible club there wherever we were living in Canada at the time, Child Evangelism Fellowship maybe was putting on the Backyard Bible Club. I understood the gospel enough even at such a young age to want to be saved, and I believe you were able to take note of that date for me which was July 31st of that year. And so from that time forward I've always had a walk with the Lord and it's been very real to me.

Helen:
I've heard some preachers and other people say if you can't remember the time when you accepted Jesus as your Savior you're probably not saved. And Dad was like you, very young, and he believed in God and Jesus from the time he was born basically. And I remember him sharing in an adult Sunday school class, do you remember Elsie at the church, what town was that, Hornby, and we went into that little church there, Streetsville Baptist Church, and remember the older lady Elsie. And Dad mentioned in the class, sometimes I struggle with being told that if you don't remember then you're probably not saved. And so, you know I wonder about that, even though I believe in Jesus and God to this day, and my life is very much devoted to him. And Elsie said, "Do you remember being born?"

Jennifer:
Right.

Helen:
And that was very impacting to dad.

Jennifer:
Yeah, a good analogy yes. Interesting.

Helen:
Do you remember the stories Dad used to tell you about Puff the Magic Dragon, and you had some imaginary characters in those stories. And then you were also in the stories I believe as one of the characters.

Jennifer:
Yes, I do remember every now and then he would tell us a story out of his head, me and my younger brothers. Puff the Magic Dragon coming in and getting these children and taking them on adventures. I don't have any specifics other than that. But I think it was a little girl and a little boy, which was me and my brother were in the story too.

Helen:
Yes, I have fond memories of that. What are some of the activities you did as a teenager?

Jennifer:
Well I was homeschooled, and I was able to work different jobs. At one point I worked in the well-known radio ministry of David Jeremiah there in Southern California. I worked in the recordings and phone orders side of things there for Turning Point Ministries. That was an interesting thing that I was able to do. I was involved in a lot of music and musical endeavors.

Helen:
What about the theater group that you were involved with?

Jennifer:
Well, I did love the musical theater. I never really was in any of the plays, but I did enjoy being in the little orchestra, instrumental group that they would sometimes have. I was able to play the flute in Mary Poppins as a teenager. I really enjoyed that. And an outdoor amphitheater presentation of Oklahoma, I also played in that musical. And if i remember right I think I played a small harp in that orchestra during one summer there in southern California.

Helen:
And I think you played in the band of the Christian high school.

Jennifer:
Yes, David Jeremiah's church had an associated Christian high school, and they allowed homeschoolers to participate in things, and so I was able to be a part of the marching band. And that was my first introduction to football. And did some different competitions. Had a lot of fun going with the basketball team to the state championship up in Sacramento or something, playing in the pet band. And as I recall the christian high school won that basketball championship with like three seconds on the clock, it was extremely exciting. So I was not into athletics really myself, but I enjoyed being able to be a part of of those events.

Helen:
That's neat. What were the circumstances of being able to learn to play the harp?

Jennifer
I learned the harp in my early teens because we had a neighbor right down the street that we got to know. God definitely arranged those circumstances so I could meet her. She was very inspiring to me musically, her name is Sylvia, and I still stay in touch with her occasionally. But she was an accomplished pianist, vocalist and harpist. And was very welcoming to me to kind of enter into her world and learn from her and be inspired by her passion. And she had a little girl that needed babysitting, and so we were able to exchange music lessons for babysitting, and really just a neat friendship that we had. And first I went for piano lessons, but I kept you know observing the harp there in her music area of her home, and it wasn't long until we ventured into her teaching me to play that instrument as well.

Helen:
And so then eventually you were able to buy a concert harp, is that what you call it, the big harps? And what did you do with that concert harp when you still lived in California? Do you remember?

Jennifer:
Well, I never, we didn't buy one until I was married.

Helen:
Oh, okay.

Jennifer:
But somehow, yeah I was renting, or had able to acquire an instrument, and I was able to play for some weddings and just kind of began to learn how to navigate those kind of things, and and take those opportunities to use that skill. And then I also used it quite a bit in college as well. And I don't play it as much anymore as I used to, but i'm glad for all the doors that that skill opened up for me over the years.

Helen:
Now when we moved to Loda and I met Eldora, and she met me, she asked all about our family and everything, she came to buy vegetables. And she said, "Jennifer goes to Pensacola? Is she the girl that plays the harp on the television that I watch from there?"

Jennifer:
Okay! Yeah, there were some televised services, so yeah.

Helen:
She was just shocked that that was you.

Jennifer:
I was the first harpist that they had there as they added that instrument into their orchestra. But now they have dozens of harps, and that part of their program has really taken off over the following years. It's really neat to see that.

Helen:
That is neat. How did you meet Steve? And I think you mentioned earlier they went to Pensacola and met Steve. Give us a little more details on that.

Jennifer:
Yeah, so I was there as a freshman and then started into my second year there. And then that's when I first observed seeing Steve in a choir, a concert choir class we were in. The tenor section must have been in front of the alto section because he was there. And I knew I had not seen him the year before and I was curious about who he was because he didn't seem like he was a brand new student. So I came to find out that he had taken a year off. He had been there previously as a freshman, taken a year off, and then that's when i started. And so then during my second year we met. I kind of was curious about who he was, and then one day after choir he approached me, introduced himself and said he was looking for someone to accompany him in his vocal lessons. I was a pianist and a lot of times pianists and vocalists would team up so that they could both, you know, use their skills together in all the different musical endeavors there. And so I was very happy to arrange my schedule so that I could accompany him on the piano. And that's first how we met, and then we just very quickly formed a friendship started doing a lot of things together and here we are. We just had our 26th wedding anniversary.

Helen:
Tell us about your children and what they are all doing and where they live.

Jennifer;
We have eight children, I know we've mentioned that on the podcast at times or talked about one or two of them at times. Our oldest is 25 and our youngest is 8, so we have a wide range of ages and stages. Just very quickly, our oldest just graduated with his Masters and is beginning to teach at a christian school, so that's our oldest Joshua. Then we have Ethan, our second born. He's married to Erin and they have a little baby girl Autumn who is seven months old, and they live in South Carolina. Then we have Katie who has been married for one year to Jared, and they also live in South Carolina. And then we have the five that are still at home and that is Sam, Toby, Olivia, Annalisa and Micah and Sam's going into his junior year, Toby into his freshman year, and then we will have a seventh grader, fifth grader, and third grader. And all of them are still of course living here at home with us.

Helen:
And that sounds all very, very busy.

Jennifer:
Yes, it's a busy life, that's for sure. Many needs and just kids going in all kinds of directions. But no chance to be bored, that's for sure.

Helen:
So tell us about your homeschooling experience and how long you did it, and your thoughts on that.

Jennifer:
Well as I mentioned I was homeschooled growing up for most of my years. We began to homeschool in 2005 I believe. We homeschooled for 19 years and I graduated my first three from homeschool. Definitely enjoyed that experience. I do love many aspects of homeschooling, and overall it was very positive for our family. There's many, many pros, pluses you know, to making that decision to homeschool. And I'm grateful for the years that we had in that. And I don't know if my journey is over in that. Currently we don't plan to homeschool anyone this coming year, which is a little bit surprising to me, but it's very possible that, you know, as we continue on year by year that we will end up homeschooling again to some extent until they're all grown and graduated.

Helen:
Very good. What is your favorite Bible verse and why is it special to you?

Jennifer:
My life verse has been 1 Samuel 12:24 for a long time. I remember reading that as a teenager, just reading through 1 Samuel I think and it just kind of jumped off the page at me. "Only fear the lord and serve him in truth with all your heart, for consider how great things he has done for you." And I just found that very applicable and a good challenge. So I have many verses that I love, but that's one that's been my life verse. And interestingly enough, it's also my Father-in-law's life verse I found out later on, so that was kind of special to me. And another one that I love is in the New Testament which says, "Show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."

Helen:
Very nice. So you obviously are working for Aardsma Research and Publishing. Can you talk a little bit about what your daily responsibilities are?

Jennifer:
Yes, so my daily responsibilities is just keeping a lot of things running on the customer service side of things. In fact right before we recorded this interview I had to take a phone call and talk to a customer.

Helen:
This is for the vitamins.

Jennifer:
Yes, for the Anti-Aging Vitamins, the customer service part for that. It stays pretty busy and there's many facets to it, keeping records and shipping orders and answering people's questions and that kind of thing. Finding new advertising opportunities for our product, and finding audiences that are receptive to it. So there's that side of it and then there's the podcast side which is always cycling along through the month. We go down our production schedule every month and there's many aspects to getting the podcast prepared and produced and out for people. But I'm very flexible in my work. I do not have to be clocked in at any certain hours of the day, so my family's needs can always come first. And with the transition that we've made with our some of our children going to a private school and then our high schoolers are going to be attending the local public school, that gives me a little bit more quiet hours in my day, but also a very busy schedule of accommodating the kids and all of their extracurriculars and supporting them. It takes a lot of support to have a kid in the classroom and doing all of the school related activities. So it's a very busy life from sun up to sundown, but I really enjoy all the variety, and being able to be part of the Bible science research work here. Again, it's not anything we ever really anticipated until God just very clearly called us into it, and made a big change in our lives. And it's just a day by day adventure, not knowing where the research is going to lead or how everything is going to play out, but it's very neat to be serving the Lord in this way.

Helen:
I can only imagine the work that you're doing to prepare for the podcasts like climate change, and the magnetic field of the earth, and all these very complicated topics that of course Dad is doing deep research on. And it's neat... it's always been Dad's dream, and my dream too, to get the word out. Dad does the research and he can either get the word out or figure out how to make a living, or he can do the research, and he's always sacrificed and chosen to do the research first. And every time we hear the podcast, Dad and I are just thrilled to hear the communication that's going out to everyone who's interested. And hopefully more in the future. So that's a dream come true for us too.

Jennifer:
Oh, well good. Yes, you just never know. God writes a very interesting story sometimes, and in many ways our journey has gone in directions that I never foresaw. But you grow through those things and you learn to know God in new ways. And yeah, some of the podcast topics are a lot for us as non-scientists. And we work through those heavier topics. And then others are more enjoyable, more easier for us to just talk about, and a little bit more digestible for us as lay people. So it just varies from month to month, but we're always excited to put the information out there, and we just trust God to take it and use it. It's our loaves and fishes, but we know that He can do amazing things with our small efforts.

Helen:
Okay. So my last question is, what do you anticipate over the next year, plans, etc.?

Jennifer:
Well, we'll be going to see our grand baby here in just a few weeks and spending a week there with some various family members. So I'm looking forward to that.

Helen:
These would be the Hall family.

Jennifer:
Yes, some Hall family members, and all of our kids will be there for at least a few days. All of us will be together. And we'll be seeing little Autumn, so thrilled about that. And then really what I anticipate over the next year is just a very very busy school year. We just kind of have to hang on for the ride once everybody's sports gets going. We have three boys going to be playing football at various levels and so that will be very busy, and and we will have our girls playing some other sports, basketball, etc. so I know it's just going to be a busy year. But I want to look back with good memories, and just enjoy it because we won't always have this stage that we currently are in. No other really big plans that I know of, just trying to navigate each day and see our work continue to move forward and continue to raise our family for the Lord.

Helen:
now in October, or it would be September, you're going to have your pumpkin patch opening up for people coming to pick pumpkins. And you're calling it Toby's pumpkin patch but it's really a whole family adventure this year.

Jennifer:
Yes, so we have grown pumpkins for a few years. We were inspired by Larry actually who was interviewed on the podcast a few months ago. He grew so many beautiful pumpkins and I really enjoy the fall decor and the colors and everything. So yes, this is probably our fourth or fifth year growing pumpkins. Our boys, our teen boys have taken it on as a business venture. Toby had it last year and we marketed it that way, Toby's pumpkin patch. This year we've greatly expanded the patch but we're keeping the name and he is putting in a lot of effort and extra time into the patch as well. We're going to be doing a pick your own pumpkin patch, and we have over 300 pumpkin plants planted, most of them have sprouted at this point, and many of them are already flowering. We're going to be having literally in the thousands of pumpkins. So we will see how we can do with marketing them and moving them and getting them out to where people can enjoy them.

Helen:
Well that's really neat. Well I've really enjoyed this time Jennifer, it's been a blessing to me. And I'm sure that our listeners will really enjoy it too. Thank you so much.

Jennifer:
All right, thank you.

Steve:
Well thank you for joining us today on this episode of our podcast. Share the podcast with others, spread the word about what is here. Send us any comments that you might have you can go to our website, thebcmessenger.com and check out past episodes. Leave us a comment. And we will see you in October.

Jennifer:
This year quickly continues to fly away and time passes so so quickly as we follow after the Lord on this adventure of the life that he's given each one of us to live.

Steve:
That's right.