Understanding the Pillar of Fire

Steve:
The Pillar of Fire. The familiar story found in the ancient Old Testament. We've all heard the account. What was this that was hanging over the children of Israel for all of those years in the wilderness? Was it actual fire or was it something completely different? Independent research scientist Dr. Gerald Aardsma gives a fascinating and very convincing theory as to what this was that is being described in the Book of Exodus. That's what we're talking about today here on the BC Messenger Podcast, The Pillar of Fire.

Hello and welcome to the BC Messenger Podcast, Real Science, Real Bible, Real History, and Real World. My name is Steve Hall. I'm with my wife Jennifer Hall. You are listening to episode number 36, the last episode of our third season podcasting.

Jennifer:
And wrapping up season three today, we have an episode that I personally have been looking forward to for a while. We've had this one in the hopper for a number of months. The initial research article came out at the very end of 2023. So it's been a year and a half that we've had this understanding The Pillar of Fire. And it just so happens that it fell in line right here in a very appropriate season of the year. And that was not really premeditated on our part. But as we began to put the episode together, thinking about the science part that we're talking about, yeah, the 4th of July, it all goes together in a really unusual way.

Steve:
Fireworks, sparklers, this episode is just going to glow today. This episode is going to be on fire, I'm telling you. We're talking about The Pillar of Fire today, and you're right. It goes right along with the season that we're in. How cool is that?

Jennifer:
Yeah, I mean, it's the season of those warm summer evenings. When you sit outside, you're enjoying various displays of light in the evening air, which would include, of course, fireworks, maybe sparklers, maybe you have some pretty lights on your patio porch, lanterns.

Steve:
Campfires?

Jennifer:
Yeah, you have fireflies too. Those are God's natural little fireworks.

Steve:
Yeah, and we'll be bringing those up too in a little bit.

Jennifer:
Stay tuned, fireflies are coming back up. And then we have this modern day toy that I don't remember having as a kid. Do you remember having this toy?

Steve:
I don't think so, maybe, but I don't remember it.

Jennifer:
The first I remember these is like maybe when our kids were really, really tiny, our first couple of children, which what we're talking about is a glow stick. Of course, in the summer evenings, and you're waiting for the fireworks to start, you'll see kids running around with these glow sticks.

Steve:
They have now where you can make bracelets with them, put on their arm, or connect them as a necklace.

Jennifer:
Make a necklace, throw them in the air.

Steve:
Why in the world are we talking about glow sticks?

Jennifer:
You can buy them at the Dollar Tree, you know. In fact, I was cleaning out a closet the other day and I found some packs of glow sticks that must have been left from last summer. And that was as we were prepping the podcast. So I have a pack of glow sticks sitting here, but yeah, why would we be talking about that? You guys know, we're going to explain today, talk about understanding the pillar of fire in the ancient Old Testament. And believe it or not, all of these things are going to be connected in a scientific understanding as we go through this episode.

Steve:
Yeah, you don't want to miss this. This is such an interesting topic today and just goes to show the reality again of the ancient Old Testament accounts. We're not talking about fairy tales. We're talking about real world history. But before we keep going into that, Jen, why don't you give us the bullet points of today's episode?

Jennifer:
All right, understanding the pillar of fire, of course. Then we have a research update on the measurement of the NR in light of the anti-aging research that's going on here. Following that, we have Helen's view, Lessons From the Life of Charles Goodyear, part four. And I do believe she's wrapping up that series today. So just three sections today. I should also add this. We want to let you know what our topic is going to be next month, which is August. And it'll be the start of season four. We have planned a topic that we think will be timely for August. And what that topic is going to be is directed towards students heading off to university. We haven't actually named the episode yet. So it might be called something like "As You Head to University". But it's for the evangelical Christian student, some basic truths, some perspectives that they need to have on harmonizing the Bible and science. And just, you know, some really foundational level understanding of some things that'll really, really help them navigate the scientific landscape that they're going to be facing as they enter into a secular environment at university.

Steve:
Yeah, looking forward to that. If you had to think of some of the most familiar Bible accounts from the Old Testament, surely the story of the children of Israel wandering through the wilderness, following a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire, as is described in the Bible, by night, would be one of the first things that would come to your mind. Have you ever thought about the details of this story and even the fact that, you know, if you are living in ancient times in the wilderness, things are going to be pretty dark, right? You're going to need some way to see where you're going, especially if you're traveling. And God provided in a very amazing way a pillar of fire for the children of Israel to lead them, to guide them, to give them light, as we'll be showing in just a minute. Well, what was this pillar of fire? Was this something just miraculous that God did fire floating some way in the air involving smoke and involving heat? Or was it something completely different, completely really unexpected that could actually be explained by the science in God's world? As with the pillar of cloud, and again, we did an episode on the pillar of cloud some time ago.

Jennifer:
I just looked that up. That was last August. Almost a year ago, 11 months ago, we did Understanding the Pillar of Cloud, which is closely connected, of course, with what we're presenting today.

Steve:
Right. And we found in that account that modern science sheds light on what was happening within the environment in that particular situation to create that phenomenon. And that's the same thing we're finding here at night, creating this phenomenon within this Israelite encampment. Now, we have a big word today we're going to use, and I've been practicing the word, Jen.  And it's actually fun to say.

Jennifer:
Let's hear it.

Steve:
You ready? It kind of rolls off your tongue once you begin to say it a few times. I hope our audience tries it with us. I'm going to say it a few times. Chemiluminescence. Isn't that cool? Chemiluminescence.

Jennifer:
Now, there's a word you do not want to get at the spelling bee. Chemiluminescence.

Steve:
Hey, you did it. I was going to ask you to do it. Good, it's fun to say. That's what we're going to be talking about today if you understand science and you're into especially... 

Jennifer
Chemical reactions and things like that. Chemistry.

Steve:
Chemistry. If you're a chemist, you understand probably that term, chemiluminescence.

Jennifer:
Even if you're not a chemist, you can understand that. Think about it. Because we know what luminary, luminescent means, something that is lit up, right? And so chemiluminescence is going to be a chemical reaction that is causing light.

Steve:
Light. Well, you mentioned fireflies a minute ago. You can think about that. I don't know if it's the same thing, but certain fish down in the dark ocean have a light in them. So sure, it's a chemical reaction. So we'll get into that.

Jennifer:
Through the science that we're going to present today, we will be able to even see what color the pillar of fire was. And why would we be wanting to talk about this? You know, we're Bible believers. We're Christians. We've been taught these stories from our earliest days, and they are sacred to us as they are to many Bible believers. Of course, to many folks today, these stories are not sacred. They are mocked and rejected, cast aside, maybe even used to build somebody's name to possibly build credibility for someone. I'll teach you lessons from these stories because these are great stories, but a lot of the world today, of course, is not coming to the books of the Bible, the ancient Old Testament to learn about the true and living God as we would do as Christians. So why would we want to be talking about chemical reactions with this amazing pillar of fire that the true and living God put above the encampments of the Israelites? I learned about that when I was like four. And I mean, that's just so amazing. And what an amazing God we have that he could put a cloud there in the day and fire at night and that it would even come between them and their enemies and all the things that's described there. Our approach here, real science, real Bible, real history, real world is to present a data-rich apologetic for the Christian faith that brings these things out of just spiritual and sacred into the real world in such a way that it's pretty much impossible to say that these things never happened, that these accounts are not true. Soon as you see it in the real world, like we're going to present today, then you really are faced with, can I still say that I don't even believe those accounts?

Steve:
You now have a lot of explaining to do to try to show that these accounts didn't really happen. It's no longer, well, you just have to believe that God did a miraculous thing. You now have solid hard data.

Jennifer:
And if you would just be spiritual like me, then you would believe it too. And I'm sorry that you don't have the faith that I have to believe it. No, it's a much stronger apologetic than that. It's like, look, I'll show you how it happened in the world, in God's science. And I, you know, as a Bible believer from my earliest days, when I see these things explained, it just causes me to worship God and glorify God in my heart in a greater way than ever before. 

Steve:
Yeah, it brings great glory to God to show how he's using his world to accomplish his purposes. And what an amazing God to do it in such a way that we thousands and thousands of years later can go back and realize and understand that it was real. He did do this in this real world. We were just having a conversation with one of our teen boys, one of our teen sons yesterday at the dinner table. And the topic came up, some of this that we're talking about here. And I think the main topic we were talking about was the story of Joshua and Ai, that we presented in another podcast. And he asked the question, he said, "Well, Dad, Mom, the answers here seem to be so obvious?" That's what he said. "You know, a missing thousand years, you put the missing thousand years back in place and all these questions are answered. Why hasn't anybody ever seen this before?" And the answer that we gave him was that, well, you know, the reality of it is we are living in a time of great advancement, advancements in science and in technology, and answers are being revealed like never before. Now questions are also coming up like never before. But answers are being revealed and it's a special time to be living in. And we do believe that more and more people are going to be understanding and seeing this for themselves that, wow, this is really hard now to be denied. And it's now not in the realm of fairytale any longer for a lot of people. It's, like you're just saying, this is real data. This is real science that God has put in his world that he used.

Jennifer:
And it's time for the field of Bible / science research to catch up, which is what's happening here at the Biblical Chronologist where Bible science research is being done at an amazing rate and research articles are being put out from time to time, that to me feels like, like our son was saying, that doesn't seem like, you know, no one's ever thought of that? I mean, when we explain this to you today about the pillar of fire, you could definitely demonstrate this in a high school science experiment, which we also said about the pillar of cloud. You know, a little bit of careful thinking, a little bit of careful investigation. And yes, we do have a head start here at the biblical chronologist because we have the right timeframe for the Exodus. And so then the archeology and everything comes into play to help us understand the encampments more specifically, and that kind of thing. But yes, it is time. I mean, science has taken off in these past several decades, maybe past century. I mean, it is running away with things now. But the Bible has been left in the dust because it was apparently shown to be false, you know, generations ago. And so science has cast it aside and it's time to put these things together and to do it in an intelligent way. And to bring back, you know, our confidence in the scriptures through just small examples, really, like we're going to give you here today. It's incredible, just incredible.

Steve:
So let's get into it here today. In a previous article, as we mentioned a minute ago, it was explained by Dr. Aardsma and in the podcast that we did earlier, how this pillar of cloud can be explained by explanations from science. Modern science reveals very clearly that in this dry savanna environment at that time, back in the time of the Exodus, which would have been, with the corrected chronology, 2450 BC, that this pillar of cloud would have been created by such an encampment, such a large group of people in that environment. What we are talking about today in Dr. Aardsma's article on the pillar of fire, this a modern scientific explanation of the pillar of fire. Now this could not have been understood until, if I'm not mistaken, until the pillar of cloud was understood first.

Jennifer:
Right. I think that's probably true because it all goes together and also the production of the manna is in there too. That's right. So yes, properly understanding these encampments and we've learned that they encamped in a circular manner, and they even traveled in kind of a swarm. Not in a long line stretched out for miles and miles and miles, but these millions of people in their livestock traveled as kind of like a big beehive.

Steve:
Surrounded by their animals and their livestock. With the pillar of cloud / fire in the center.

Jennifer:
In the center. And the unique circumstances of all these people and millions of livestock in the savanna-like environment caused this pillar of cloud in the center. Because you have dry air around the perimeter, around the circumference, and then that dry air is pressing in on all of the moistened air coming up from the encampments, from the cooking, from the urinating cattle emissions from the cattle, all of the moisture that was going to be involved in having all this life there. And so that moistened air is being pressed to the center and rising up in the center. And there you have a pillar of cloud.

Steve:
Yeah. And it's fascinating to understand that science and what that would have looked like in the day. And then we're going to show that the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire are one and the same. We have one thing here that's described in the Bible that is doing multiple, it's serving multiple purposes for the people. But it's being produced naturally.

Jennifer:
We looked it up, we asked chat GPT, "What was the pillar of fire?" just to see what it was going to come up with as possible explanations from wherever it could gather it from the internet. And it was basically, it was pretty sparse really what it came up with, but it was saying that some people think that it was two separate things, cloud, and then it changed to fire. And other people think that it was one thing, you know, that somehow incorporated both. But I did see a fascinating verse from the end of the book of Exodus. Let me find that. Exodus chapter 40 verse 38. I'm going to read it in the NIV first. "So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day and fire was in the cloud by night in the site of all the Israelites during all their travels." And that is the very last verse of the book of Exodus. It's as they're being told how to set up the tabernacle. We have other verses like Exodus 13 where it's describing the pillar of cloud, the pillar of fire. Let me read from the preferred Bible version that Dr. Aardsma usually always uses, which is the NASB. Again this is Exodus chapter 40 verse 38. "For throughout their journeys the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire in it by night, in the site of all the house of Israel."

Steve:
So the scripture is saying that the record is that the fire was in the cloud. Well how do you do that? What is that talking about?

Jennifer:
Yeah, how do you have fire in a cloud? I mean, you know, clouds are made of water, right? I mean, kids know that and kids know that water puts fire out. So how do you have fire in a cloud? And I'm sure those Israelite people probably ask themselves that.

Jennifer:
Yeah, well I think they did. And that takes us into this. Let me read again, you mentioned Exodus 13. Exodus 13:21 says this, "And the Lord was going before them," very clear, it was the Lord going before them, "in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on their way and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light that they might travel by day and night." Now what we don't see in any of the accounts of this pillar of fire is, first of all, we don't see smoke, right? Now if there's, as the statement has always said, where there is smoke, there is fire, right? Well there doesn't seem to be any account of smoke. The Bible can very clearly give the detail of smoke when there's fire as it does in Exodus 19 when it talks about the Mount Sinai and how it was all in a smoke because the Lord had descended upon it in fire. So this doesn't appear to be an ordinary fire, though it's being described that way as what it looks like.

Jennifer:
It also doesn't say anything about heat.

Steve:
Right, that's exactly right.

Jennifer:
I mean if you have a giant pillar of fire in the sky, you know, everyone's going to have to back way up, kind of like you do if you've got a bonfire in your yard. You know, nobody can really go near it. So we don't have that description either, although of course it was over the center of the camp where the Ark of the Covenant was and all of that.

Steve:
But this would have been a massive, massive demonstration of a light and cloud in the sky. So if it really was fire, I mean, yeah, you're talking about a lot of smoke, you're talking about a lot of heat, and we all know fire has to have some fuel for it to be actually burning, unless it's a miracle, right? God's doing something miraculous. But it doesn't appear to be burning fuels to produce this fire. What we do know from verses like I just read in Exodus 13 is that it resembled fire to these people. It certainly seemed to look like fire. That's how they were describing it. And it produced light. Again it says the pillar of fire by night to give them light that they might travel by day and by night. So it produced light to see while walking at night. It wasn't called a pillar of light. It was called a pillar of fire. So it appeared as a glow, as a light coming from a fire, the color of it, the shape of it. It was in the cloud like you read a minute ago. So something is taking place to cause this phenomenon. Now again, we're moving away from the idea that it's just pure miracle. God could do that if He wanted to. But we're trying to see, can this be explained? Dr. Aardsma wanted to see, can this be explained in known science today? With our modern science, technology and research, can we have an understanding of what was transpiring there in that ancient account?

Jennifer:
Well, we've seen that the manna was operating within the laws of science. We did a whole episode on applying the scientific method to the Bible and how you can come up with a very realistic explanation and theory of what manna was through that. We've seen an explanation of the pillar of cloud, which the scientific word for that is a hygrometer, which was measuring the humidity in the air as it lifted up, as it lowered down and how it was being produced. So that was explained through science as well. So now we have come to the pillar of fire. And we wouldn't expect any different now, especially with the groundwork that's already been laid, that even in this, how do you get the appearance of fire within a cloud at night?

Steve:
In this particular situation, with this particular massive group of people and animals in the region of the world that they happen to be in. Yes. Well, there is a way, known to science by which a red fiery looking light, not due to normal burning, normal fuel, chemical burning, or even due to electric, electrical discharges, Dr. Aardsma talks about, not due to any of those things, but in nature by, again, that word we used a minute ago, chemiluminescence. 

Jennifer:
Chemiluminescence is when a chemical reaction takes place and light is produced as a result. You can look it up. You can see online a beautiful assortment of colors that can be produced as a result of chemiluminescence. Fireflies actually, I read this, produced their light through chemiluminescence. There's a chemical reaction happening in that insect, and that is how you get those flickers of light in the night sky.

Steve:
Well, I remember as a kid, you know, I'm going to tell it myself, a neighbor got mad at us one time because we were swatting fireflies with like these tennis rackets or something, badminton rackets. And he came out and got after us because he didn't want us doing that. But you maybe, if you've ever seen a firefly hit your window or something, and that light spreads across your finger, spreads across the window. It's a chemical. The glow remains for a second. So it's chemiluminescence there.

Jennifer:
Yeah. So look it up. You'll see this beautiful assortment of colors. Chemiluminescence can happen between two fluids mixing together. And that is why the whole glow stick discussion happened earlier. I have a pack of glow sticks here. And did you know? Okay... So as we discussed chemiluminescence, I didn't understand how glow sticks actually work, but there is a tube within a tube. So you have the plastic tube and there is fluid inside that which is a base solution. And then you have a little glass vial inside there, a second tube down inside. And that contains something like hydrogen peroxide or some kind of ammonia or something like that. When you break it, when you bend the glow stick, here we go. The sound of a bending glow stick. Okay. You are actually breaking the tube inside. I never knew why it made that noise. And so the two fluids are mixing together. Now there's also a dye in there in these cases for the glow sticks I read. But you shake it and it begins to glow. You can see the color a little bit in the dye before you break the glow stick.

Steve:
Yours is bright red. Mine's kind of a purple.

Jennifer:
Yeah. I picked a red one. Of course. Of course I picked a red one. Then the glow stick begins to glow. Now is that being produced by fire? Is that light being produced by burning a fuel? No. It's being produced by a chemical reaction.

Steve:
And as you said, the theory here is that this pillar of fire we're seeing in the Bible, which is the same as the pillar of cloud, is a chemiluminescent reaction in this case that took place within the water droplets that were making up the cloud. You described a minute ago about how this cloud was being formed with all of the people and all of the animals and ammonia and just to be very blunt, the urine. You think about it. With all of that mass of humanity and animals, what was going up into the atmosphere and the air coming in to the sides of the camp and anyhow in the center of this camp, this cloud with water droplets and the humidity is formed. And at night, we have this reaction that's actually able to be seen. And if you read Dr. Aardsma's article, he has a couple of different perspectives on why it was seen at night as fire. But we can understand that. Like the stars, for instance, you can't see the stars in the day. It doesn't mean they're not there. But when the night comes and the sun goes down, you can see the stars.

Jennifer:
Well. And the fireflies, I don't know if fireflies are out during the day, but if they were out during the day, I would not expect to be able to see them glowing because it's daylight. So you have to have the dark to be able to see the glow of the chemiluminescence that's happening. All the pictures online of the different colors in the chemiluminescent spectrum or whatever, they're all with a dark background. So it's the dark that makes the reaction able to be seen.

Steve:
So chemiluminescent reaction is often taking place in fluid, in water. In liquids. Liquids, water droplets.

Jennifer:
Yeah, the pictures online of the colors glowing are all liquid vials normally, is what I'm seeing there.

Steve:
And different chemiluminescent chemicals produce different colors. We see that again online. You look up the pictures of the glow sticks. Now I think glow sticks, we saw they put dye in them or something. So it can be different, but the actual chemical substance producing light in the water droplets, when we talk about the pillar of fire, are affecting what the color is of that particular chemiluminescent reaction that's taking place. Dr. Aardsma talks about in his article, what was going on with this pillar of fire, something called singlet oxygen. And this produces a red color in the chemiluminescent reaction, something called a red photon. It gives off the color that would certainly have appeared as fire in the cloud, this singlet oxygen reaction.

Jennifer:
Being described as a pillar of fire, then we know it wasn't glowing blue or what are some of the other colors that I saw here. Yellow, purple, green. It wasn't those colors. So singlet oxygen reactions do produce a red color in this chemiluminescence. So is there a way that that could have been happening within the pillar of cloud? Amazingly enough, there is a very simple, easy to understand way that this was happening within the water droplets in that pillar of cloud and visible to those Hebrew people at night. What you have in order to get this singlet oxygen reaction in this chemiluminescence, you have to have a basic solution rather than acidic. Now normally, raindrops and regular water droplets are acidic. But what can you add to an acid to help it become basic? Ammonia is one of those things. The environment around the camps and in the humid air in the encampments that was all being pushed to the middle was very ammonia rich because of the cattle and everything else there. And so, the ammonia was being absorbed into the water droplets and changing them to a basic solution. And then as they rose up in the pillar of cloud, they were mixing with trace elements in the atmosphere such as hydrogen peroxide, and Dr. Aardsma gives a couple others, that produce the red color in the chemiluminescence. So let's read on page five. Here you go. Explaining kind of how this was happening. If you break a glow stick, it'll glow, you know, for some hours. And then eventually it does go out. How and why was this pillar of fire just there all the time and not, you know, this chemical reaction happening and then it would go out. No, because, let's read this, the cloud itself, this is from Dr. Aardsma's article page five, "The cloud itself was being continuously renewed by an air circulation pattern centered on the Israelite camp. Dry desert air was continuously flowing in from the edges of the camp while moistened camp air was continuously ascending from the center of the camp. A parcel of air flowing into the base of the pillar of cloud a few meters above the ground would begin to cool as it rose. This would cause it to begin to condense water droplets around particulate such as dust." So this is where the air is now forming into a cloud as it gets to the center and begins to cool down as it rises up. "These water droplets would absorb ammonia and hydrogen peroxide from the air parcel as it rose. Eventually concentrations of reactions producing singlet oxygen in the water droplets in the air parcel would become large enough for chemiluminescence from the parcel to begin to be visible as that section of air was rising up. Chemiluminescence would continue until one or more reactants had been used up, but by that time the parcel of air would have ascended high above the camp. While the chemiluminescence of a single parcel of air would have been transitory, the chemiluminescence from the pillar of cloud would have been continuous because the cloud was continuously being renewed by new parcels of air entering it at its base." So as the water droplets form there is a unique circumstance with the moisture and the different ingredients there to cause this chemical reaction.

Steve:
So that's the science behind it here. And in the article Dr. Aardsma gives the singlet oxygen theory of the pillar of fire. Let me just read that to you. "The pillar of fire was the pillar of cloud at night illuminated by chemiluminescence from dimers of singlet oxygen within its water droplets." So that is the summary of the theory, the singlet oxygen theory of the pillar of fire. In the article Dr. Aardsma gives a really cool YouTube video link. Now the person that did this demonstration has nothing to do with the pillar of fire.

Jennifer:
He is not trying to demonstrate the pillar of fire but actually he's inadvertently doing so in an amazing way.

Steve:
He demonstrates how this chemical reaction looks. It looks like flames of fire blowing in the wind and you can't really explain this. It is where I wish sometimes we had a visual podcast. But I would encourage you to go to the article and we can put the link in the show notes. 

Jennifer:
Yes, we will put these links there. Go to the show notes. Go over to this YouTube video and at first you see the scientist. He is talking in somewhat of an accent. He must be from another country. He is preparing different liquids in the laboratory there and the name of the video is The Preparation of Singlet Oxygen. And then as the video progresses he turns the lights off as this chemical reaction is happening.

Steve:
And where there is no fire at all, it looks like fire, for all the world looks like fire. It's blowing, it's flickering, but there's no smoke.Jennifer:
It's getting a little brighter, a little dimmer. I'd be scared to touch it because if for all the world looks like something that would be very hot.

Steve:
But it's not. It's a chemical reaction.

Jennifer:
But apparently if it was safe, I don't know if the liquids he was using were safe, but if it were you could stick your hand right in there and it wouldn't feel hot at all. But to the human eye, the air currents are affecting it and the reaction is varying in intensity, and it looks like flickering flames.

Steve:
If you can go look that up if you're interested in this. It's fascinating, just a visual illustration of what we're talking about. And when you see that, the reality here of what the pillar of fire was just becomes alive. You see it with your own eyes. And again, as we said earlier, the evidence here is just overwhelming. The scientific discovery, the looking into these stories, taking them at face value for what they are saying, not trying to read into it, not just saying, this is what's being described in their thoughts and what they're looking at. This is what's not being said. And this is what happens in God's world when you have these conditions and nobody's making anything up here. And yet when you have all of this stuff fall into place in this order, in this timeframe, you're going to have these reactions take place in the world, that are exactly what's being described in the story.

Jennifer:
Amazing. I mean, you can see the color on this video that apparently the Israelites were seeing above the camp there in the desert. It is a beautiful red. It's on the video here. I mean, it's a little bit of a maroonish red. Just seeing it on the dark background, I mean, it looks like maybe what you would expect, like if a dry grassy area was on fire at night or something outside of your house, because it's just like all these little flames just seem like they have their own little fuel source just all over the place. And they're just blowing around, like just like fire. Yeah, going lower, getting higher. And there it is on this video. In 2025, we can demonstrate the science behind it, the chemical reaction that was happening there above the Israelite camp over 4,000 years ago.

Steve:
Demonstrating the reality of that account, that this is not something made up. Once you grasp this, you're going to have a very hard time explaining it away now that, well, this was just a made up story.

Jennifer:
What a perfect thing to put into your spiritual story, fire in the sky. There you go. Put that in your story. Right.

Steve:
No, it's reality. And I thought of this, the Bible talks about how the surrounding nations, their knees would quake. Rahab said, we were filled with fear at you all. Well, no wonder. You know, I mean, I think God, of course, filled them with fear, but at the same time, can you imagine the sight of millions of people and millions of livestock? I mean, just that alone. 

Jennifer:
With these natural phenomena that no one had ever seen anything like before.

Steve:
This cloud thing hanging above them, massive. And then at night, lighting up this fiery mass above this massive people out in the wilderness must have just been something to behold.

Jennifer:
And very, very tall, high up into the air. I think we discussed that on the cloud episode. I think we discussed how tall that cloud was. Very intimidating over top of those Israelite encampments. And I love how this article on the pillar of fire concludes. I just love this. The presence of the pillar of cloud at the time of the Exodus seems to have been uniquely occasioned by one, the millions of people plus their vast herds involved in the Exodus to the Savannah desert environment, which existed in the knee give through which they traveled at that time. And three, their camping lifestyle with disposal of wastewater and urine on the surface of the ground. Now here's the part I love. The difficulties involved in bringing these necessary conditions for such a pillar of fire together in the modern world would make it unlikely that this wonder of nature will ever be seen again. I wish it could. But you know what? God tests our faith in these things. I mean, we don't have to see it. We can understand it in science. We can read about it in the Bible and God's not going to let us recreate these circumstances, but he's giving us other ways to understand it. And he's very merciful in how he allows mankind to dig into the mysteries and to investigate the creation that he has marvelously put together and that he was using these very unique features to lead his people through the wilderness back at that time.

Steve:
These answers to these questions also just begin to answer all kinds of questions and we don't have time to get into all the details we've talked about before and you mentioned earlier the manna, you know, the same process that's going on here is also producing the manna that's on the ground every morning, the pillar of cloud and all of that. And it is just fascinating to see the reality of it all in the real world that these accounts, the works of God in the world are as real as the dirt we stand on every day, the water we drink every day, the grass growing outside, the clouds up above your head. These stories you're reading in the Bible aren't fairy tales. And if people have doubted them, mocked them, if they can hear this research, if they can come to understand what's being said here, it's going to be a whole lot harder for them to mock it, deny it, reject it when they see the reality of these things in the real world today that we can demonstrate, that we can show how it happened and why it happened in God's real world. And you come face to face with God in this. If these stories are true and these accounts are real, then God really did do these things. God really did say the things that the Bible says he said. He really is like this. And so we come face to face with that.

Jennifer:
Yeah, and we have to grapple with it. And what a way to empower people of faith the next generation, the people in churches and seminaries and everywhere, university students, whoever, empower them with this kind of information. Teach it to your kids. You know, guys, today we're going to talk about the pillar of fire and I'm going to show you a video that shows what the color of the pillar of fire probably was and how it worked in creation. And then, you know, when the devil later on wants to plant seeds of doubt, all that's probably not true anyway. Why base your life on that ancient book? There will at least be some information there in the mind of that individual that, wait a minute, I mean, can I really just say it's all not true anyway? I mean, there's some pretty convincing explanations there to show me just how real it was that that information will be there like a seed planted that will come back and bring forth fruit at the needful time.

Steve:
That's right. And I have been holding a glow stick through most of this episode. I've been swinging it around. You guys can't see me. But as I'm talking. It's going everywhere and you know, I'll never see a glow stick the same again. When I see a firefly, I'll never see a firefly the same again. And that's part of what all this does for us. It helps us to see the reality of God's world around us right now and take us back into those stories and see God in all of it. We hope you have a wonderful 4th of July and have glow sticks abundant in your celebrations.

Jennifer:
Enjoy all those displays of light. And you have a perspective on it that you probably won't hear anywhere else besides on this unique podcast bringing you these unique Bible science research results.

Steve:
If you do hear anywhere else, please let us know. We want to meet them.

Jennifer:
Yes. We'd love to team up if somebody else is talking about this kind of Bible science research. So yes, we have been thrilled to bring this to you, present this section to you today on understanding the pillar of fire.

Steve:
That's right. Well another thing we talk about around here and that no one else is talking about is the Dr. Aardsma's anti-aging vitamins and we want to give a research update today on the NR measurements.

Jennifer:
Nicotinamide riboside.

Steve:
Nicotinamide riboside.

Jennifer:
We are just going to give a very brief summary here today. Our audience is aware of the discovery of the anti-aging vitamins, which the first vitamin was discovered in 2015, began to be tested there. Then fast forward to 2019, the second vitamin was discovered and added. So we have these two anti-aging vitamins, which are not the same as the traditional vitamins or any other supplement out there today. They are coming to us from the Bible science research on the longevity and Noah's flood recorded there in Genesis. The human body today is suffering due to aging due to lack of these two previously unknown vitamins and Dr. Aardsma just very recently put forward the suggestion that nicotinamide riboside should be added with the anti-aging vitamins to aid the body basically in the repair process. As our bodies age, the NAD plus, which is a big buzzword in mainstream aging research, declines in the body. Nobody really knows why, but Dr. Aardsma thinks it's because the body is suppressing it on purpose because it does not have the anti-aging vitamins to protect from the ROS damage happening in the mitochondria. So basically, he recommended the second supplement be added to aid the body in the repair process in trying to bring those levels back up to a youthful level.

Steve:
Right. If you've been getting the vitamins at any point lately, you've been getting a bright colored flyer in your package that's coming that's giving this information. You may have wondered what that was all about. I think it says something like new recommendation. NR recommendations.

Jennifer:
Here's where you can get it. Dr. Aardsma always wants to make people informed and aware so that they can take the best advantage of where he is at with the research at that time. So basically, this article is giving an update on Dr. Aardsma learning how to measure the level of the NR, which is a form of vitamin B3, and it leads in the body to these NAD plus levels. I don't know all the technical terms.

Steve:
And this is a big deal to be able to measure this with the equipment that's needed. And I mean, this is huge that he's been able to do this in his laboratory.

Jennifer:
He is measuring it in blood plasma, which is a little bit different than other ways that it can be measured. He was able to measure (this is so interesting) his own level, which he is 70. His wife's level, she's also 70. And their levels were very low, which is what matches the work of other researchers on this NR level in blood plasma. Actually, I'm sorry, he's not measuring the NR. He's measuring the NAD plus concentration in the blood plasma, which again, NR is how your body is going to get that level. So, he also measured the level of a 16 year old boy. Now why would he do that? He's trying to verify that his equipment is measuring accurately. So he got a low level for himself and his wife, which matches the work of other researchers. And then he wanted to get a youthful level. And sure enough, the 16 year old was in fact our son, and he kindly volunteered to have a finger prick and donate a few drops of blood. And his level came in at three point something. Dad's level was one or 1.1. Mom's level was 0.3, which of course there are some uncertainties when you get down really low like that. But overall, the measurements were very successful in demonstrating that his measuring apparatus is working properly. And you know, this was surprising to me. It takes him an entire day to go through the procedure in the lab to get that level in the blood. So he had been supplementing the NR for some period of months. He was not able to measure anybody's levels when they first started the NR. He wasn't prepared to do that in the lab, but he didn't want to waste any time to go ahead and get started with taking it once he developed this additional part of his theory. So he measured it midstream with where are we at? I've been supplementing this NR at a certain number of milligrams a day. But according to these measurements, the levels for himself and his wife had not come back up anywhere near a youthful level yet. And so the article concludes by saying, "The NR CL supplementation at 500 milligrams per day for six months has failed to restore youthful blood plasma levels of NAD plus in both a male and a female 70 year old. Present theory suggests that the best path forward at this juncture is merely to increase NR intake. Accordingly, the present research strategy is to double the daily intake of NR to 1000 milligrams per day for a month or more and see what effect this has on blood plasma concentrations of NAD plus."

So there you go. Doubling the intake amount. Now I love this with this NR part of the research because it's so widely known. It's been widely studied, and safety of NR is well known up to 2000 milligrams per day is my understanding at this point. So we're just kind of waiting to see what happens with the measurements once the intake is doubled. Now I've been rambling on for quite a while about all this stuff. I don't know if our listeners have followed me or not. Now what are we doing with our NR right now, intake?

Steve:
Well we doubled ours. We went ahead and doubled it, and instead of swallowing one pill at night I'm swallowing two, and so we're at 1000 milligrams.

Jennifer:
Yes, we are. So I actually have had some interesting positive effects that I think may be due to the NR. I don't know if you really have or not, but I've noticed some specific things since we have doubled. So as always, it's anecdotal. We never know for sure, but that's kind of where we are and we will bring you any further updates we get. 

Steve:
We wanted to keep you informed. And if you want to go to the show notes, you can see we put a picture of Dr. Aardsma's apparatus called the LC-MS-MS apparatus. I have no idea what all that means, but it's pretty impressive looking on the picture there that he made in-house there, and put together for these measurements that's being reported here on this episode. And you can go straight to his article as well and read that.

Jennifer:
Now caution to our listeners. Dr. Aardsma does not recommend the NR without the anti-aging vitamins. The anti-aging vitamins are providing a vital amount of protection to the mitochondria. And the NR is stimulating youthful activities within the cells and all of that, but in the end it's actually only going to do harm if you don't have the protection of the anti-aging vitamins. So it all goes together. Don't just choose, you know, just the NR. That's probably the thing that'll actually help me. You got to have both. The theory is very strong on that. And so we want to make sure everybody understands to get both supplements if you're going to add the NR.

Steve:
Very good. Well, let's go into Helen's view this time, this episode. Helen is now going to share with us Lessons From the Life of Charles Goodyear, Part Four. It is neat to be able to look into the life of a well-known famous scientist and who, you know, made some very important discoveries in this case in the field of rubber and vulcanized rubber. Helen's giving us some lessons such as our vision and seeing things as they can be, public opinion, you know, things that scientists and especially independent research scientists have to deal with, our focus.

Jennifer:
Around here at the Biblical Chronologist and the BC Messenger podcast, we love science. You can tell that. And we love scientists, and men like Charles Goodyear are just such an inspiration to us. They've given their lives to advance some field. I was just perusing some of our social media conversations and somebody replied, Oh yeah, modern science with an eye roll emoji. And I replied to the person and said, I'm pretty sure you benefit from modern science every single day of your life. Don't roll your eyes at it and act like it's, it's stupid. Men like Charles Goodyear devoted their entire lives to vulcanizing rubber, which we benefit from in countless ways every single day, right? Every single time we drive our vehicle down the road. So we respect and we appreciate so much those who are called into that field and those who are solving the problems. And sometimes it takes an entire lifetime and an enormous amount of sacrifice just to solve one problem. And you may not ever even get any kind of accolades or rewards here on earth, you know, for what you did with your life in that area.

Steve:
Yes, let's listen to the lessons from the life of Charles Goodyear.

Helen:
Lessons from the life of Charles Goodyear, part four. Here's what we've learned so far. Lesson one, our vision, seeing things as they can be. Lesson two, public opinion, the worst of all opinions.

What we learn today. Lesson three, our focus, for where your treasure is. Goodyear was a brilliant inventor, but a terrible businessman. His head was in the clouds, so to speak. I know because I'm married to a man who is an inventor. These kinds of people's minds are always whirling in the realm of ideas. In order to make these great discoveries, they have to be thinking about them practically 24 hours a day. They can either make scientific discoveries or they can figure out how to make the most interest on their bank accounts. One can't do both. Many people think that it is gravy days once a new discovery gets patented. But if the patent is for something that can produce large profits, where there are patents, there are infringers. Goodyear's patent, obtained in 1844, was no different. He was forced to prosecute 32 infringement cases all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Instead of spending his time in the lab, he wasted time in the courts proving that he was the inventor of rubber. The most famous case was in 1852, in which Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, became Goodyear's advocate. In a two-day speech, Webster won a permanent injunction against further patent infringements. But even that didn't stop the piracy. Foreign patents must be filed for in other countries. In England, a man by the name of Thomas Hancock got a sample of Goodyear's rubber and was able to figure out from the samples that sulfur was used to vulcanize rubber. Hancock quickly applied for a patent, and so did Goodyear, but Hancock beat out Goodyear by four weeks.

Goodyear was driven to discover, but not driven to make a fortune. As a result, he made terrible business deals in which he always came out the loser. It is easy to take advantage of people like Goodyear, and those that do so are always lurking in the shadows. When Goodyear died in 1860, he was two hundred thousand dollars in debt.

Goodyear could have died a bitter man, but he didn't. "Life", he wrote, "should not be estimated exclusively by the standard of dollars and cents. I am not disposed to complain that I have planted and others have gathered the fruits. A man has cause for regret only when he sows and no one reaps." I am convinced that Goodyear has reaped plenty by now, the rewards of heaven by what he has sown here on this earth. He was faithful to the vision and mission God had given him, that of inventing a rubber life-jacket which saved thousands upon thousands of lives. Goodyear's head was in the clouds, but so was his heart, as he lived his life here with heaven in mind. May God help us to do the same.

And a quote by Winston Churchill. "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

Steve:
Well next month, as Jennifer mentioned earlier, we are going to be talking to Christian young people heading off to college or university. We might have a guest with us next month. We're not positive yet.

Jennifer:
A mystery guest.

Steve:
A mystery guest. But what basic knowledge do these young people need to have in order to successfully navigate the barrage of ideologies, scientific ideologies, that they are going to be and are being faced with? A little bit of truth goes a long way. That's what we're talking about next month in our August 2025 episode. So stay tuned.

Jennifer:
Of course we'd love to have you join us as well as any Christian young people that are in your circle of influence as we seek to move forward the truth that God has given us both in his word and in his world, the amazing, incredible creation that he's given us to investigate and utilize for his glory. So have a wonderful month of July. We will see you in August.