In the podcast, Jeramiah Giehl recounts his personal transformation from being a Jehovah's Witness to converting to Judaism. He reflects on his upbringing within the Jehovah's Witness community, where he attended Bible studies in questionable locations and developed a longing for heaven from a young age. Giehl delves into the social conditioning and cognitive dissonance that eventually led him to leave the religion and embrace Judaism. A key point of discussion was the divergence in beliefs on salvation between Jehovah's Witnesses and Jews. While Jehovah's Witnesses adhere to the Pauline view of salvation through Christ and his ransom sacrifice, Jews anticipate a national redemption event when the Messiah arrives to establish the Kingdom of David.Giehl also sheds light on the audacious claims made by the Watchtower Society, the organization governing Jehovah's Witnesses, regarding their exclusive understanding of the Word of God. He shares quotes from their literature that emphasize their belief in the faithful and discreet slave and discourage independent thinking. The Society asserts that salvation can only be attained through association with their organization, warning against studying the Bible independently as it could lead to apostasy. Giehl raises skepticism about the Society's audacity, considering it is a relatively recent man-made religion that emerged in the late 1800s and has undergone revisions.Through his personal experiences, Giehl underscores the importance of critical thinking and the risks of blindly adhering to a religious organization. He shares insights into his own religious journey, including his departure from Jehovah's Witnesses and exploration of other faiths, such as attending revival meetings. Giehl expresses his disappointment in not witnessing any genuine healing and expresses concerns about manipulative tactics employed in such gatherings. Overall, Giehl's account serves as a reminder of the significance of critically evaluating religious teachings and being mindful of manipulation strategies.
Full Transcript here: http://jesusthejewwithinjudaism.com/?p=1094
Chapters & Topics - Chapter descriptions
0:01 "Jeramiah's Religious Journey"
4:14 The Watchtower Society's Claims of Being the Only Channel to GodThe discouragement of independent thinking and the requirement of association with the organization for salvation.
8:09 Jeramiah's Journey to Judaism
14:15 Disillusionment with Jehovah's Witnesses and Leaving the Faith
18:45 The use of Greek New Testament in supporting Trinitarian view (Differences in Beliefs on Salvation)
22:10 Differences in beliefs between Jehovah's Witnesses and Jews regarding salvation (Early Beliefs about Jesus)
26:06 Discussion on the Beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses
30:42 The beliefs of Jehovahs witnesses (Personal Experience with Religion and Manipulation)
34:35 Manipulation tactics used in religious settings (Personal Journey of Faith and Belief)
50:05 Misunderstandings and misrepresentations of Judaism in Christianity and Messianic Judaism (Jeramiah Giehl's Journey to Judaism and Passion for Torah)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:11):
So today's podcast going to be alittle different than previous
podcast. Instead of interviewing other
people, I'm going to tell my story why I'm doing this podcast
and kind of give you some background on myself.
The title of today's podcast is Why I Chose Judaism, Following
(00:32):
Jesus out of Christianity and Why I Left.
Joel was Witness Christianity and Messianic Keeper roots to
convert to Judaism. It's a lot and I've had quite
the life story I'd like to sharewith you guys.
I'd say that my religious journey started when I was young
and probably before the age of consent.
(00:56):
When I was four years old, my mom decided to convert to
Jehovah's Witnesses due to personal trauma.
She had experienced the loss of a sudden infant death at like 3
1/2 four months. She had a still birth and an
abortion, and then it was a bit much so when the Jehovah's
(01:17):
Witness came knocking at the door and telling her that
everything's bad in the world and we can save you if you work
hard and follow us. That trauma bound bond really
was something fulfilling to her.In that trauma, her being told
what to do by somebody else not having responsibility really
(01:40):
became an escapism for her, and in the social conditioning that
leads to cognitive dissonance that strong with Joe's witness
is something dissociate you from.
Things because you're being conditioned to live in that kind
of way. So I was drunk, along with my
(02:02):
mother to many of her Bible studies.
She had a so in Oceanside where I grew up, it used to be called
Hill St. the the Main Street that is now Pacific Coast
Highway. Back when it was Hill St. it was
known to be basically a red light district.
(02:24):
Drugs and prostitution and things like that, at least on
the North End. And my mom was having a Bible
study with the crack or in a crack house, and that's a lot.
She was a whore and there was crack and it was in a crack
house. She left me in the bedroom, I
(02:47):
guess with the kid while she's doing the Bible study, and there
were needles around. So it was a questionable
experience. There's another time I got took
on A to another Bible study and this was kind of same area there
was I was left with the kids andand there was there's turns on
the floor to say that I I was drug along on these pioneering
(03:13):
adventures when I was a little kid and.
I was like, can I walk around the neighborhood?
She's like, it's not safe. I'm like, it's not safe in here.
So it was quite the IT was, it was, it was interesting to say
the least. By the time I was 8 years old, I
wanted to go to heaven. I remember I had this feeling I
(03:34):
want to go to heaven. So I asked my mom and she had me
talk to one of the elders and they made the comment to me that
you've got to know the truth and.
You know, they're talking about the 144,000, the great crowd.
And I just remember walking to the front of the building and
just kind of like thinking to myself, kind of praying, I
guess. Like, I want to know the truth.
(03:56):
And then I kind of, like mentally checked myself and I
was like, I want to know your truth, like kind of talking to
God. I just want to know what truth
is, not that somebody tells me what truth is, because Joe is
what this is. They're always telling you what
the truth is. One of the things that's big,
which also this is peer pressure, they tell you that the
only organization with functionsto to that through them.
(04:22):
You know that they're the directchannel of God, that you have to
go through them to understand the word of God.
There's a quote from one of their watch terrors that.
We all need help to understand the Bible, and we can't find
scripture guidance outside of the faithful and discreet slave
(04:44):
that this faithful and discreet slave is something they say a
lot. They also use social
conditioning it, you know, it's like, you know, kind of embedded
into the way they do things. Another one of the quotes from a
watchtower is this. The Bible is an organizational
book, and it belongs to Christian congregation as an
(05:05):
organization. Again, they talk about
themselves as the organization, not the individual.
So you're not supposed to individually search for truth,
and regardless of how sincere, they may believe that they can
interpret the Bible. So they say you can't understand
the truth on your own. You can't find it on your own.
You need us. They go on to say we cannot
(05:29):
claim to love God and yet deny his word or channel of
communication. You know, it's interesting that
an organization that started in the late 1800s went through some
revisions and, you know, has developed in the 19th and 20th
century. They're the only channel.
(05:50):
So like, I guess God left for a couple 100 to, you know, almost
2000 years. Quite audacious to to make that
claim and to talk about manmade religions.
But be a manmade religion? That's that's quite a bit.
Now they go on to discourage independent thinking.
(06:14):
Again, like they they call themselves the faithful discreet
slave, a term derived from theirrendering of Matthew 2445.
And they are therefore. Regarded as God's only channel.
Biblical interpretation Let's see.
Another requirement of salvationis that we be associated with
(06:34):
God's channel and his organization.
They also say there's no salvation apart from the watched
our Bible and tract society. Let's see, this is quite the
quote. From time to time they have
risen among the ranks of Joe's people who like the original
Satan, which is a loaded word. Have adopted an independent and
(06:54):
fault finding attitude. They say that it's sufficient to
read the Bible exclusively. I mean it is depending the
Bible, the text. You know, we'll get into textual
criticism and the historical critical method.
So what we call the Bible and what we should look at is, is a
whole another thing it goes on to say either alone or in small
(07:17):
groups. So you shouldn't study it by
yourself. We're in small groups that do
not follow the watched our bottom track society.
Yeah, really. So, like before, you know,
Charles Taze Russell came along.Apparently nobody could figure
this out. Quite audacious, I don't know,
the audacity of some people. They say that it is sufficient
(07:41):
to. Let's see.
Oh, and did it skipping around Okay.
But strangely though, such Biblereading, they have reverted back
to their apostate doctrines thatcommentaries by Christendom's
clergy we're teaching on 90 years ago.
So according to them, if you just study the Bible on your
own, have a home Bible study, and you don't listen to the
(08:05):
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, you'll refer to regular
Christendom. It's not really a bad thing when
you're dealing with a cult, but you know, growing up being
forced to knock on doors, you know, it was not something I
necessarily enjoyed and always wanted to do.
I remember one time I was knocking on doors and it was
Saturday morning and a lady cameto the door and Express made the
(08:28):
statement that I seem bored and kind of lifeless, you know, kind
of helped me realize I'm just doing something I was forced to
do and it really want to do. Which kind of helped open my
eyes. It took a little while for me to
catch on to what was happening. But, you know, I never really
enjoyed not doing birthdays or holidays.
You know, their reasons for not doing it.
(08:48):
Social isolation, It really doesn't didn't make the kind of
sense that I think they hoped itwould.
And I know a lot of children whogrow up and that who are very
dissatisfied and you know, when they get old enough leave, which
is what I did, and kind of as I go through this, you'll see how
and why. But yeah, I've tried to make
(09:10):
sure that I give my kids, you know, a sense of community and
culture. And that's one of the reasons
Judaism made sense to me. It's a family.
It's a culture. It's a tradition that's
thousands of years old. You know, religion that isolates
you so they can manipulate it isn't a good one to be in.
(09:30):
So in my journey, you know, one of the things that really
defined my beliefs and values isby the.
Yeah, I was. By the time I was 12 years old,
I had read the Tanak twice and Ihad read the New Testament once
and of course that was a New world translation.
So it wasn't the best of translations.
But you know, I was always very tourcentric.
(09:54):
The the Tanak spoke to me. It made sense.
I I started debating with the elders because I was looking at
contradictions and the New Testament and things that they
believe. And I was like, this stuff
doesn't line up. You know I had many issues with
the theology differences of New Testament, the contradictions
with the Tanac and it was alwaysan issue for me like when I was
(10:15):
reading the new testimony was just like this doesn't line up
with the the the New Testament doesn't line up with the Tanac.
I was just like yeah I think thesame book.
I mean it's like totally different.
One of the big inconsistencies that I I had a a big debate
with. The elders was about the Joe's
on this teaching that Jesus is the Almighty God and Hashem is
(10:43):
the Almighty God, which made no sense.
If God is one, you don't have a mighty and almighty God.
I mean it's already you know 2 for one.
You know even though Jehovah's Witnesses claim they don't
believe in the Trinity, if you call Jesus the Mighty God and.
Gosh, am the almighty God. You got 2, not one.
(11:05):
But then they say he's not God, he's Michael the Archangel.
And it's like, can you lost me like as he makes sense.
There's there's no textual support, so you know it.
For me, I'm like, there's two gods, There's one God.
This doesn't make sense. Like there's either one or
there's two. You can't have monotheism and
(11:27):
say there's two. So they totally lost me on that.
I was like, this makes no sense.And they're like, Oh well,
there's just some things you have to take on faith.
And I'm sitting here thinking tomyself, I have faith that you
crazy and I'm not I can't do crazy.
So that was probably the beginning of a process for me to
(11:49):
be like, maybe this isn't for me, but I didn't get that far
yet because respect your elders,you know?
Another thing that was a little difficult is I experienced child
abuse when I was growing up frommy father, and my father cheated
on my mom. She was told by the elders to
(12:09):
not leave but to be a witness. You know, keeping kids in an
abusive situation where she's also being cheated on and there
was abusive behavior like telling somebody to stay, to be
a witness when they should leave.
Was one of the problems that probably led to me not wanting
to be part of that religion whenI grew up, because you're not
(12:31):
protecting the people who need the most protection.
But eventually she ended up divorcing from my father.
He had cheated a bunch of times and and she was this fellowship
for leaving him. Eventually she got back with
them. When I turned 18, though, I had
a decision to make. And I took my decision
(12:54):
seriously. You know, I want to decide what
was right for me. I didn't want to accept
anybody's word for it. One, I started going to the
libraries and studying about various religion, Judaism,
Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity.
I was taking Tai Chi at the time.
I came to believe Judaism was one of the oldest and most
(13:15):
accurate religions. And JW's was a progenitor of
Christianity. Well and well that.
Judaism was the progenitor or the originator of Christianity.
I had a very positive view of Judaism.
I hadn't fully, you know, made the leap yet that I was like
Judaism is for me. I think I had to take a journey
through Christianity and see allthat it was to decide for
(13:37):
myself. But in my studies, I I started
to say, well, if Jehovah's Witness is true, I need to test
it against itself and test it against outside sources.
So I'd read some apologetic books refuting Jehovah's
Witnesses. But I was like, well, is what
(13:58):
other people are saying about Jehovah's Witnesses what
Jehovah's Witness say about them?
And so, like, those quotes that I shared with you, you know, my
mom had like a huge library of all these watched and awake
magazines. And I went back and I was
finding the quotes. And I was like, well, they
actually do say this about themselves.
So I was like, well, that's a red flag right there.
They actually say this stuff. It's not like it's just people
making it up. And then there was something
(14:21):
like, I started to get into the Greek a little.
And so they had this, what I call the purple people eater.
It's the purple Diaglite, you know, it's interlinear
translation and then with the transliteration on directly
below in the translation on the side.
So one of the verses that I I was researching in there was
(14:42):
John One and it says in their English.
And being as a word in the worldof us a God again this is back
to the mighty God Almighty God, which you creating two gods.
It it's worse than the Trinity. You're like wait what?
Oh, but he's not God. So how he.
How's he the mighty God, A God and not God.
(15:06):
It's the most illogical stuff when you really break it down.
But the the problem I have is 1.They're using the Greek New
Testament which is a Trinitariandocument.
Like it supports it now. There's arguments of when those
texts were added, some of the earlier didn't have it, but for
the most part, a majority of theGreek manuscripts supported
(15:28):
Trinitarian view. There are earlier ones that do
not. And I believe that that's the
more original message that. But if you're going to use a
Trinitarian document to try to disprove it, no, it's just
wrong. So I was, you know.
Kind of in a debate with the elders about this about a God.
But in the Greek it says in the beginning the word was God and
(15:51):
the transliteration says was God, and then the English on the
side where it says was a God. That's an admission to me within
their own text that they changedit to suit their beliefs.
Their transliteration didn't saywas a God, but in the English
translation. They add it.
(16:11):
And I was like, ooh, okay. So not only do they make
statements about you not being able to think for yourself, you
can't figure out the truth for yourself.
But they change from the translation to the translation.
They add to it. And I was like, ooh, yeah, this
is dishonest. I can't, I can't get with this.
(16:35):
You know, making Jesus any kind of God, mighty or almighty or a
God, didn't seem consistent withthe Hebrew Tonight.
However, based on the Greek textof the New Testament and
normative, Christianity made a lot more sense at this time.
I was like, well, the text itself says this.
They're changing it to say that I at the time was becoming
(16:58):
disillusioned with them. And then I was about to take a
journey through Christianity because, you know.
It made more sense than Jehovah's Witness and it's
probably what I had access to atthe time.
One of the things is I was goingthrough all the old Watch
Channel Wake magazines and I also saw the many prophecies
they made that failed. And you know they made for
(17:20):
prophecies at the end was 19/14/19, eighteen 19/25/1975
and I went back and read these for myself.
I'm not taking somebody's word in a book.
I need to know for myself, right?
And I came to regard them as a false prophet.
They prophesied falsely. It didn't come to pass.
Oh, it didn't come to pass. It was invisible.
(17:40):
OK, how many times does this happen again?
4 * O K Yeah, I I can't do it. So.
And like the breaking point was I was taking martial arts
because like I said, I experienced abuse and violence
when I was growing up and I wanted to feel safe, wanted to
protect myself and because I went and quit doing martial
arts. How is this fellowships?
(18:03):
Which kind of was a blessing in disguise and I needed going my
own way. But, you know, the manipulation
tactics of Colts is it's a lot and it's not good.
You know, the hardest part was being shunned and disowned.
Losing friends and family was difficult.
You know, I went through a few phases where I didn't have
(18:25):
access to, you know, my mother and my sister because they just
fellowshipped me or. They disassociate with me I
guess. But you know, before moving on
to like my journey and Christian, I kind of want to
debunk some of the the Jehovah'sWitnesses claims that are
erroneous. I've already, you know,
(18:47):
mentioned a couple. They say that only their church
members will be saved. Joe's witnesses hold the
salvation. They still believe in the
Pauline view of salvation. You know that salvations through
Christ despite even their New World translation And Isaiah
(19:09):
4313 says I am Jehovah and besides me there's no Savior.
Isaiah 42, eight. I'm Jovah.
That is my name. I give my glory to no one else.
You know they believe in a falseview of salvation taught by Paul
that. Sin brought death, which that's
not the case. Therefore you know this.
This is what they say in their one of their publications.
(19:34):
Therefore let us show our gratitude and love displayed by
God in Christ and exercising faith in Jesus ransom sacrifice.
So it's another thing they believe in the ransom sacrifice
of Jesus which was never a requirement of salvation
salvation. For well, for the Jewish people,
gay, a lot of redemption is whenMessiah comes and establishes
(19:56):
the Kingdom, David brings World Peace, gathers the Jews back
into Israel. It's a national event, not a
personal event. And and that's a big difference.
You know, they believe in faith,they include baptism by
immersion. You have to be an active watch
term, Bible track society personand be absolutely loyal to the
(20:18):
faithful and discreet slave to be saved, which is a lot.
You know, there's no assurance or salvation, only the hope of
resurrection for them and those who fail to live by their their
requirements or just fellowship,then there's no hope for them,
you know And like I said for forus Jews, gay Allah, redemption
(20:39):
is national, not personal. We, you know, Messiah was never
a sin savior and if. The the Tanak says if you do,
it's right, you'll be forgiven. You don't even have to ask for
forgiveness, and you can also ask God for forgiveness.
If you've sinned against somebody, you can ask them for
(21:00):
forgiveness. No atonement is necessary if
you've asked for forgiveness from the person.
If you do what's right, if you ask God for forgiveness, your
forgiveness, so his given is granted.
You know and and the interestingthing that to me that's
appealing to Judaism is you knowall Jews have a place in the
(21:22):
world to come and the righteous of all people have a place in
the world to come. If you're not Jewish you know if
you're righteous we plan to see you in Olam haba the Joe was
witness have two classes to savepeople as I mentioned earlier
the 144,000 and the known as theanointed class who go to heaven.
(21:45):
Death and roll with in in their millennial Kingdom only those
born that there's like a certainamount that like it cut off.
So there's like nobody else can be 144,000 anymore and they were
also there the sheep with a great crowd who basically get to
(22:07):
be rolled over for eternity or actually for the Millennium so.
11 Positive note, I guess is Joe's witness is denied the
deity of Jesus, which actually is kind of conflicted when they
call him the mighty God and a God.
I don't know how they go from that to Jesus was Michael the
Archangel you got me on that onefoul on the field that that's
(22:32):
yeah, but they deny the deity ofJesus, so whatever that's worth.
The problem is they use the Pauline, you know, Christianity
and the New Testament, which thetext itself supports that which
they don't believe. So maybe they need to find a
different reason that they don'tbelieve that.
But it's good that some way theydon't believe it.
(22:55):
Though it's kind of, you know, muddled and convoluted, there is
evidence that the early followers of Jesus didn't
believe that he was divine or savior.
The Ebianites didn't believe that he was resurrected, didn't
believe in virgin birth, didn't believe he was savior.
I mean, on the other hand, the Nazarenes believe that he was
(23:17):
adopted at the baptism. So, I mean, there's differences
in the early believers, you know, but the Ebianites and the
Nazarenes believe that Joseph was physically Jesus's father.
And the Nazarene view of virgin birth wasn't that the Holy
(23:43):
Spirit came upon her, but that Joseph was the Father.
But somehow it was still a miraculous birth.
Or something interesting readingthe early church father's
writings about that the belief that Jesus was a.
Dying and rising savior God wasn't added until the 3rd and
(24:06):
4th century and it was really between the 4th and 6th century
that that was developed that some earliest text like the
earliest Mark doesn't well, Markdoesn't have you know really the
birth narratives and it didn't have the resurrection.
The oldest marks don't have thatthe Cyanidacus and.
(24:29):
Vaticanus codexes don't have thebirth narratives, the virgin
birth. They don't have that part.
They don't have the resurrectionand ascension, and a lot of the
Son of God and unique Son statements aren't in it.
So in the 3rd and 4th century they weren't yet adding a lot of
(24:52):
that Christological theology that came out the Nicene Council
after that. There's a myriad of texts that
have those added in the earliestbelievers or followers that
follow Jesus did not believe that he was savior, risen,
ascended, or God. They believed he was a man.
(25:16):
Some believed he was a prophet. Some believed he was Messiah.
But. It didn't go beyond that.
It wasn't till later that the Hellenistic influence and then
when it started to expand into the, you know, really into the
Greek culture, the Roman culture, that the idea of
apotheosis elevating, you know, like they did with their
(25:41):
Caesars, elevating a human to divine that through that
process. I mean, that's just how the
Roman culture was at the time. For them to follow a Caesar
after their death or any person after their death, they had to
elevate them to deity for them for it to make sense to the way
(26:02):
that the Greeks thought of things at that time and we kind
of cover that more later. But to get back to like Joe's
witnesses, you know that they some of the other things they
reject the the doctrine of eternal hell.
Which is something that Christians believe, which is
fine because Jews Jewish view ofSheol is it was Sheol the
(26:27):
afterlife. It split into two things.
God eat in the world to come, where you go straight to Hashem
and Gahanna is a place where yougo to be purified for up to 12
months and then you go to heaven.
Maybe that's a commonly held view.
Of course there's very various views, but so I mean, I don't
(26:48):
really have a problem with them rejecting hell.
I don't believe in an eternal hell.
I also don't believe in the Christian view of salvation.
So, you know, they are a very apocalyptic eschatological
group, the one of their books. There's this quote.
This name, Armageddon or Armageddon, is directly
(27:11):
associated with the war of the Great day of the God the
Almighty. The term applies specifically to
the condition or situation with the kings of the entire habit of
earth are gathered in oppositionto Jehovah and its Kingdom by
Jesus Christ, all of which is highly fictional.
Not happening, but you know, so Armageddon will mark the
(27:34):
destruction by God of the present evil.
System including apostate Christendom and the binding of
Satan. Afterward, Jehovah's surviving
people rebuild the world in a perfect environment.
Under his role for 1000 years, Satan will be released for a
short time to test the resurrected and born during the
Millennium. You know this.
(27:55):
This goes back to the Christian misunderstand about Satan.
Satan was a servant in. You know he he worked in in.
The heavenly courts as a prosecuting attorney, you know
for for Jews you know he he serves a purpose and you know
(28:18):
it's not the it's not like an evil demigod who has power to
fight God. Equally you know people have
made the point that not only do Christians believe in three
gods, they believe in four because Satan.
Is as powerful as God, and he can fight.
And there's this God that's verypolytheistic.
(28:42):
You know, monotheism. You have one God, you don't have
multiple gods. And you know, it's not like
Zorastrianism, where you have the dualism between her or
Mazda. You have the, you know, the good
and the evil. But again.
Their idea, the Christian idea of good and evil, comes from
(29:04):
Zoroastrianism, that you have anequally powerful evil being or
deity, and you know the creator God.
But that's one of the things that influenced early
Christianity. You know Jehovah's Witness uses
fear to manipulate people. The fear of being cut off the.
(29:26):
And I always thought it was kindof amazing.
If you don't believe in eternal hair hell, how you know?
Christians use the fiery hell asa punishment thing to fear
tactic all the time. Joseon issues, the same fear
tactic, but it's being cut off. And it's like okay, but you come
dust. How's that?
(29:47):
Fearful. That wasn't a clincher for me.
I was like, okay. I'm just going to come dust.
Cool. Yeah.
This fellowship, me, I'm good. But you know, that fear tactic
does work, even if the fiery hell isn't what they're using to
to make you afraid. But they do use that final
(30:09):
judgment to make manipulate people through fear.
You know, they say, the faithful, discreet slave and
those who follow them on hair ofthe earth.
Like the Nazarenes I mentioned, they said they believe Jesus
became Christ at his baptism. They it's odd.
They reject the resurrection of Jesus.
(30:31):
They deny his physical resurrection, but they say his
sacrifice was real. But even though he wasn't bodily
resurrected, he was a resurrected spirit.
I don't know, like it's there's some kind of weird stuff going
on there. Like I said, the earliest
believers didn't believe Jesus was resurrected, didn't believe
(30:53):
he was ascended, didn't believe he was born of a virgin, as I,
believers are followers of Jesus.
But yeah, so I mean, kind of going through all that led me to
the point that I was like, yeah,I'm done with Jehovah's
Witnesses, and I had to go on a journey to just kind of figure
things out for myself about the time that I was 21 years old.
(31:18):
I was dating and living with this woman.
She started taking me into theseevangelistic revival meetings
that I went up for prayer to convert to to be born again
Christian. And it seems twice.
The longterm relationships I wasin with females influenced me
into making decisions more out of peer pressure as a means to
(31:40):
make peace with the relationshipand be unity with the person I'm
with. You know, I was.
I was lonely. I felt kind of rehearsed into
these meetings. I had like a torn rotator cuff.
They tried to tell me I was healed and I received the Holy
Spirit. I wasn't healed.
And I ended up having to go through physical therapy.
(32:01):
You know, there's the rising music that sprayed the place
with this incense smell and passionate preaching and Ultra
calls. A lot of prayer pressure, you
know, When you're lonely, it's very appealing, you know?
A lot of the claims, though, aren't true.
You know, they might get psychosomatic healings.
But you know, in, I want to say the 1015 years that I was
(32:28):
involved in various Christian stuff, you know, revival healing
meetings, Never saw anybody who was legitimately in a wheelchair
get out, never saw an actual miracle or healing of any kind.
A lot of psychosomatic. Healing I would say you know
people minor things and they call it a breakthrough moment in
(32:51):
catharsis and psychology when you believe something and you
have a a break in your mind and then a release.
You're so convinced of somethingthat you believe it to be true,
even though it's not. And then your body will try to
align with what you think, even if.
(33:12):
You're not healed. And that's the psychosomatic
part of the healing, which is not a true healing because a lot
of people still have ongoing problems later, you know.
So I've been to a lot of revivalmeetings, famous preachers, you
know, once I was a part of this training with one of the famous
revival preachers for leaders, and they talked how they would
(33:35):
manipulate people during prayer and alter calls.
It seemed common practice to manipulate people and seemed to
be done for monetary gain which was different than Joel was in
this teaching a method Joel was in, this seemed going to lull
you into sleep and just kind of like brain, you know it was.
(33:56):
I remember they were saying you have to speak slow and monotone
and it it was more like kind of brainwashing.
It was kind of weird. Whereas the revivalist, they
want to be animated and emotive and passion.
Thus save the Lord and God speaketh to thee and the you
know it was. It was disconcerting learning
(34:17):
the manipulation tactics. It was like, which is not all
authentic, but it was, you know,for the Lord.
So there was supposed to be a good reason to it.
It still felt dishonest to me, which was was concerning.
You know, I started to get more involved.
I went on a a mission trip to Baja California, became a youth
(34:40):
leader. I ended up going off the Bible
college. And for a while I got into
apologetics against Joel's witness as a way to deal with
the emotional bondage, mentally disconnect from feelings of
guilt and brainwashing, really trying to overcome that
cognitive dissonance. It was, you know, I felt guilt
being rejected and all that kindof stuff.
(35:00):
It was difficult. You know, at this time I started
to learn, you know, I continue to kind of learn about the
methods of manipulation, you know, heavily relied on
prosperity gospel teachers. I'm watching the downfall of
various evangelical, charismaticand televangelist, different
(35:21):
pastors and congregations. It was, I don't know, I saw a
lot going on which impacted my observations of people's
behavior, how they seemed to believe what they taught.
But they did a lot what they didto get wealthy.
We get money. There was a lot, lot of money.
But yeah, I went to Bible college from 21 to 2021, but I
(35:44):
was 21 years old to to when I was 23 years old, I was going to
Bible college. So for about two years, yeah, I
was studying the the the Gospels, the Epistles, the, the
Tenac. And I learned about the document
hypothesis. Yeah, I was definitely more
interested in the Tanac. I remember getting in a a debate
(36:07):
with the the the instructor at the Tanac class.
I was basically arguing for the validity of the Tanac and how
the inconsistencies of the New Testament, which is like a
constant theme would be. I was like there's some serious
inconsistencies here. I wasn't telling the
denominational line. He's like, yeah, you probably
should go your own way because Iwas just like this ain't doing
(36:29):
it for me. And it was always kind of a
theme since my childhood. So it was like I was, I was
hardwired since I've read the Tanak twice for like, you know,
it's like when you study money, you know, when you're handling
money, they want you to study actual authentic money.
So when somebody gives you a fake, the fake money, you, you
know the difference. So having read the Tanak twice,
(36:49):
when I'm handed the New Testament, like, OOH, that
doesn't line up. And so that was kind of like an
ongoing theme with me. But yeah, so I took a break from
Bible college. I came home on Christmas break
again. I got shunned and disowned
because I was listening to Christian music, Christian
music. And I want to come back to Joe's
(37:11):
on this. So you know, I spent a lot of my
adult life without my parents and my life.
It's just painful and difficult.I started working at a church,
got to see behind the scenes. I wasn't impressed.
I felt looks very human. So the flaws it seem didn't seem
holy. I mean.
What is presented is not what seemed to be behind the scenes.
I was disillusioned with a lot of things.
(37:36):
You know, they they focused on revival.
The methods of manipulation wereparent.
There were things like the styleof music, the rhythm.
I mean, they cared about room temperature.
It had to be like 72 degrees because that that cool was
supposed to enhance the feeling of the Holy Spirit, which I'm
like, what the room temperature.Has nothing to do if there's a
Holy Spirit at the room temperature now alter calls
(38:00):
pleas for money. You know this methods of
psychosomatic healing. You know the the manipulation
was just like I don't know I'm I'm catching these clues like
wow and I'd read this book that kind of talked about it and it
started kind of opening my mind like this isn't everything it's
presented to be. You know, the scandalous lies of
(38:24):
evangelical, charismatic pastors, cheatings, lies, you
know, they tell was a lot. Apparently I wasn't done because
when I was 25 I went back to Bible college.
I was leading a young adult Bible study group.
But I was always tourist centric.
I I focus on the Tabernacle, thefestivals, you know, on a I I
(38:47):
stopped eating pork. I, you know, tried to keep the
10 commandments. I kept a a Sunday Sabbath
because at this time I still accepted.
I was, I was very aware of, likethe Roman Catholic Church
changed the date. At this time I hadn't become
uncomfortable with it. I mean, eventually I did because
I keep a a Jewish Sabbath from Friday sundown to, you know,
(39:10):
Saturday sundown now since I converted.
But you know, it took me a whileto get there.
Let's see. You know, when I was 27, I went
on a mission trip to Europe. It was the same year that I met
my ex. That time I was 31.
(39:31):
When I was getting married. I wanted to have a Jewish
wedding, but I hadn't, like, fully went through the process
of trying to get converted or anything yet.
And then my ex, she had a very Christian background.
And so my compromise. Was to do a messianic Jewish
wedding, which kind of got us involved with that for a while.
(39:52):
I wanted to raise our kids Jewish.
I want, you know, I wanted to dothe festivals and Sabbath and
kosher and stuff like that, you know, and.
But because she was a Christian or her mother was a really
strong like southern, you know Bible Belt Christian, I wanted
to kind of respect that. But, you know, so I guess we
(40:16):
kind of like got involved with, you know, messy annex stuff for
a while. And to be honest, you know, my
my concern was the the Torah, the Tanak, the festivals,
keeping kosher, keeping Shabbat,you know, But it seemed like a
good middle Rd. But it was compromised.
(40:37):
It wasn't what I wanted. And again, like I said, like it
was a major relationship that I felt like I let that define what
I did versus like just doing what I felt was most honest.
By the time I was 36, I I was, Iwent to a Messianic Bible
college for a bit. I was studying Hebrew, Paleo,
(40:58):
Hebrew, the Levant, second type of Judaism, the parting of the
ways. And and then I got even more
frustrated with the Christian doctrine and the
inconsistencies. Especially coming from Messianic
Judaism, like it was just Christianity.
It was any difference. I was like, so you guys do
Shabbat? Oh, you guys put Jesus in all
(41:20):
the festivals. Wait, he wasn't in those
festivals? This makes no sense.
It was, it was weird, honest, where she said Messianic Jews
are apostates, They don't have access to Jewish communal life.
And she referred to Messianic Gentiles who dressed to Jew to
to convert Jews as crossdressersand referred to as
(41:44):
crossdressing. It kind of stuck out to me.
I was like, Oh yeah, kind of makes sense.
And then I because the MessianicBible college that I was going
to those part of the Jewish voice ministry, something like
that. Doctor Raymond Gannon, who was a
(42:07):
He was a a gentile who had been involved.
Messianic Gentile had been involved with the messianic
moment since the 1970s or 1960s.He had started a bunch of
Messianic congregations. He made this comment.
He said you should dress up as more Orthodox to convert Jews.
I was so offended by this. I was like, I'm not here to
(42:32):
fake. I'm here to like one practice
Judaism. And at the time, I was like,
help Christians see that Judaismis what Jesus did.
I'm not here to play dress up toconvert a Jew.
I was like, I'm done at that point.
I had. I had no, I was like, yeah, this
(42:54):
isn't, this is not for me, you know.
And I've been studying textual criticism.
The historical critical method. Reading art.
You know Bart Earman's Misquoting Jesus and did Jesus
exist Guys of Ramesh. Jesus the Jew.
James Tabor. His work on James the brother of
(43:17):
Jesus and Paul and Jesus and hi.And Mcafee's work.
I mean, yeah, though they really, you know.
Opened my eyes, I came to believe Christianity and
Messianic Judaism was a made-up religion.
Decided I was done with Christianity.
You know I was studying the antiNicine fathers documents like
(43:39):
the epistle of Peter de James, the DDK or DDK Didachi.
I don't know, I think it's DDK but Pseudo Clementine
literature. I came to believe James and
Peter were EB Knights who remained Jewish.
And converted Gentiles to Judaism.
Pistol Peter James talks about circumcision, make the communal
(44:10):
meal and it talks about the tourist scrolls and following
the way that the Orient, the initiation of Moses.
The epistle of Peter James some of that really sounds a lot like
Pierke a vote and and elements of the DDK like they may have
been influenced by and we don't have the original but it seems
(44:33):
like the original was a very similar document but I came to
believe that they had a conflictwith Peter and James with the
apostle Paul who is the leader of the Nazarenes and.
James and Peters group, the EBA Knights, parted waves at the
Nazarenes and this was before the parting ways between
(44:57):
Christianity and Judaism, but this is what led to that.
But it was my belief that the early followers of Jesus were
Jewish, stayed Jewish, and converted people to Judaism.
And that was where I kind of waslike, I'm done with
Christianity. You know, I came to believe I
(45:20):
didn't want anything to do with Christian and especially
Messianic Judaism. So offended by Messianic Judaism
not being authentic Judaism being, you know, Christians
playing dress up to convert Jews.
I mean, you can put makeup on a pig, but it's still a pig.
(45:41):
I don't think you can make the Messianic Jesus kosher.
You know, rabish Muli Boziak haskosher Jesus.
Jesus, who's a Jew, has nothing to do with Christianity, can be
kosher. Messianic Judaism's Jesus is not
kosher. Yeah, yeah, keep that in
Christianity. It's nice to have you stop
(46:01):
calling yourself a Messianic Jew.
You're a Hebrew roots Christian,Ybrea Christian something.
Please leave Jew or Jewish out of your name because that's a
misrepresentation. And honestly, it's offensive.
You know, for me, I have a lot of problems.
Like Christianity. They misunderstand.
Tanak, the Pauline epistles. A New Testament relies on the
(46:24):
Greek subtuition. The subtuageant seems to
misunderstand it in a lot of places, falsely claims the
Messiah and passage Messiah is not in, and the false view of
salvation. They don't understand what gay
law, what redemption is. It's a national thing, not a
personal thing. They misunderstand monotheism.
They misunderstand who Satan is,and the oldest New Testament
(46:48):
manuscripts do not include the virgin birth, the resurrection,
ascension. They don't have Jesus, a savior,
a unique son. This soul dying and rising God
thing was added later. And when you get into textual
criticism using the historical critical method, you know the
New Testament is not an accuratebook and we it doesn't tell us
enough about the historical Jesus.
(47:10):
Bart Emmon says there's over 500,000 textual variance amongst
5800 manuscripts. That's almost an 80% error rate.
The New Testament is not accurate or reliable.
You know, it's important that wego to a normative Jewish
interpretation of Tanak, that wedon't look at these
(47:35):
misunderstandings of the Tanak or the grief septuagin.
It's it's it's important to evenlook at at the Talmud to
understand the Tanak because that's the Jewish heritage and
the Jewish understanding of it really to have a right
understanding because the the Torah was given to the Jews and
(47:58):
it is, you know, it belongs in the ethnic identity, but in that
religious identity because they've been given that.
You know, if Christianity's claims were made on its own, not
relying on the Tanak, it probably be fine.
The problem is it falsely relieson the Tanak and doesn't
understand the Tanak. So about when I was 37, I posted
(48:22):
on my Facebook, I'm leaving Christianity.
You know, we started keeping Shabbat and kosher and we're
doing the festivals and we are not.
We're not adding Jesus. Done.
We're out. You guys can have Jesus.
We're going to Judaism. You know, I feel like I follow
Jesus out of Christianity. You know Messianic Judaism is
(48:43):
Christianity. It's not Judaism.
Jesus is not in all the festivals.
You shouldn't put him any. And Jesus is not a Passover
lamb. And if he was, the Passover lamb
does not save mankind from sin. That's never what the Passover
lamb was. Again, they.
Christians seem to like totally misunderstand the sacrificial
(49:06):
system, what it was, what it means.
A human can't be a lamb and a lamb doesn't save you from sin.
And if you could just simply askfor forgiveness, what is the
point? It makes no sense.
The human sacrifice is an abomination to God.
You know that. Just it doesn't.
You know this is the reason Jewsdon't believe Jesus is the
(49:28):
Messiah. He's a failed Messiah is a false
prophet. My side was to establish the
King of David as King the Sheikh, bring World Peace, to
establish universal knowledge ofGod, to gather the young Jews
back to Israel. You know it.
It's important to have a Jewish understanding of the Tanakh and
(49:49):
then build out from there. You know whether people follow
Jesus out of Judaism, become Noah hides or you know go
through a various process. I went through a journey that.
It led me to Judaism. While I was going through
conversion, though, I did come to find that I did a DNA test
(50:10):
and I found out that I had like,I don't know, like 7% European
Jewish DNA. And there was always stories
that there was, you know, we haddifferent Jewish people on our
ancestry, but I wasn't raised Jewish.
And that was one of the reasons that I had decided to go through
conversion. I've always been tourist centric
(50:35):
and I always wanted to make it part of my life and wanted to be
the way I raised my kids and andmy son wanted to go through
conversion and we went through aconservative conversion, you
know. But yeah, it was it was a
journey that I've enjoyed. I'm happy with my choices.
I don't feel good about my life.I know people make claims like
(50:59):
you know. You've abandoned the Holy
Spirit, condemned to hell or something.
I don't believe in hell and I think a lot of that was
misunderstood and it's indoctrination.
They were taught to believe and think this way.
I've always felt connected to the Torah and Judaism makes
sense to me. No other religion has made sense
(51:23):
to me the way it has. Even with all my journeys,
there's always been a connectionto the Torah, to the to knock.
It's always been meaningful to me and it's always been my
anchor. It's always been balances, my
scales. It's always, you know, and I've
had an interesting journey in Judaism and you know, like I
(51:43):
like the, I've studied Mossar, you know, spiritual tradition,
you know, I think it's like akinto, you know, Kabbalah, but, you
know, mindful meditative practice.
I like how with Judaism we grapple with text.
Questions seem to be very important and and not
(52:07):
necessarily happen to have one answer.
Because you ask one Jew questionmight get 3 answers or you ask
like 3 rabbis a question you get6 answers.
You know questions are encouraged.
The journey of exploring knowledge is is important and
I've always felt like I belongedin Judaism so.
(52:29):
Yeah, it's kind of been my journey and I felt like sharing
with you guys the journey I wenton, why I went on it, you know,
my thoughts about it, what brought me through.
But, you know, in the process, you know, I've been to like
counseling and therapy to work through the the brainwashing
when I was and the abuse and things I went through as a
(52:51):
child. You know, a journey of
wholeness, a journey to peace, ajourney to happiness, you know,
honestly, couldn't be happier than I am more fulfilled at
peace with myself and my choices.
And I know everybody's journey is different.
You know, I hope my journey can help others.
(53:14):
And then the passion I've grown along the way.
I spent many years studying historical texts and documents.
Very interested in like Acadian and Sumerian and the the ancient
culture that Abraham came out ofand Mesopotamia and stuff.
(53:38):
You know the the journey through, you know the Levant and
you know what the Middle East and what became Israel
archaeology history. Palaeo, Hebrew, Hebrew.
I've always been very interestedin studying the text, the
(54:01):
meaning, the culture, the culture it came out of, what
formulated it, what influenced it, what it has influenced.
You know, a lot of people say like judeo-christian values.
I like to say Judeo, Western values because it's Judaism,
It's the tourist that's not. That has changed Europe and
(54:23):
America, the many of the laws inAmerica when they are founded.
They used the Tanak to write a lot of the legal code in America
back in the early days, the Diaz, the people were involved
with the founding. But it is the the Noah Haid
traditions, the 10 commandments.It is the Torah.
(54:49):
That has changed the Western world.
People say Christianity, but I think it's the goodness that
comes from the tree of life that's found in the Torah that
has trickled down and and those resonant truth, you know, the
netote elohim, the divine spark that is passed through the
(55:12):
Torah, that that comes through the transmission of Torah, that
when you turn a Gentile into a. Gerta Toshav or Ger Sedek that
they become a righteous gentile.Many people have become
righteous gentiles that use of Torah to teach the 10
(55:36):
commandments to turn people froma Pagan tradition to non Pagan
tradition. There's an argument among the
rabbis about whether. Muslims and Christians or pagans
or monotheists. I would not classify Christians
as monotheists that I don't believe the Trinity or their
(55:58):
view of Satan could be considered monotheist.
But you know for a Jew you cannot attach anybody to Hashem.
There's only Hashem but the rabbis argue that for non Jews
it may be. That if they're a righteous
Gentile, there's a there's a post I'm going to put up about
(56:24):
that has the the Talmud's quote on that.
And I'd have to refer to that toto get it specifically.
But I'm. I'm not going to take a look
right now. But that post going to go live
in a couple weeks where I go through all the passages in the
town. What about Jesus?
And about Christianity? So that should be insight for
(56:44):
one. Also, you know, be on the
lookout for the the web page Jesus the Jew within
judaism.com. Sign up for the Facebook group
like and subscribe here And wherever you listen to podcast
TuneIn there. There's more content, more
interviews coming. I took a break summertime.
(57:07):
My kids are here. I'm not.
I'm not going to be doing as many interviews.
So I'm going to take about a month break and then I'll come
back. If I can squeeze some interviews
in, I'll get them in here and there.
But I'm going to there's, you know, five days a week.
I got new posts going live on the web page and try to have at
(57:29):
least a new podcast every week. Trying to share the information
that I've learned along the way.Things that have helped me,
things that I believe are insightful and useful.
And I hope you know what I sharewith you and and the things that
I've learned are the people I bring on to interview you'll
find encouraging and useful. And your journey of finding
(57:51):
truth. This started as a journey trying
to find truth for myself and I feel like I've found a good
measure of truth. As in anything, we continue to
learn and grow and if you have agrowth mindset then it's an
ongoing process. Keep moving forward.
As Bruce Lee said walk on. You know you continue to walk in
(58:12):
this life. A journey of 1000 miles begins
with one step. So I hope to help you in your
journey. I hope you enjoy the content
that I'm providing and look forward to hearing from you and
seeing you guys in the future.
So today's podcast going to be alittle different than previous
podcast. Instead of interviewing other
people, I'm going to tell my story why I'm doing this podcast
and kind of give you some background on myself.
The title of today's podcast is Why I Chose Judaism, Following
(00:32):
Jesus out of Christianity and Why I Left.
Joel was Witness Christianity and Messianic Keeper roots to
convert to Judaism. It's a lot and I've had quite
the life story I'd like to sharewith you guys.
I'd say that my religious journey started when I was young
and probably before the age of consent.
(00:56):
When I was four years old, my mom decided to convert to
Jehovah's Witnesses due to personal trauma.
She had experienced the loss of a sudden infant death at like 3
1/2 four months. She had a still birth and an
abortion, and then it was a bit much so when the Jehovah's
(01:17):
Witness came knocking at the door and telling her that
everything's bad in the world and we can save you if you work
hard and follow us. That trauma bound bond really
was something fulfilling to her.In that trauma, her being told
what to do by somebody else not having responsibility really
(01:40):
became an escapism for her, and in the social conditioning that
leads to cognitive dissonance that strong with Joe's witness
is something dissociate you from.
Things because you're being conditioned to live in that kind
of way. So I was drunk, along with my
(02:02):
mother to many of her Bible studies.
She had a so in Oceanside where I grew up, it used to be called
Hill St. the the Main Street that is now Pacific Coast
Highway. Back when it was Hill St. it was
known to be basically a red light district.
(02:24):
Drugs and prostitution and things like that, at least on
the North End. And my mom was having a Bible
study with the crack or in a crack house, and that's a lot.
She was a whore and there was crack and it was in a crack
house. She left me in the bedroom, I
(02:47):
guess with the kid while she's doing the Bible study, and there
were needles around. So it was a questionable
experience. There's another time I got took
on A to another Bible study and this was kind of same area there
was I was left with the kids andand there was there's turns on
the floor to say that I I was drug along on these pioneering
(03:13):
adventures when I was a little kid and.
I was like, can I walk around the neighborhood?
She's like, it's not safe. I'm like, it's not safe in here.
So it was quite the IT was, it was, it was interesting to say
the least. By the time I was 8 years old, I
wanted to go to heaven. I remember I had this feeling I
(03:34):
want to go to heaven. So I asked my mom and she had me
talk to one of the elders and they made the comment to me that
you've got to know the truth and.
You know, they're talking about the 144,000, the great crowd.
And I just remember walking to the front of the building and
just kind of like thinking to myself, kind of praying, I
guess. Like, I want to know the truth.
(03:56):
And then I kind of, like mentally checked myself and I
was like, I want to know your truth, like kind of talking to
God. I just want to know what truth
is, not that somebody tells me what truth is, because Joe is
what this is. They're always telling you what
the truth is. One of the things that's big,
which also this is peer pressure, they tell you that the
only organization with functionsto to that through them.
(04:22):
You know that they're the directchannel of God, that you have to
go through them to understand the word of God.
There's a quote from one of their watch terrors that.
We all need help to understand the Bible, and we can't find
scripture guidance outside of the faithful and discreet slave
(04:44):
that this faithful and discreet slave is something they say a
lot. They also use social
conditioning it, you know, it's like, you know, kind of embedded
into the way they do things. Another one of the quotes from a
watchtower is this. The Bible is an organizational
book, and it belongs to Christian congregation as an
(05:05):
organization. Again, they talk about
themselves as the organization, not the individual.
So you're not supposed to individually search for truth,
and regardless of how sincere, they may believe that they can
interpret the Bible. So they say you can't understand
the truth on your own. You can't find it on your own.
You need us. They go on to say we cannot
(05:29):
claim to love God and yet deny his word or channel of
communication. You know, it's interesting that
an organization that started in the late 1800s went through some
revisions and, you know, has developed in the 19th and 20th
century. They're the only channel.
(05:50):
So like, I guess God left for a couple 100 to, you know, almost
2000 years. Quite audacious to to make that
claim and to talk about manmade religions.
But be a manmade religion? That's that's quite a bit.
Now they go on to discourage independent thinking.
(06:14):
Again, like they they call themselves the faithful discreet
slave, a term derived from theirrendering of Matthew 2445.
And they are therefore. Regarded as God's only channel.
Biblical interpretation Let's see.
Another requirement of salvationis that we be associated with
(06:34):
God's channel and his organization.
They also say there's no salvation apart from the watched
our Bible and tract society. Let's see, this is quite the
quote. From time to time they have
risen among the ranks of Joe's people who like the original
Satan, which is a loaded word. Have adopted an independent and
(06:54):
fault finding attitude. They say that it's sufficient to
read the Bible exclusively. I mean it is depending the
Bible, the text. You know, we'll get into textual
criticism and the historical critical method.
So what we call the Bible and what we should look at is, is a
whole another thing it goes on to say either alone or in small
(07:17):
groups. So you shouldn't study it by
yourself. We're in small groups that do
not follow the watched our bottom track society.
Yeah, really. So, like before, you know,
Charles Taze Russell came along.Apparently nobody could figure
this out. Quite audacious, I don't know,
the audacity of some people. They say that it is sufficient
(07:41):
to. Let's see.
Oh, and did it skipping around Okay.
But strangely though, such Biblereading, they have reverted back
to their apostate doctrines thatcommentaries by Christendom's
clergy we're teaching on 90 years ago.
So according to them, if you just study the Bible on your
own, have a home Bible study, and you don't listen to the
(08:05):
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, you'll refer to regular
Christendom. It's not really a bad thing when
you're dealing with a cult, but you know, growing up being
forced to knock on doors, you know, it was not something I
necessarily enjoyed and always wanted to do.
I remember one time I was knocking on doors and it was
Saturday morning and a lady cameto the door and Express made the
(08:28):
statement that I seem bored and kind of lifeless, you know, kind
of helped me realize I'm just doing something I was forced to
do and it really want to do. Which kind of helped open my
eyes. It took a little while for me to
catch on to what was happening. But, you know, I never really
enjoyed not doing birthdays or holidays.
You know, their reasons for not doing it.
(08:48):
Social isolation, It really doesn't didn't make the kind of
sense that I think they hoped itwould.
And I know a lot of children whogrow up and that who are very
dissatisfied and you know, when they get old enough leave, which
is what I did, and kind of as I go through this, you'll see how
and why. But yeah, I've tried to make
(09:10):
sure that I give my kids, you know, a sense of community and
culture. And that's one of the reasons
Judaism made sense to me. It's a family.
It's a culture. It's a tradition that's
thousands of years old. You know, religion that isolates
you so they can manipulate it isn't a good one to be in.
(09:30):
So in my journey, you know, one of the things that really
defined my beliefs and values isby the.
Yeah, I was. By the time I was 12 years old,
I had read the Tanak twice and Ihad read the New Testament once
and of course that was a New world translation.
So it wasn't the best of translations.
But you know, I was always very tourcentric.
(09:54):
The the Tanak spoke to me. It made sense.
I I started debating with the elders because I was looking at
contradictions and the New Testament and things that they
believe. And I was like, this stuff
doesn't line up. You know I had many issues with
the theology differences of New Testament, the contradictions
with the Tanac and it was alwaysan issue for me like when I was
(10:15):
reading the new testimony was just like this doesn't line up
with the the the New Testament doesn't line up with the Tanac.
I was just like yeah I think thesame book.
I mean it's like totally different.
One of the big inconsistencies that I I had a a big debate
with. The elders was about the Joe's
on this teaching that Jesus is the Almighty God and Hashem is
(10:43):
the Almighty God, which made no sense.
If God is one, you don't have a mighty and almighty God.
I mean it's already you know 2 for one.
You know even though Jehovah's Witnesses claim they don't
believe in the Trinity, if you call Jesus the Mighty God and.
Gosh, am the almighty God. You got 2, not one.
(11:05):
But then they say he's not God, he's Michael the Archangel.
And it's like, can you lost me like as he makes sense.
There's there's no textual support, so you know it.
For me, I'm like, there's two gods, There's one God.
This doesn't make sense. Like there's either one or
there's two. You can't have monotheism and
(11:27):
say there's two. So they totally lost me on that.
I was like, this makes no sense.And they're like, Oh well,
there's just some things you have to take on faith.
And I'm sitting here thinking tomyself, I have faith that you
crazy and I'm not I can't do crazy.
So that was probably the beginning of a process for me to
(11:49):
be like, maybe this isn't for me, but I didn't get that far
yet because respect your elders,you know?
Another thing that was a little difficult is I experienced child
abuse when I was growing up frommy father, and my father cheated
on my mom. She was told by the elders to
(12:09):
not leave but to be a witness. You know, keeping kids in an
abusive situation where she's also being cheated on and there
was abusive behavior like telling somebody to stay, to be
a witness when they should leave.
Was one of the problems that probably led to me not wanting
to be part of that religion whenI grew up, because you're not
(12:31):
protecting the people who need the most protection.
But eventually she ended up divorcing from my father.
He had cheated a bunch of times and and she was this fellowship
for leaving him. Eventually she got back with
them. When I turned 18, though, I had
a decision to make. And I took my decision
(12:54):
seriously. You know, I want to decide what
was right for me. I didn't want to accept
anybody's word for it. One, I started going to the
libraries and studying about various religion, Judaism,
Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity.
I was taking Tai Chi at the time.
I came to believe Judaism was one of the oldest and most
(13:15):
accurate religions. And JW's was a progenitor of
Christianity. Well and well that.
Judaism was the progenitor or the originator of Christianity.
I had a very positive view of Judaism.
I hadn't fully, you know, made the leap yet that I was like
Judaism is for me. I think I had to take a journey
through Christianity and see allthat it was to decide for
(13:37):
myself. But in my studies, I I started
to say, well, if Jehovah's Witness is true, I need to test
it against itself and test it against outside sources.
So I'd read some apologetic books refuting Jehovah's
Witnesses. But I was like, well, is what
(13:58):
other people are saying about Jehovah's Witnesses what
Jehovah's Witness say about them?
And so, like, those quotes that I shared with you, you know, my
mom had like a huge library of all these watched and awake
magazines. And I went back and I was
finding the quotes. And I was like, well, they
actually do say this about themselves.
So I was like, well, that's a red flag right there.
They actually say this stuff. It's not like it's just people
making it up. And then there was something
(14:21):
like, I started to get into the Greek a little.
And so they had this, what I call the purple people eater.
It's the purple Diaglite, you know, it's interlinear
translation and then with the transliteration on directly
below in the translation on the side.
So one of the verses that I I was researching in there was
(14:42):
John One and it says in their English.
And being as a word in the worldof us a God again this is back
to the mighty God Almighty God, which you creating two gods.
It it's worse than the Trinity. You're like wait what?
Oh, but he's not God. So how he.
How's he the mighty God, A God and not God.
(15:06):
It's the most illogical stuff when you really break it down.
But the the problem I have is 1.They're using the Greek New
Testament which is a Trinitariandocument.
Like it supports it now. There's arguments of when those
texts were added, some of the earlier didn't have it, but for
the most part, a majority of theGreek manuscripts supported
(15:28):
Trinitarian view. There are earlier ones that do
not. And I believe that that's the
more original message that. But if you're going to use a
Trinitarian document to try to disprove it, no, it's just
wrong. So I was, you know.
Kind of in a debate with the elders about this about a God.
But in the Greek it says in the beginning the word was God and
(15:51):
the transliteration says was God, and then the English on the
side where it says was a God. That's an admission to me within
their own text that they changedit to suit their beliefs.
Their transliteration didn't saywas a God, but in the English
translation. They add it.
(16:11):
And I was like, ooh, okay. So not only do they make
statements about you not being able to think for yourself, you
can't figure out the truth for yourself.
But they change from the translation to the translation.
They add to it. And I was like, ooh, yeah, this
is dishonest. I can't, I can't get with this.
(16:35):
You know, making Jesus any kind of God, mighty or almighty or a
God, didn't seem consistent withthe Hebrew Tonight.
However, based on the Greek textof the New Testament and
normative, Christianity made a lot more sense at this time.
I was like, well, the text itself says this.
They're changing it to say that I at the time was becoming
(16:58):
disillusioned with them. And then I was about to take a
journey through Christianity because, you know.
It made more sense than Jehovah's Witness and it's
probably what I had access to atthe time.
One of the things is I was goingthrough all the old Watch
Channel Wake magazines and I also saw the many prophecies
they made that failed. And you know they made for
(17:20):
prophecies at the end was 19/14/19, eighteen 19/25/1975
and I went back and read these for myself.
I'm not taking somebody's word in a book.
I need to know for myself, right?
And I came to regard them as a false prophet.
They prophesied falsely. It didn't come to pass.
Oh, it didn't come to pass. It was invisible.
(17:40):
OK, how many times does this happen again?
4 * O K Yeah, I I can't do it. So.
And like the breaking point was I was taking martial arts
because like I said, I experienced abuse and violence
when I was growing up and I wanted to feel safe, wanted to
protect myself and because I went and quit doing martial
arts. How is this fellowships?
(18:03):
Which kind of was a blessing in disguise and I needed going my
own way. But, you know, the manipulation
tactics of Colts is it's a lot and it's not good.
You know, the hardest part was being shunned and disowned.
Losing friends and family was difficult.
You know, I went through a few phases where I didn't have
(18:25):
access to, you know, my mother and my sister because they just
fellowshipped me or. They disassociate with me I
guess. But you know, before moving on
to like my journey and Christian, I kind of want to
debunk some of the the Jehovah'sWitnesses claims that are
erroneous. I've already, you know,
(18:47):
mentioned a couple. They say that only their church
members will be saved. Joe's witnesses hold the
salvation. They still believe in the
Pauline view of salvation. You know that salvations through
Christ despite even their New World translation And Isaiah
(19:09):
4313 says I am Jehovah and besides me there's no Savior.
Isaiah 42, eight. I'm Jovah.
That is my name. I give my glory to no one else.
You know they believe in a falseview of salvation taught by Paul
that. Sin brought death, which that's
not the case. Therefore you know this.
This is what they say in their one of their publications.
(19:34):
Therefore let us show our gratitude and love displayed by
God in Christ and exercising faith in Jesus ransom sacrifice.
So it's another thing they believe in the ransom sacrifice
of Jesus which was never a requirement of salvation
salvation. For well, for the Jewish people,
gay, a lot of redemption is whenMessiah comes and establishes
(19:56):
the Kingdom, David brings World Peace, gathers the Jews back
into Israel. It's a national event, not a
personal event. And and that's a big difference.
You know, they believe in faith,they include baptism by
immersion. You have to be an active watch
term, Bible track society personand be absolutely loyal to the
(20:18):
faithful and discreet slave to be saved, which is a lot.
You know, there's no assurance or salvation, only the hope of
resurrection for them and those who fail to live by their their
requirements or just fellowship,then there's no hope for them,
you know And like I said for forus Jews, gay Allah, redemption
(20:39):
is national, not personal. We, you know, Messiah was never
a sin savior and if. The the Tanak says if you do,
it's right, you'll be forgiven. You don't even have to ask for
forgiveness, and you can also ask God for forgiveness.
If you've sinned against somebody, you can ask them for
(21:00):
forgiveness. No atonement is necessary if
you've asked for forgiveness from the person.
If you do what's right, if you ask God for forgiveness, your
forgiveness, so his given is granted.
You know and and the interestingthing that to me that's
appealing to Judaism is you knowall Jews have a place in the
(21:22):
world to come and the righteous of all people have a place in
the world to come. If you're not Jewish you know if
you're righteous we plan to see you in Olam haba the Joe was
witness have two classes to savepeople as I mentioned earlier
the 144,000 and the known as theanointed class who go to heaven.
(21:45):
Death and roll with in in their millennial Kingdom only those
born that there's like a certainamount that like it cut off.
So there's like nobody else can be 144,000 anymore and they were
also there the sheep with a great crowd who basically get to
(22:07):
be rolled over for eternity or actually for the Millennium so.
11 Positive note, I guess is Joe's witness is denied the
deity of Jesus, which actually is kind of conflicted when they
call him the mighty God and a God.
I don't know how they go from that to Jesus was Michael the
Archangel you got me on that onefoul on the field that that's
(22:32):
yeah, but they deny the deity ofJesus, so whatever that's worth.
The problem is they use the Pauline, you know, Christianity
and the New Testament, which thetext itself supports that which
they don't believe. So maybe they need to find a
different reason that they don'tbelieve that.
But it's good that some way theydon't believe it.
(22:55):
Though it's kind of, you know, muddled and convoluted, there is
evidence that the early followers of Jesus didn't
believe that he was divine or savior.
The Ebianites didn't believe that he was resurrected, didn't
believe in virgin birth, didn't believe he was savior.
I mean, on the other hand, the Nazarenes believe that he was
(23:17):
adopted at the baptism. So, I mean, there's differences
in the early believers, you know, but the Ebianites and the
Nazarenes believe that Joseph was physically Jesus's father.
And the Nazarene view of virgin birth wasn't that the Holy
(23:43):
Spirit came upon her, but that Joseph was the Father.
But somehow it was still a miraculous birth.
Or something interesting readingthe early church father's
writings about that the belief that Jesus was a.
Dying and rising savior God wasn't added until the 3rd and
(24:06):
4th century and it was really between the 4th and 6th century
that that was developed that some earliest text like the
earliest Mark doesn't well, Markdoesn't have you know really the
birth narratives and it didn't have the resurrection.
The oldest marks don't have thatthe Cyanidacus and.
(24:29):
Vaticanus codexes don't have thebirth narratives, the virgin
birth. They don't have that part.
They don't have the resurrectionand ascension, and a lot of the
Son of God and unique Son statements aren't in it.
So in the 3rd and 4th century they weren't yet adding a lot of
(24:52):
that Christological theology that came out the Nicene Council
after that. There's a myriad of texts that
have those added in the earliestbelievers or followers that
follow Jesus did not believe that he was savior, risen,
ascended, or God. They believed he was a man.
(25:16):
Some believed he was a prophet. Some believed he was Messiah.
But. It didn't go beyond that.
It wasn't till later that the Hellenistic influence and then
when it started to expand into the, you know, really into the
Greek culture, the Roman culture, that the idea of
apotheosis elevating, you know, like they did with their
(25:41):
Caesars, elevating a human to divine that through that
process. I mean, that's just how the
Roman culture was at the time. For them to follow a Caesar
after their death or any person after their death, they had to
elevate them to deity for them for it to make sense to the way
(26:02):
that the Greeks thought of things at that time and we kind
of cover that more later. But to get back to like Joe's
witnesses, you know that they some of the other things they
reject the the doctrine of eternal hell.
Which is something that Christians believe, which is
fine because Jews Jewish view ofSheol is it was Sheol the
(26:27):
afterlife. It split into two things.
God eat in the world to come, where you go straight to Hashem
and Gahanna is a place where yougo to be purified for up to 12
months and then you go to heaven.
Maybe that's a commonly held view.
Of course there's very various views, but so I mean, I don't
(26:48):
really have a problem with them rejecting hell.
I don't believe in an eternal hell.
I also don't believe in the Christian view of salvation.
So, you know, they are a very apocalyptic eschatological
group, the one of their books. There's this quote.
This name, Armageddon or Armageddon, is directly
(27:11):
associated with the war of the Great day of the God the
Almighty. The term applies specifically to
the condition or situation with the kings of the entire habit of
earth are gathered in oppositionto Jehovah and its Kingdom by
Jesus Christ, all of which is highly fictional.
Not happening, but you know, so Armageddon will mark the
(27:34):
destruction by God of the present evil.
System including apostate Christendom and the binding of
Satan. Afterward, Jehovah's surviving
people rebuild the world in a perfect environment.
Under his role for 1000 years, Satan will be released for a
short time to test the resurrected and born during the
Millennium. You know this.
(27:55):
This goes back to the Christian misunderstand about Satan.
Satan was a servant in. You know he he worked in in.
The heavenly courts as a prosecuting attorney, you know
for for Jews you know he he serves a purpose and you know
(28:18):
it's not the it's not like an evil demigod who has power to
fight God. Equally you know people have
made the point that not only do Christians believe in three
gods, they believe in four because Satan.
Is as powerful as God, and he can fight.
And there's this God that's verypolytheistic.
(28:42):
You know, monotheism. You have one God, you don't have
multiple gods. And you know, it's not like
Zorastrianism, where you have the dualism between her or
Mazda. You have the, you know, the good
and the evil. But again.
Their idea, the Christian idea of good and evil, comes from
(29:04):
Zoroastrianism, that you have anequally powerful evil being or
deity, and you know the creator God.
But that's one of the things that influenced early
Christianity. You know Jehovah's Witness uses
fear to manipulate people. The fear of being cut off the.
(29:26):
And I always thought it was kindof amazing.
If you don't believe in eternal hair hell, how you know?
Christians use the fiery hell asa punishment thing to fear
tactic all the time. Joseon issues, the same fear
tactic, but it's being cut off. And it's like okay, but you come
dust. How's that?
(29:47):
Fearful. That wasn't a clincher for me.
I was like, okay. I'm just going to come dust.
Cool. Yeah.
This fellowship, me, I'm good. But you know, that fear tactic
does work, even if the fiery hell isn't what they're using to
to make you afraid. But they do use that final
(30:09):
judgment to make manipulate people through fear.
You know, they say, the faithful, discreet slave and
those who follow them on hair ofthe earth.
Like the Nazarenes I mentioned, they said they believe Jesus
became Christ at his baptism. They it's odd.
They reject the resurrection of Jesus.
(30:31):
They deny his physical resurrection, but they say his
sacrifice was real. But even though he wasn't bodily
resurrected, he was a resurrected spirit.
I don't know, like it's there's some kind of weird stuff going
on there. Like I said, the earliest
believers didn't believe Jesus was resurrected, didn't believe
(30:53):
he was ascended, didn't believe he was born of a virgin, as I,
believers are followers of Jesus.
But yeah, so I mean, kind of going through all that led me to
the point that I was like, yeah,I'm done with Jehovah's
Witnesses, and I had to go on a journey to just kind of figure
things out for myself about the time that I was 21 years old.
(31:18):
I was dating and living with this woman.
She started taking me into theseevangelistic revival meetings
that I went up for prayer to convert to to be born again
Christian. And it seems twice.
The longterm relationships I wasin with females influenced me
into making decisions more out of peer pressure as a means to
(31:40):
make peace with the relationshipand be unity with the person I'm
with. You know, I was.
I was lonely. I felt kind of rehearsed into
these meetings. I had like a torn rotator cuff.
They tried to tell me I was healed and I received the Holy
Spirit. I wasn't healed.
And I ended up having to go through physical therapy.
(32:01):
You know, there's the rising music that sprayed the place
with this incense smell and passionate preaching and Ultra
calls. A lot of prayer pressure, you
know, When you're lonely, it's very appealing, you know?
A lot of the claims, though, aren't true.
You know, they might get psychosomatic healings.
But you know, in, I want to say the 1015 years that I was
(32:28):
involved in various Christian stuff, you know, revival healing
meetings, Never saw anybody who was legitimately in a wheelchair
get out, never saw an actual miracle or healing of any kind.
A lot of psychosomatic. Healing I would say you know
people minor things and they call it a breakthrough moment in
(32:51):
catharsis and psychology when you believe something and you
have a a break in your mind and then a release.
You're so convinced of somethingthat you believe it to be true,
even though it's not. And then your body will try to
align with what you think, even if.
(33:12):
You're not healed. And that's the psychosomatic
part of the healing, which is not a true healing because a lot
of people still have ongoing problems later, you know.
So I've been to a lot of revivalmeetings, famous preachers, you
know, once I was a part of this training with one of the famous
revival preachers for leaders, and they talked how they would
(33:35):
manipulate people during prayer and alter calls.
It seemed common practice to manipulate people and seemed to
be done for monetary gain which was different than Joel was in
this teaching a method Joel was in, this seemed going to lull
you into sleep and just kind of like brain, you know it was.
(33:56):
I remember they were saying you have to speak slow and monotone
and it it was more like kind of brainwashing.
It was kind of weird. Whereas the revivalist, they
want to be animated and emotive and passion.
Thus save the Lord and God speaketh to thee and the you
know it was. It was disconcerting learning
(34:17):
the manipulation tactics. It was like, which is not all
authentic, but it was, you know,for the Lord.
So there was supposed to be a good reason to it.
It still felt dishonest to me, which was was concerning.
You know, I started to get more involved.
I went on a a mission trip to Baja California, became a youth
(34:40):
leader. I ended up going off the Bible
college. And for a while I got into
apologetics against Joel's witness as a way to deal with
the emotional bondage, mentally disconnect from feelings of
guilt and brainwashing, really trying to overcome that
cognitive dissonance. It was, you know, I felt guilt
being rejected and all that kindof stuff.
(35:00):
It was difficult. You know, at this time I started
to learn, you know, I continue to kind of learn about the
methods of manipulation, you know, heavily relied on
prosperity gospel teachers. I'm watching the downfall of
various evangelical, charismaticand televangelist, different
(35:21):
pastors and congregations. It was, I don't know, I saw a
lot going on which impacted my observations of people's
behavior, how they seemed to believe what they taught.
But they did a lot what they didto get wealthy.
We get money. There was a lot, lot of money.
But yeah, I went to Bible college from 21 to 2021, but I
(35:44):
was 21 years old to to when I was 23 years old, I was going to
Bible college. So for about two years, yeah, I
was studying the the the Gospels, the Epistles, the, the
Tenac. And I learned about the document
hypothesis. Yeah, I was definitely more
interested in the Tanac. I remember getting in a a debate
(36:07):
with the the the instructor at the Tanac class.
I was basically arguing for the validity of the Tanac and how
the inconsistencies of the New Testament, which is like a
constant theme would be. I was like there's some serious
inconsistencies here. I wasn't telling the
denominational line. He's like, yeah, you probably
should go your own way because Iwas just like this ain't doing
(36:29):
it for me. And it was always kind of a
theme since my childhood. So it was like I was, I was
hardwired since I've read the Tanak twice for like, you know,
it's like when you study money, you know, when you're handling
money, they want you to study actual authentic money.
So when somebody gives you a fake, the fake money, you, you
know the difference. So having read the Tanak twice,
(36:49):
when I'm handed the New Testament, like, OOH, that
doesn't line up. And so that was kind of like an
ongoing theme with me. But yeah, so I took a break from
Bible college. I came home on Christmas break
again. I got shunned and disowned
because I was listening to Christian music, Christian
music. And I want to come back to Joe's
(37:11):
on this. So you know, I spent a lot of my
adult life without my parents and my life.
It's just painful and difficult.I started working at a church,
got to see behind the scenes. I wasn't impressed.
I felt looks very human. So the flaws it seem didn't seem
holy. I mean.
What is presented is not what seemed to be behind the scenes.
I was disillusioned with a lot of things.
(37:36):
You know, they they focused on revival.
The methods of manipulation wereparent.
There were things like the styleof music, the rhythm.
I mean, they cared about room temperature.
It had to be like 72 degrees because that that cool was
supposed to enhance the feeling of the Holy Spirit, which I'm
like, what the room temperature.Has nothing to do if there's a
Holy Spirit at the room temperature now alter calls
(38:00):
pleas for money. You know this methods of
psychosomatic healing. You know the the manipulation
was just like I don't know I'm I'm catching these clues like
wow and I'd read this book that kind of talked about it and it
started kind of opening my mind like this isn't everything it's
presented to be. You know, the scandalous lies of
(38:24):
evangelical, charismatic pastors, cheatings, lies, you
know, they tell was a lot. Apparently I wasn't done because
when I was 25 I went back to Bible college.
I was leading a young adult Bible study group.
But I was always tourist centric.
I I focus on the Tabernacle, thefestivals, you know, on a I I
(38:47):
stopped eating pork. I, you know, tried to keep the
10 commandments. I kept a a Sunday Sabbath
because at this time I still accepted.
I was, I was very aware of, likethe Roman Catholic Church
changed the date. At this time I hadn't become
uncomfortable with it. I mean, eventually I did because
I keep a a Jewish Sabbath from Friday sundown to, you know,
(39:10):
Saturday sundown now since I converted.
But you know, it took me a whileto get there.
Let's see. You know, when I was 27, I went
on a mission trip to Europe. It was the same year that I met
my ex. That time I was 31.
(39:31):
When I was getting married. I wanted to have a Jewish
wedding, but I hadn't, like, fully went through the process
of trying to get converted or anything yet.
And then my ex, she had a very Christian background.
And so my compromise. Was to do a messianic Jewish
wedding, which kind of got us involved with that for a while.
(39:52):
I wanted to raise our kids Jewish.
I want, you know, I wanted to dothe festivals and Sabbath and
kosher and stuff like that, you know, and.
But because she was a Christian or her mother was a really
strong like southern, you know Bible Belt Christian, I wanted
to kind of respect that. But, you know, so I guess we
(40:16):
kind of like got involved with, you know, messy annex stuff for
a while. And to be honest, you know, my
my concern was the the Torah, the Tanak, the festivals,
keeping kosher, keeping Shabbat,you know, But it seemed like a
good middle Rd. But it was compromised.
(40:37):
It wasn't what I wanted. And again, like I said, like it
was a major relationship that I felt like I let that define what
I did versus like just doing what I felt was most honest.
By the time I was 36, I I was, Iwent to a Messianic Bible
college for a bit. I was studying Hebrew, Paleo,
(40:58):
Hebrew, the Levant, second type of Judaism, the parting of the
ways. And and then I got even more
frustrated with the Christian doctrine and the
inconsistencies. Especially coming from Messianic
Judaism, like it was just Christianity.
It was any difference. I was like, so you guys do
Shabbat? Oh, you guys put Jesus in all
(41:20):
the festivals. Wait, he wasn't in those
festivals? This makes no sense.
It was, it was weird, honest, where she said Messianic Jews
are apostates, They don't have access to Jewish communal life.
And she referred to Messianic Gentiles who dressed to Jew to
to convert Jews as crossdressersand referred to as
(41:44):
crossdressing. It kind of stuck out to me.
I was like, Oh yeah, kind of makes sense.
And then I because the MessianicBible college that I was going
to those part of the Jewish voice ministry, something like
that. Doctor Raymond Gannon, who was a
(42:07):
He was a a gentile who had been involved.
Messianic Gentile had been involved with the messianic
moment since the 1970s or 1960s.He had started a bunch of
Messianic congregations. He made this comment.
He said you should dress up as more Orthodox to convert Jews.
I was so offended by this. I was like, I'm not here to
(42:32):
fake. I'm here to like one practice
Judaism. And at the time, I was like,
help Christians see that Judaismis what Jesus did.
I'm not here to play dress up toconvert a Jew.
I was like, I'm done at that point.
I had. I had no, I was like, yeah, this
(42:54):
isn't, this is not for me, you know.
And I've been studying textual criticism.
The historical critical method. Reading art.
You know Bart Earman's Misquoting Jesus and did Jesus
exist Guys of Ramesh. Jesus the Jew.
James Tabor. His work on James the brother of
(43:17):
Jesus and Paul and Jesus and hi.And Mcafee's work.
I mean, yeah, though they really, you know.
Opened my eyes, I came to believe Christianity and
Messianic Judaism was a made-up religion.
Decided I was done with Christianity.
You know I was studying the antiNicine fathers documents like
(43:39):
the epistle of Peter de James, the DDK or DDK Didachi.
I don't know, I think it's DDK but Pseudo Clementine
literature. I came to believe James and
Peter were EB Knights who remained Jewish.
And converted Gentiles to Judaism.
Pistol Peter James talks about circumcision, make the communal
(44:10):
meal and it talks about the tourist scrolls and following
the way that the Orient, the initiation of Moses.
The epistle of Peter James some of that really sounds a lot like
Pierke a vote and and elements of the DDK like they may have
been influenced by and we don't have the original but it seems
(44:33):
like the original was a very similar document but I came to
believe that they had a conflictwith Peter and James with the
apostle Paul who is the leader of the Nazarenes and.
James and Peters group, the EBA Knights, parted waves at the
Nazarenes and this was before the parting ways between
(44:57):
Christianity and Judaism, but this is what led to that.
But it was my belief that the early followers of Jesus were
Jewish, stayed Jewish, and converted people to Judaism.
And that was where I kind of waslike, I'm done with
Christianity. You know, I came to believe I
(45:20):
didn't want anything to do with Christian and especially
Messianic Judaism. So offended by Messianic Judaism
not being authentic Judaism being, you know, Christians
playing dress up to convert Jews.
I mean, you can put makeup on a pig, but it's still a pig.
(45:41):
I don't think you can make the Messianic Jesus kosher.
You know, rabish Muli Boziak haskosher Jesus.
Jesus, who's a Jew, has nothing to do with Christianity, can be
kosher. Messianic Judaism's Jesus is not
kosher. Yeah, yeah, keep that in
Christianity. It's nice to have you stop
(46:01):
calling yourself a Messianic Jew.
You're a Hebrew roots Christian,Ybrea Christian something.
Please leave Jew or Jewish out of your name because that's a
misrepresentation. And honestly, it's offensive.
You know, for me, I have a lot of problems.
Like Christianity. They misunderstand.
Tanak, the Pauline epistles. A New Testament relies on the
(46:24):
Greek subtuition. The subtuageant seems to
misunderstand it in a lot of places, falsely claims the
Messiah and passage Messiah is not in, and the false view of
salvation. They don't understand what gay
law, what redemption is. It's a national thing, not a
personal thing. They misunderstand monotheism.
They misunderstand who Satan is,and the oldest New Testament
(46:48):
manuscripts do not include the virgin birth, the resurrection,
ascension. They don't have Jesus, a savior,
a unique son. This soul dying and rising God
thing was added later. And when you get into textual
criticism using the historical critical method, you know the
New Testament is not an accuratebook and we it doesn't tell us
enough about the historical Jesus.
(47:10):
Bart Emmon says there's over 500,000 textual variance amongst
5800 manuscripts. That's almost an 80% error rate.
The New Testament is not accurate or reliable.
You know, it's important that wego to a normative Jewish
interpretation of Tanak, that wedon't look at these
(47:35):
misunderstandings of the Tanak or the grief septuagin.
It's it's it's important to evenlook at at the Talmud to
understand the Tanak because that's the Jewish heritage and
the Jewish understanding of it really to have a right
understanding because the the Torah was given to the Jews and
(47:58):
it is, you know, it belongs in the ethnic identity, but in that
religious identity because they've been given that.
You know, if Christianity's claims were made on its own, not
relying on the Tanak, it probably be fine.
The problem is it falsely relieson the Tanak and doesn't
understand the Tanak. So about when I was 37, I posted
(48:22):
on my Facebook, I'm leaving Christianity.
You know, we started keeping Shabbat and kosher and we're
doing the festivals and we are not.
We're not adding Jesus. Done.
We're out. You guys can have Jesus.
We're going to Judaism. You know, I feel like I follow
Jesus out of Christianity. You know Messianic Judaism is
(48:43):
Christianity. It's not Judaism.
Jesus is not in all the festivals.
You shouldn't put him any. And Jesus is not a Passover
lamb. And if he was, the Passover lamb
does not save mankind from sin. That's never what the Passover
lamb was. Again, they.
Christians seem to like totally misunderstand the sacrificial
(49:06):
system, what it was, what it means.
A human can't be a lamb and a lamb doesn't save you from sin.
And if you could just simply askfor forgiveness, what is the
point? It makes no sense.
The human sacrifice is an abomination to God.
You know that. Just it doesn't.
You know this is the reason Jewsdon't believe Jesus is the
(49:28):
Messiah. He's a failed Messiah is a false
prophet. My side was to establish the
King of David as King the Sheikh, bring World Peace, to
establish universal knowledge ofGod, to gather the young Jews
back to Israel. You know it.
It's important to have a Jewish understanding of the Tanakh and
(49:49):
then build out from there. You know whether people follow
Jesus out of Judaism, become Noah hides or you know go
through a various process. I went through a journey that.
It led me to Judaism. While I was going through
conversion, though, I did come to find that I did a DNA test
(50:10):
and I found out that I had like,I don't know, like 7% European
Jewish DNA. And there was always stories
that there was, you know, we haddifferent Jewish people on our
ancestry, but I wasn't raised Jewish.
And that was one of the reasons that I had decided to go through
conversion. I've always been tourist centric
(50:35):
and I always wanted to make it part of my life and wanted to be
the way I raised my kids and andmy son wanted to go through
conversion and we went through aconservative conversion, you
know. But yeah, it was it was a
journey that I've enjoyed. I'm happy with my choices.
I don't feel good about my life.I know people make claims like
(50:59):
you know. You've abandoned the Holy
Spirit, condemned to hell or something.
I don't believe in hell and I think a lot of that was
misunderstood and it's indoctrination.
They were taught to believe and think this way.
I've always felt connected to the Torah and Judaism makes
sense to me. No other religion has made sense
(51:23):
to me the way it has. Even with all my journeys,
there's always been a connectionto the Torah, to the to knock.
It's always been meaningful to me and it's always been my
anchor. It's always been balances, my
scales. It's always, you know, and I've
had an interesting journey in Judaism and you know, like I
(51:43):
like the, I've studied Mossar, you know, spiritual tradition,
you know, I think it's like akinto, you know, Kabbalah, but, you
know, mindful meditative practice.
I like how with Judaism we grapple with text.
Questions seem to be very important and and not
(52:07):
necessarily happen to have one answer.
Because you ask one Jew questionmight get 3 answers or you ask
like 3 rabbis a question you get6 answers.
You know questions are encouraged.
The journey of exploring knowledge is is important and
I've always felt like I belongedin Judaism so.
(52:29):
Yeah, it's kind of been my journey and I felt like sharing
with you guys the journey I wenton, why I went on it, you know,
my thoughts about it, what brought me through.
But, you know, in the process, you know, I've been to like
counseling and therapy to work through the the brainwashing
when I was and the abuse and things I went through as a
(52:51):
child. You know, a journey of
wholeness, a journey to peace, ajourney to happiness, you know,
honestly, couldn't be happier than I am more fulfilled at
peace with myself and my choices.
And I know everybody's journey is different.
You know, I hope my journey can help others.
(53:14):
And then the passion I've grown along the way.
I spent many years studying historical texts and documents.
Very interested in like Acadian and Sumerian and the the ancient
culture that Abraham came out ofand Mesopotamia and stuff.
(53:38):
You know the the journey through, you know the Levant and
you know what the Middle East and what became Israel
archaeology history. Palaeo, Hebrew, Hebrew.
I've always been very interestedin studying the text, the
(54:01):
meaning, the culture, the culture it came out of, what
formulated it, what influenced it, what it has influenced.
You know, a lot of people say like judeo-christian values.
I like to say Judeo, Western values because it's Judaism,
It's the tourist that's not. That has changed Europe and
(54:23):
America, the many of the laws inAmerica when they are founded.
They used the Tanak to write a lot of the legal code in America
back in the early days, the Diaz, the people were involved
with the founding. But it is the the Noah Haid
traditions, the 10 commandments.It is the Torah.
(54:49):
That has changed the Western world.
People say Christianity, but I think it's the goodness that
comes from the tree of life that's found in the Torah that
has trickled down and and those resonant truth, you know, the
netote elohim, the divine spark that is passed through the
(55:12):
Torah, that that comes through the transmission of Torah, that
when you turn a Gentile into a. Gerta Toshav or Ger Sedek that
they become a righteous gentile.Many people have become
righteous gentiles that use of Torah to teach the 10
(55:36):
commandments to turn people froma Pagan tradition to non Pagan
tradition. There's an argument among the
rabbis about whether. Muslims and Christians or pagans
or monotheists. I would not classify Christians
as monotheists that I don't believe the Trinity or their
(55:58):
view of Satan could be considered monotheist.
But you know for a Jew you cannot attach anybody to Hashem.
There's only Hashem but the rabbis argue that for non Jews
it may be. That if they're a righteous
Gentile, there's a there's a post I'm going to put up about
(56:24):
that has the the Talmud's quote on that.
And I'd have to refer to that toto get it specifically.
But I'm. I'm not going to take a look
right now. But that post going to go live
in a couple weeks where I go through all the passages in the
town. What about Jesus?
And about Christianity? So that should be insight for
(56:44):
one. Also, you know, be on the
lookout for the the web page Jesus the Jew within
judaism.com. Sign up for the Facebook group
like and subscribe here And wherever you listen to podcast
TuneIn there. There's more content, more
interviews coming. I took a break summertime.
(57:07):
My kids are here. I'm not.
I'm not going to be doing as many interviews.
So I'm going to take about a month break and then I'll come
back. If I can squeeze some interviews
in, I'll get them in here and there.
But I'm going to there's, you know, five days a week.
I got new posts going live on the web page and try to have at
(57:29):
least a new podcast every week. Trying to share the information
that I've learned along the way.Things that have helped me,
things that I believe are insightful and useful.
And I hope you know what I sharewith you and and the things that
I've learned are the people I bring on to interview you'll
find encouraging and useful. And your journey of finding
(57:51):
truth. This started as a journey trying
to find truth for myself and I feel like I've found a good
measure of truth. As in anything, we continue to
learn and grow and if you have agrowth mindset then it's an
ongoing process. Keep moving forward.
As Bruce Lee said walk on. You know you continue to walk in
(58:12):
this life. A journey of 1000 miles begins
with one step. So I hope to help you in your
journey. I hope you enjoy the content
that I'm providing and look forward to hearing from you and
seeing you guys in the future.
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