I usually say it began when I was 31, which is true, in a way. In another way, it’s more true to say it began when I was about 13 or 14. At that time, I read Josh McDowell’s “Evidence that Demands a Verdict”. The chapter that bothered me is his chapter on the prophecies Jesus is supposed to have fulfilled. See, I looked them up and read them in context, and I found it troubling.
Around the same time, I got a New King James Bible that had footnotes. I was very excited. And I would, just as with McDowell’s book, go look up the footnotes.
If you read Matthew 2, you’ll find that Matthew says that baby Jesus went to Egypt to fulfill what is written “through the prophet, saying, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son” (v. 14). And there will usually be a footnote that tells you this is from Hosea 11:1. But if you read Hosea 11:1 it says, “When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I have called my son.” It’s not talking about the Messiah. It’s not talking about Jesus. It’s talking about Israel.
And it’s not this one verse. Just about any verse you read quoted in the NT is warped. Hosea 11:1 most people consider small potatoes. But it’s one of the first ones I looked up, and it has stuck with me. But this is all over, and they get worse. When John says that Jesus fulfilled the scripture that says that he would eat bread with the one who betrayed him, there’s a real problem. That same psalm says that the person who is being betrayed has sinned. But Jesus is not supposed to have sinned. It’s no good to apply one verse from a passage, or a few words, and then ignore the rest of it. Nothing in the psalm would let you know it’s about the Messiah. The most natural reading makes it about Jesus.
Now we come to the part of which I’m ashamed. I didn’t let it bother me. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t continue to investigate. Instead, I assumed that there were really good explanations. I accepted all the testimonies of those whose lives were changed by Jesus in McDowell’s book. I told myself that if these were real problems, then someone would have noticed by now, and the Church wouldn’t have lasted for 2,000 years. (This is terrible logic, since every false religious system is full of contradictions, but some of those are older than Christianity. And some are still growing today. And obviously I don’t hold that all of those are true, and I didn’t then.)
What’s worse, is that I freely quoted these as proofs that Jesus was the Messiah and divine. When I witnessed to people, I talked about all the proof the prophecies offer. I would ask how people living hundreds of years before Jesus could have predicted the things that would happen to him. I would love to say that I had this doubt in the back of my mind, gnawing on me for years and years. But I didn’t.
It wasn’t until I was 31 that I really gave things an honest look. At that time I had been in conversations with a couple friends of mine regarding religion. I got to thinking that I wasn’t being fair. I wanted them to convert to Christianity. I was hoping they’d really investigate their beliefs and see that they couldn’t be true. But I wasn’t being fair. I wasn’t examining my beliefs to ensure they were sound. I decided that I needed to check my own faith and see if it was consistent.
And I knew where to start. I started going through the NT again, looking up the sources and seeing if they really match up. It didn’t take long to see that they don’t. I couldn’t say Jesus fulfilled any of these prophecies, if these prophecies are being misrepresented. I started to get nervous. I bought Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ”. I carefully went over the book. It’s a poor case. I picked up other Christian apologetics. I quickly unravelled them.
In studying the NT’s claims about Jesus, I had a framework. I knew that the OT was assumed to be true by the NT writers. Therefore, everything they wrote had to agree with the OT. And that’s the problem. Virtually nothing they write agrees with the OT. It misrepresents it at every turn. I realized that they are untrustworthy, either liars or ignorant. I don’t know which. I only know that the faith in which I was raised cannot be true. My faith was misplaced.
I could have known this much sooner. I ignored the question. I did not logically walk through the arguments of apologists. I read C.S. Lewis religiously, and I often quoted from “Mere Christianity”. But I hadn’t checked his logic. Going over his arguments, I realized they are not sound.
Once I’d destroyed my own faith, I wasn’t sure what that meant. Was the OT true? Was there even a god? So, I kept studying, investigating these questions. The short answer is that I found the Torah to be true.
So, then I didn’t know: do I need to convert to Judaism? And through study I found that no, I don’t. God gave commandments to Noah that are universally applicable. Anyone can have a relationship with God, not just the Jewish people. Now, I would like to convert to Judaism one day, if I am afforded the opportunity, but it isn’t necessary.
The seven categories of the Noahide commandments are:
1. Do not commit idolatry 2. Do not commit blasphemy 3. Do not murder 4. Do not steal 5. Do not have forbidden sexual relations 6. Do not eat the limb of a living animal 7. Establish court of law
You asked once, if I’d truly repented. I have now. I have left behind the worship of a man. And I pray to the One God, the Creator of the Universe. I study those parts of the Torah applicable to me as a non-Jew. And I find Ezekiel 18 so comforting. One can leave his old ways and turn to God, and he will be counted righteous. Forgive this for being so long. Even so, I’ve obviously truncated it.
Be well,
Jim
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It is interesting…I was aware when I was a Christian that those ‘proof texts’ can be interpreted in other ways and that the Christian scriptures (consciously, perhaps) usually think about them eisegetically. But I still thought that this didn’t matter because I had other reasons for believing it, and I thought of the Christian use of Tanach as simply going with a reading other than the plain one, but within an acceptable framework. I did think that perhaps broad themes in Tanach may point to Christianity though, or that the reflection may be resonant. I had a different setbof wrong presuppositions that seem to have already been clear to you.
Annelise,
Like I said, it took twenty years almost before I really investigated them, so… not entirely clear. I did have back ups for the faith, so to speak. This is the problem of talking to Christian missionaries. They claim 300 prophecies fulfilled by Jesus, so if you show that one doesn’t work, they still have 299, at least in their minds. I had that fall back.
And I, like other Christians, had other fallbacks. If one prophecy failed, sure I could just move on to the next without reflecting on what it meant that one failed. But also I could cite the miracles Jesus is supposed to have performed. And I could cite the willingness of the apostles to die. And I could appeal to C.S. Lewis’ trilemma. So, I didn’t work this out for some time. Twenty years is a long time to have registered a contradiction and not have tested it.
Be well,
Jim
B””H , it can be mentally exhausting when a person finds their core beliefs are indeed inaccurate.But to continue searching to find truth is admirable.Way to go.
Jim, I am so glad George asked you for your testimony. This is so important.
Peace and blessings,
Dina
This is coming from one whose “blind faith” in Jesus was not totally “blind” (blindness is a term that I hate, but it is often unjustly used by many Christians about Jews – when it could more appropriately be used to describe Christians whose irrational arguments have failed to convince those Jews). So many Christians (especially clergy, “evangelicals”, etc) have so much emotional investment in their particular view of Jesus – and God – that they often can not see clearly or plainly what most other people see. They can admit no error, because rather than being humbled, they see it as a humiliating defeat (and with Jesus they are victorious, until…), but instead they “dance” around as long as their partners are fooled by their “command of the word” and “the enemy” might still attack them. It is foolishness, but they have a few verses that show to them that God “loves foolishness”, rather than wisdom. When that sort of thinking is combined with ideas of hell and a “devil” and that faith collapses (for whatever reason) rather than be humbled, that person’s whole world may collapse and sometimes it may even drive a few to tragic consequences, which may have played a big part in the suicide of 3-4 pastors about 6 or so weeks ago. Sometimes what seems like a strong foundation is only a “front”. It would be better to base your foundation on more solid ground, rather than that on “shaky sand”. There are some who even try to prove their hypotheses are correct by taking a few select words or sentences out of context from the writings of the “enemy’s of Jesus” (e.g., Rabbis or the Talmud) and twist them into an “unrecognizable shape”. Why shape the words of others into your’s, unless you have no words of your own that are worthy?
Reading, and especially studying, the NT could be hazardous to your faith in Jesus, which is one reason in the past (including today in some churches) that it was made very difficult or highly discouraged among those who were not part of the clergy, unless that study could be appropriately supervised or controlled. Even today in quite a few seminaries training individuals that are going into ministry, some material is and some subjects are ignored or are only briefly taught. Many are often “kept in the dark” about such issues as the many differences between the NT and the “OT” “belief systems”. And apologetics is very much stressed, especially in how quotes from the “OT” by most NT authors are most often so “far off the mark” that either gross ignorance or deliberate dishonesty must be the cause. Not all of these discrepancies can be attributed to the NT authors using Greek text (and the history of the “Septuagint” itself is highly irregular and is very much muddied & suspect).
And these differences or irregularities in the text as used by the NT authors and editors are not merely “Christian midrash”. The OT text are not primarily used to understand the Israelites and the history that preceded those Jews and non-Jews who lived in the time of Herod and the Roman occupation of Judea in the 1st century c.e. It is not to enlighten the “Jews and Gentiles” about the God of Israel, the God found in the Hebrew Bible. It is used as “proof” of the existence of someone like Jesus, since very little can be found anywhere else. So much of the NT requires this “proof”, no matter how much difficulty that causes. Most prophets didn’t need to quote (or mis-quote) text written many centuries before as “prophecies” in order to show that they had something of interest to say. They did not have to rely so much and so very heavily on the “testimony” or “witnesses” of a very, very small number of people, who despite of or because of the writers, appear to be very unreliable and so much like “stick figures” found in works of propaganda or characters found in fiction. Even some early church fathers will admit to the presence of that type of writing, especially among the “gnostic Christians” and other “heretics”. But from the “outside” (or for those who seek to read the texts without a hardened bias or pre-supposition), it is hard to distinguish the difference between the “non-heretical Christians” and the “Christians who were heretics”. In the Pauline writings, we can see both the warning not to follow the teachers of these other “Christs” (other than Paul’s), such as Cephas’ or Apollo’s Christ, and the viewpoint that they are all “servants” of God despite their different beliefs. Even the gospels have Jesus say to his disciples to not to prevent a “non-follower” from “expelling demons in his name”. That concept of “demons and a “devil” is also another major departure of the NT from the Hebrew Bible text and one which shows that there is a closer association of Jesus/Yeshua to that of pagan and mystery religions than to that of the “One God” of the Tanach. One doesn’t need to try to find (plagiarize?) verses, or search for “hints”, “clues”, “fulfilled prophecies”, “types”, etc. in other people’s writings in order to justify yours. A person is justified by what they say and what they do; their reality does not depends on the reality or the writings of others who lived centuries before. Nor are “miraculous” signs, recorded by a small handful (maybe a century later?) of very unreliable (some unknown and un-named) witnesses any sort of good proof. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, which is greatly lacking concerning Jesus and “300” or so very poor textual evidence amounts to little or nothing.
Not all early Christian leaders believed that Jesus/Yeshua should be associated with the “God of the Jews and their Bible”. The God of Israel was considered by some to be the “demiurge”, a subordinate deity of the “Good God”. That faction represented the majority of Christians for quite a while. However, other non-Jews (who were disparagingly called “Judaizers”) eventually won out and eventually determined which Christian writings were “Christian” (canon” and which weren’t. Early in the history of Christianity, it was taught that ALL of the Hebrew Bible (or Greek versions) should be taken as allegory. That was the only way that the “Judaizers” could read Yeshua/Iesous into the “OT”. And by reading Jesus/Yeshua into the text about God (Elokim, HaShem), they are reading God out. Using, distorting the Tanach in order to promote a man not found in Tanach, thereby demoting God in favor of a image of a human. Disguising God as a man modeled after the pagan man-gods? Or is the disguise for “something else”, as in the “Egyptian’s lamb of god” or in the “parable” of a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”?
Sorry about a “wall of text” which no one will read anyway. I read something interesting about “walls” just yesterday (worship by one wall; tear done another wall; etc). There is a road on the other side of the wall, but a “wall is a good place to stop on a long Journey” and rest a spell. And perhaps “a wall” just might shorten the need for “that long journey” for a few weary “traveller’s”.
Yedidiah,
I particularly like the point about demons. It’s one I’ve thought about for a long time too. In all of Tanach, there is not one instance of demon possession (unless I’m mistaken). Suddenly, this is a thing. Jesus is walking around casting these things out left and right. Very bizarre that they don’t appear in Tanach at all.
Of course, the same really applies to Satan. I know that “Satan” appears in Tanach multiple times. But none of those appearances bear any resemblance to what comes in the NT. Never in the Torah is a struggle mentioned between this fallen angel and his Creator, or the hosts that followed him. Well, I know that the Christian reads a passage from Ezekiel and one from Isaiah and makes those about Satan, but neither identifies him as Satan. They just overlay the text with their beliefs.
Thanks for your thoughts,
Jim
Jim you probably know this but the Hebrew word “satan” means adversary — and that is IT. No devils. No fallen angels.
In the T’nach there are human and angelic “satans” (adversaries) — but these are adversaries to humans, not to G-d. G-d is omnipotent (all powerful) and has no adversaries.
The “devil” (fallen angel in defiance to G-d) is a Christian myth — most likely stemming from Zoroastriasm and the “two god” concept (good god / bad god).
How about “lucifer” in Isaiah 14? The term in Isaiah 14 is הֵילֵל בֶּן־שָֽׁחַר — transliterated as “heilél ben-shaḥar” or “Heilél” and it translates to “[the] morning star”. In modern English this would be the planet Venus.
How did the Christians turn the planet Venus into “lucifer”? In Latin lucem ferre means“light-bearer”, which was the Roman name for the planet Venus. It seems that the King James translators chose to shorten this to “lucifer.” Somehow over time the Christians associated it with their “devil.”
What did Isaiah mean by the reference? Sarcasm. Isaiah is making fun of the recently defeated Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II.
אֵ֛יךְ נָפַ֥לְתָּ מִשָּׁמַ֖יִם הֵילֵ֣ל בֶּן־שָׁ֑חַר נִגְדַּ֣עְתָּ לָאָ֔רֶץ חוֹלֵ֖שׁ עַל־גּוֹיִֽם׃
“Oh, how you’ve fallen from the heights [king of Babylon], Heilél, the Morning Star! [Oh, how] you’ve been cut down to earth, you conqueror of nations!” (Isaiah 14:12).
Many pagan countries made gods of various planets and stars as did the Babylonians — so as the king fell his false gods did not save him.
So, no devil in Isaiah 14 either. No devil in Ezekiel 28 either which is about the King of Tyre. Ezekiel is taunting the King of Tyre, and asking him if he is as wise as Daniel.
Jim
Their still casting out demons. I read recently that this practice is growing. In the Catholic Church. I wonder what is really happening.
Larry,
Not just in the Catholic Church either. Pentecostal denominations claim to be casting out demons as well.
Jim
I wish someone would photograph these demons as they are cast out. I could use a good description of one for the fantasy novel I plan to write one day.
Very well written Jim. Years ago a moderator at Messiahtruth (Shmelke) wrote an interesting article explaining how Christianity in general “interprets” the T’nach (Jewish bible) using “Types and Shadows.” I’m going to paste some of it here and give a link.
Missionaries rely heavily on very non-literal readings of the Hebrew Bible. They call these types and foreshadows. Jewish Scripture, we are told, points to Jesus even when the text is plainly not discussing Jesus. Is this missionary claim at all justified?
This missionary method is not surprising, as the plain meaning of Scripture (pshat) does not support the missionary agenda. Even missionaries concede prophecy fulfillment is generally not based on pshat:
Don’t fall into the mistake of assuming that every time a New Testament writer cites an Old Testament text and applies it to Jesus (even if a “fulfillment” formula is followed), it must have been a direct/literal prediction coupled with a direct/literal fulfillment. In most cases by far, the New Testament takes a broader approach to the subject of messianic prophecy (e.g., typology, thematic parallels, corporate solidarity, historical correspondences/analogies, etc.). (broken link removed. S.)
The Biblical Approach to Prophecy
The missionary approach to prophecy is alien to the Biblical view. When Jewish Scripture identifies prophecy as fulfilled, we see a direct one-to-one correspondence between prophecy and fulfillment. We present an example of Biblical prophecy to show how it works:
“Joshua caused [the people] to swear at that time saying, ‘Cursed before G-d is the man who rises up and builds this city Jericho. With his firstborn son he will lay its foundations, and with his youngest he will set up its gates’ (Joshua 6:26).”
We read of the fulfillment:
“In his days, Hiel the Beth-elite built Jericho; with Abiriam, his firstborn, he laid its foundations; and with Segub, his youngest, he set up its doors, according to the word of G-d He spoke through Joshua son of Nun (I Kings 16:34).”
We see that Biblical prophecy is directly predictive, the opposite of the missionary method.
Examples Where Jesus Does Not Fulfill the Pshat (plain meaning) of Scripture
a. Matthew 2:15 claims that when Jesus left Egypt he fulfilled Out of Egypt I called My son (Hosea 11:1). The beginning of that verse reads, When Israel was a child I loved him and Hosea calls Israel, not Jesus, G-ds son. Hosea is not making a prediction about anyone but remembering Israels exodus long ago.
Hosea continues to teach us that this son of G-d is not so righteous after all. They sacrificed to the Baalim, and burnt incense to graven images (11:2). Is Jesus a personification of idol worship?
Missionaries do a cut-and-paste job since their types and shadows ignore pshat (plain meaning).
b. Immanuel is clearly born in King Ahazs time, centuries before Jesus. Isaiah predicts to King Ahaz that a young woman will give birth to Immanuel (7:14). Isaiah tells Ahaz, Before the child shall know to reject evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread [Rezin and Pekah- see 7:1-2] shall be forsaken (7:16). The downfall of these two kings quickly took place (II Kings 15:29-30, 16:9).
Missionaries honest enough to admit the timing of Immanuel’s birth nevertheless insist it is a foreshadowing of another Immanuel, namely Jesus. (Missionaries do not dare say the first Immanuel was born of a virgin, but we will not let ourselves be disturbed by such facts right now)
and
c. Zechariah 11:12-13 reads, Then I said to them, If you think it good, pay me my wages; if not, dont. So they weighed out my wages, thirty shekels of silver. G-d said to me, Cast it to the treasurer of the Temple, which I have divested of them. Missionaries claim this foreshadows Judas betrayal of Jesus for thirty shekels (Matthew 26:15) as Judas threw the money into the Temple (27:5)
Zechariah never says the transaction predicts a future event. Pshat indicates no prophecy to be fulfilled.
and
d. With this interpretive license, we should not be surprised when missionaries actually admit that the New Testament misquotes Biblical verses. Psalms 40:7 reads, Sacrifice and meal offering you do not desire, ears You have opened for me. The New Testament misquotes it as a BODY you have prepared for me (Hebrews 10:5). (broken link removed. S.)
There is no real difficulty here since the writer of Hebrews views Psalms 40:7 as typologically referring to Christ rather than as a literal or direct messianic prophecy.
Supposedly, Psalms proves that Jesus fulfills Psalms 40 and that crucifixion atones for mankind. The pshat suggests otherwise: obedience, listening to G-d is greater than sacrifice, similar to “I desire kindness, not sacrifice, and knowledge of G-d more than burnt offerings (Hosea 6:6).”
Missionaries assume without textual basis that Psalms 40 is a prediction, and (contrary to pshat) posit the superiority of a particular sacrifice above all else. Since the altered version in Hebrews 10:5 allegedly gives the true sense of Psalms, it supposedly does not matter that Psalms 40:7 never mentions a body.
e. Missionaries press even further, claiming that Jesus fulfilled Biblical verses that do not exist! Matthew 2:23 quotes (if that is the right word) He shall be called a Nazarene. There is no such verse in the Hebrew Bible! Missionaries say this is no problem. Since Isaiah refers to Messiah figuratively as a netzer [shoot] (11:1), Jesus fulfilled the invented words he shall be called Nazarene by going to Nazareth. In fact the city of Nazareth is never mentioned in Jewish Scriptures.
In these and other cases, missionaries claim it does not matter whether Jesus fulfilled the pshat of Jewish Scripture. He fulfilled these prophecies anyway.
Unverified and Unverifiable Interpretations
How does one test the validity of types and shadows? Missionaries cherish them because THERE IS NO STANDARD OF VERIFICATION. How can they determine whether Scripture ever intended types and shadows, and which verses are intended as such and which are not? Given the countless type and shadow meanings one can read into a text, how can they know which meaning is meant? Claims that are not testable are worthless.
Missionaries fail to address other legitimate possibilities. What if Hosea is speaking only of Israel as G-ds son? Suppose Isaiah is speaking of one Immanuel, as pshat indicates. Perhaps Zechariah’s acceptance of thirty shekels does not predict any other thirty-shekel transaction. Nothing indicates that types and shadows are absolute truth. Yet missionaries say they are solid enough to dogmatically identify Messiah and send the unconvinced to hell!
Circular Reasoning of Missionaries
Missionaries would respond that their types and shadows are valid because Jesus and his disciples taught them.
Here we arrive at the circular reasoning of missionaries. The types and shadows are true because they come from Jesus. But how do we establish the credibility of Jesus? Easy- he fulfilled so many types and shadows!
Missionary Double Standard
The perceptive reader will notice the double standard by which missionaries operate. Do they apply the same poetic license in interpreting the New Testament as they do to the Hebrew Bible? Not at all! They take the New Testament very seriously. Anyone claiming to find types and shadows in the New Testament is labeled a Mormon, Moonie, etc. (Certainly missionaries reject Charles Mansons claim that the New Testament hints to the Beatles)
In recent years, however, missionaries have accused Judaism of practicing a double standard. They refer to Midrash- Rabbinic homiletic, which supplement the pshat of Scripture. Missionaries ask why they must be held accountable to the pshat given the existence of Jewish Midrash.
According to Moshe Yosef Koniuchowsky, Hebrew-Christian, counter-missionaries are guilty by refusing to make allowance, and give the New Testament writers the same liberty and literary freedom in using Scripture to portray truth as they do the writers and authors of the Tanach [Hebrew Bible] (Messianic Believers First Response Handbook, p. 7).
As we shall see, Midrash and missionary prooftexting are not at all comparable.
There are at least five critical differences between Jewish Midrash and missionary types and shadows.
a. Midrash is used for Midrash- homiletic meanings. Missionaries use types and shadows to establish pshat (plain meaning).
There is no such thing as a Midrashic fulfillment of a prophecy.
What is a Midrash? According to Moses Mielziner in Introduction to the Talmud, Where the Midrash does not concern legal enactments and provisions, but merely inquires into the meaning and significance of the laws or where it only uses the words of Scripture as a vehicle to convey a moral teaching or a religious instruction and consolation, it is called Midrash Agadah Interpretation of the Agadah, homiletical interpretation. (Emphasis mine) judaismsanswer.com/midrash.htm
Nachmanides, in a thirteenth-century disputation with the Church said,
“We have a third book called Midrash, meaning sermons. It is just as if the bishop would rise and deliver a sermon, and one of the listeners whom the sermon pleased recorded it (Disputation at Barcelona, p. 7).”
In a sermon, the speaker can relate a verse to person X without person X being the actual subject of the verse. The same is true for Midrash.
http://messiahtruth.yuku.com/sreply/58218/Refuting-messianic-drew
Here we arrive at the circular reasoning of missionaries. The types and shadows are true because they come from Jesus. But how do we establish the credibility of Jesus? Easy- he fulfilled so many types and shadows!
Sophiee,
One of the strangest foreshadowings of Jesus I’ve ever read, I came across the other day. I’m reading Augustine for work in my BA. And he writes that Noah’s ark is a foreshadowing of Jesus, because the ark has proportions similar to a human being (never mind that) and it has a door in the side, just like Jesus got a spear poked into his side. If you want to find Jesus in the Tanach, I guess you’ll find him, if you are using this sort of foreshadowing.
Jim
I should mention there’s more to Augustine’s comment. The ark was used to save the world, you know, like Jesus is supposed to have done. But you get the point.
LOL, Jim! You did a better job with Horace and the tree. Wasn’t Augustine the one who wrote that the Jews should be kept in a degraded state, rather than be killed? So generous of him.
Good luck with your studies!
Wow, Jim. . . just “wow.”
Shmelke’s concluding paragraph sums it up. ” Missionaries rely on types and shadows because they know pshat does not justify their beliefs. Types and shadows fly in the face of how Biblical prophecy works, and actually contravenes the meaning of Scripture. The New Testament writers present unverifiable homiletics. These men have no Scriptural basis for their authority and credibility as Biblical interpreters. Analogies to Jewish Midrash have no validity. Missionaries cannot afford to dispense with types and shadows because they aim to promote a false messiah.”
http://messiahtruth.yuku.com/sreply/58218/Refuting-messianic-drew