http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/j4j-2000/index.html
From "Messianic-Jew" to Counter-Missionary
The Story of Julius Ciss
There's a truism that one of the best ways to learn is to teach. In order to prepare my weekly lessons, I was exposed to various Biblical passages which were regarded as traditional "proof texts" for Christianity. Often I found these references very encouraging; they helped build up my faith and belief in Jesus as the Messiah. But the inconsistencies and contradictions I had noted between the New Testament and the Old Testament continued to multiply. One of the principles constantly impressed upon me, from the day I first became involved in Christianity, was that the Bible was one hundred per cent the true and "inerrant" word of G-d, and that G-d was not a liar or subject to error. And I was now discovering many errors. If G-d were in fact the author of this Bible, why was I discovering references in the New Testament which were utterly inconsistent with the sources in the Tanach which they claimed to be fulfilling?
The New Testament frequently alluded to passages in the Tanach, and blatantly erred in transcribing the information. For instance, the New Testament states, in Acts 7:14, that seventy-five persons came with Jacob to Egypt; whereas Genesis 46:27. Exodus 1:5, and Deuteronomy 10:22 all clearly state that there were seventy persons in total. In addition, the Book of Genesis (49:28-30; 50:13) says that Ya'akov (Jacob) was buried in Mamre (which is Hebron, according to Genesis 23:19), in land that had been purchased from Ephron the Hittite. Yet the New Testament book of Acts (7:16-17) misquotes Genesis and claims that Ya'akov was buried not in Hebron but in Shechem, in land bought from the sons of Hamor. Furthermore, I observed time and again that the New Testament itself was markedly inconsistent from one chapter to another. The various accounts of the Resurrection in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were mutually exclusive. The very Resurrection of the son of G-d was not consistently described by this allegedly Divinely inspired book!
I discovered many references to alleged messianic prophecies in fact did not concern messianic prophecies at all. One such example, central to Christian doctrine, is the mistranslated reference to "virgin birth" in the Christian editions of the book of Isaiah (7:14). This "virgin birth" passage is a pillar of Christianity, because upon this verse Christianity bases its belief that Jesus was born of a virgin, that he was the son of G-d, and that he was the Messiah.
I remember clearly that, when I was first shown the passage of Isaiah 7:14, where Christians claim the concept of a "virgin birth" first appears, my reaction was, "How could this be? How, for two thousands years, could the rabbis not have seen this?" I remember that, when I confronted my pastor at the time, he said to me, "Julius, it's because those rabbis were blinded. They had a veil over their eyes, but G-d has lifted the veil from your eyes that you can see the truth."
I felt that I had been paid a huge compliment: G-d had chosen me above all the thousands and thousands of Jews who had gone before me for the last two thousand years. G-d would pick me, of all people, to see the truth in the Old Testament that the Messiah would be born of a virgin? I felt like a prophet. Never did it occur to me to check the original Hebrew, or to study Jewish sources for the traditional Jewish interpretation of this verse. I accepted the pastor's explanation at face value, certain that this prophecy was to be found in Jewish ure.
Not until I was preparing a class on the "virgin birth" did I actually study the Hebrew sources. I saw that not only did the passage in question make no reference to a "virgin birth", but that it also had nothing to do with the Messiah. When the entire chapter was studied in its context, it was seen to describe an event in history utterly unrelated and altogether foreign to anything contained in the New Testament.
To paraphrase the content of Chapter 7 of Isaiah: the prophet Isaiah speaks to King Ahaz at a very peculiar time in Jewish history. There were two Jewish nations in the Holy Land at the time: the kingdom of Judah in the south, with its capital in Jerusalem; and the kingdom of Israel in the north. They were enemies. Israel had formed a military alliance with Syria, and had planned an attack on the kingdom of Judah. Ahaz, the king of Judah, was frightened by the enemies at his doorstep and didn't know what to do. He was approached by the prophet Isaiah, who said, "Ask for a sign from G-d to show you that everything will be all right." Ahaz refused to ask for such a sign. Isaiah than declared to the king: "I'll give you a sign. The sign is that a young woman is going to have a baby. By the time the baby is old enough to eat honey and digest cheese, you should know that the two nations that have allied themselves against you will no longer be a threat." The fact that this prophecy was fulfilled during the time of Ahaz and Isaiah can be seen in II Kings, chapters 15-17 and II Chronicles, chapter 28.
The Christians mistranslated the Hebrew word meaning "the young woman." She is referred to in Hebrew as "HaAlmah", or "the young maiden", with the definite article indicating a specific woman whose identity was known both to Isaiah and to Ahaz. The Christians say that "almah" translates not as "maiden", but as "virgin". This claim is not supported by the Hebrew or by any other instances in which the word "almah" appears in the Tanach. (The correct Hebrew word for "virgin" is "betulah".) The mistranslation was the result of pagan influence. Greek and other pagan mythologies are full of stories of the gods coming down and impregnating women who then give birth to gods.
I made numerous similar - and almost equally dismaying - discoveries during the course of my preparation for the Sunday school classes. In addition, I had begun to scrutinize the lives of many of the people in my congregation. Despite the fact that they claimed to have "new" lives in Jesus, I saw that there were a number of them whose prayers went unanswered. Several exhibited neuroses which were clearly indications of very troubled lives. Even with all the prayers for healing offered in the congregation, these individuals continued to be ill.
The New Testament promises believers that they will be able to heal the sick in Jesus' name, as stated in Mark 16:18: "If they drink any deadly poison, it shall not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover." It disgusted me that some Christians in the group blamed those who did not appear to have been healed for "not having the faith", or for "giving into the temptations of Satan"! I felt that such people were playing an extremely dangerous game with the lives of others. And, oddly enough, while they claimed to have perfect faith in the above New Testament verse regarding the power to heal, I never once saw any instance of their drinking a deadly poison and living to tell about it.
