I was born in Maidstone,Kent,England in 1958 and experienced religion at an early age attending The Church of England,saying "The L_rd's Prayer" and singing Hymns at Primary School.
I started taking French in school at age 7.This would turn to be significant later on.
When I look back on it all now,I realize that like Avraham in Ur of the Chaldees,amongst all those idols,the one true Hashem(Devarim 4:6),the Perfect Singularity/Creator was calling out to him and He was also calling out to me and awakening in me a desire to know more of Him and leave the idols behind.Little,then did I realize what those idols were and are and even now,I'm only just beginning to thanks to Hebrew,Torah and the Netzarim!
In April of 1966,my family emigrated to Canada,eventually 2 years later settling in Peterborough,Ontario,where I grew up and where I continued my spiritual search,mostly via ocassional and seasonal Church attendance.
In Canada,in some areas our two official languages are spoken side by side.This was another positive influence for later on.Plus,TV and Radio have both present.
One thing I wondered about was the fact that I had some fellow Jewish students at Elementary school and when we had religious studies,they were always exempt.This made me curious.I asked one of them about it and he explained that they weren't teaching the Tanakh the same way he was taught!They were twisting it,he told me. I took note of that,but having a zeal,but no knowledge,didn't quite know what to think,so I shelved it!
One thing that happened during high school was in taking French my teacher instilled in me a gift for languages(Iwanted to drop it,but she begged me not to,telling me that "You know you like languages and have a gift for them") which would come in handy later on.I would develop an ear and a knack for picking up languages years later.
In the Spring of 1978,I returned to England to live,getting involved in various Pentecostal groups,eventually,after it all made sense,finally giving up my life and becoming "born again."
In the fall of 1981,back in Canada,I made a vow that I would never be a victim of somebody's Bible translations,because I would study the original languages for myself.
After seeing an ad in a Toronto newspaper,where I was living at the time,I took a course in modern Hebrew,visited a "Messianic" Jewish Assembly,a Conservative Synagogue and talked to the many Jews I would encounter around the city.I bought a Hebrew Bible and I even read part of the Talmud once.I also bought myself some cassettes and began teaching myself modern Greek.There were questions I had to have answers to and I knew I was not going to find them in any translation.
I was becoming aware of a number of conflicts,but couldn't sort them out at that time,not having the information I needed.For example,I observed that "Messianic" Judaism,as refreshing as it was,compared to the churches,was just a Christianity with Jewish clothing!
I realized that to understand the true 1st century message,the events and names must be restored to their first century linguistic,cultural and religious context.
In translating any language,it is said that at one end of the scale you have "literal translation(word for word)",at the other end is "figurative(loose translation)" and then there's the middle.The hard part is getting the thought form across.Often what happens in going from one lanaguage to another, only the words get translated and even then,they get twisted!I was becoming increasingly aware that Ribi Yehoshua's(Aramaic "Yeshua" NOT the post 135 C.E. 4th century Hellenist/Roman counterfeit man g_d image "J-e-s-u-s" invented by the Roman church!) original message had been changed and twisted thanks to the Greek.
I remember watching a cartoon about Channukah once,where the candles were lit with Hebrew letters,but when the letters were changed to Greek,the lights went out,until the Greek letters were replaced with Hebrew ones again.This of course,was the Macabee story,but even so,it's common knowledge that Ribi Yehoshua and his Talmidim spoke Western Aramaic,NOT Greek.For Jews,their language whether Hebrew,Aramaic,Ladino,Yiddish,etc has preserved their identity and kept them together,but that's another story indeed!
I began attending a Greek Evangelical church and looking into the Greek,as well as keeping my interest in Biblical Hebrew.I became aware though that despite the fact that Greek is more precise than English,it was not the language,or culture that the events of Ribi Yehoshua's day were conducted in.
One conflict I had was:
Why do Jews(and Seventh Day Adventists)worship on Shabbat("The Bible Sabbath"),but others on Sun-g_d-Day.People would tell me: "It doesn't matter...""The Torah is done away with..." I wondered:How can Hashem's law be changed....How did it get changed and how did this doctrine come about and if not from scripture where from?
The answer I found out years later: "All roads lead to (Papal)Rome."Also,Constantine and the Popes.
Many years later,I found out that Ribi Yehoshua and his Talmidim all kept Shabbat and their days were as Hashem had commanded: "...Sunset to Sunset..."...but man,namely Constantine and the Papal powers had changed Hashem's laws,namely Shabbat to Sun-g_d-day and Pope Gregory instituted the Julian Calendar,using the Babylonian/Roman reckoning of time with days beginning at midnight,again perverting Hashem's commands(Daniel 7:25).
I spent 15 years with The Seventh Day Adventist Church;5 years watching and 10 years in it and comparing scripture with scripture,but discovered that while they had the truth of the Sabbath and the "the law",they didn't know the difference between a "righteous" person and a "sinner("we're all sinners....")" and they held to "Replacement Theology("the church has replaced Israel as the people of Hashem.")
I now realize looking back that the Ruach HaQodesh was witnessing to my heart that these were a few of the many false doctrines.I also discovered that all the symbols in Christianity came from Papal Rome and theirs from Pagan sources.Afterall,it is said that the seat of the Babylonian religion was moved to Rome in 376 C.E.
I also became increasingly aware that most Christians are just blindly following whatever doctrines their church believes,keeping their roster of "scriptural proofs" yet never opening their bibles to check anything out.And they say "Hashem has blinded the Jews!?" They need to look in their own mirror!
All the churches come from their mother(Papal Rome) and the so-called Protestant Reformation wasn't much of a reformation at all,because despite the fact that their motto was 'Sola Scritura(Scripture Only)",they never made a clean break from the Roman church and none of their doctrines were/are from scripture.Prostestantism is just watered down Roman-Catholicism,as I see it now.
I knew I had to come out of all the churches and got loosely involved with the "Hebrew Roots Movement" which is made up of people searching out their Hebrew roots and are all in various stages of coming out of the churches.As they see the Bible truths via the Hebrew and Aramaic,the Greco/Roman Mindset starts to crack and fall away!Unfortunately,the other side of the coin,the Messianic Movement is still basically Christianity(they won't admit that,of course).I realized I had to avoid picking up any more unbiblical junk!
I realized,again,that if I wanted to know the truth,I had to start from Torah and put all 1st century events back in their Orthodox Jewish and Aramaic/Hebraic context.When I did,all the false idolatrous teachings I'd learned were quickly shown as false in the light of the Torah.
Then in late 2009,via a websearch for "Who are the Netzarim?" I came across 'www.Netzarim.co.il" and the final piece of the Jigsaw Puzzle appeared.
It explained what I had kind of known all along,that I had been the victim of 2000 years of Eclessiastical lies and Greek polution of the first century Rabbi's pro-Torah,Jewish message.
In studying: "Who Are The Netzarim?" "Atonement In The Biblical New Convenant and "The Netzarim Reconstruction Of Hebrew Matitiyahu" ,I can see clearly how Ribi Yehoshua's message got perverted by Daniel's fourth Beast (Daniel 2),the egg laying Dragon of Pagan,then Papal Rome.
Details here:
http://www.netzarim.co.il
