Graham Bigby

My first serious encounter with Christianity was in my second last year in high school. I went to a weekend camp and the message seemed to fill a hole in my life as my father had passed away two years before. On returning, I went to the local Methodist church and was made a youth leader after a short time. I also attended church camps held in the school holidays and was able to mix with students from other schools. I did not know it at the time, but a friendship that developed there was to play a vital part in my future. This experience lasted for three years until I took up ocean yacht racing which occupied my time on S*ndays. Looking back on it now, I realize that it was the social interaction that kept me in the church. There was a more powerful “message” in the elements of creation I was exposed to while sailing than there was in any sermon in the church.

I had to give up the yacht racing as my job as a Woolworths store manager was replaced by a job flying a mineral survey aeroplane over a lot of rugged country in Australia for seven months. This gave me enough experience to be accepted into a major Australian airline thirty eight years ago. I am currently a Boeing 737 captain with that airline. The flying only reinforced my deep appreciation of Creation and I was still looking for answers. Twenty years ago, I had another religious “experience” after I had come to the conclusion that as G*d had created the heavens and earth. He was the answer I had been looking for. At that stage, I was under the impression that the Christian church was G*d‘s agent on earth and I began attending the local Baptist church. I was immediately asked to take a position in an internal church dispute over combined services with the local Roman Catholic church on Pentecost S*n day.

This led me to a basic study of the Roman Catholic faith which revealed inconsistencies with the scriptures, even the NT. Further study of a book titled “The Two Babylons” [written by a Church of England bishop], showed that the Protestants as well as the Roman Catholics, observed many “sacred” times and events that were pagan in nature [E*ster, Xmas et al.]. The statements in the book were partially confirmed by the vice principal of the local bible college after one Xmas service when I mentioned to him that J*sus was not born on Xmas day but in M*y. He agreed and said that the 25th. D*cember was the Roman feast of Saturnalia, celebrating the re-birth of the sun. This corresponded with my information and I was left wondering why the church leaders continued with this hypocrisy. That was probably the defining moment in my drift away from Christianity. There were also other inconsistencies which the church seemed to put aside or ignore completely. They thought they had the right to alter the Scriptures to suit their own purposes, e.g. changing Shabat from the 7th day to the 1st. Day and replacing Pesach with E*ster. I persisted for more years in different churches looking for my elusive answer and a logical explanation as I was determined to get closer to the Creator.

About 10 years ago I met a friend from the church camps of school years at a S*nday evening service. In the course of the next few years we read books written by “Messianic” Jews but the truth I was seeking was still not there. My friend then gave me a book titled “Who Are The Netzarim” [basic level] by Yirmeyahu Ben David. After a few hours of reading this little book, everything was clear. The discrepancies between the Old and New Testaments were explained and I came to realize that the person the Christians call J*sus never existed. It was plain that the historical person who lived two thousand years ago was Ribi Yehoshua, the Messiah to the Jewish people, not the Christians, as the Christian church was not even in existence then. The next logical step was to study the Scriptures Ribi Yehoshua used, i.e. the Torah and to discard the “New Testament” which I found to be full of inconsistencies and contradictions.

I have completed the study in the Khav•rut′ â distance learning program and have been accepted as a Geir by the Netzarim Beit Din. The study was a continuous revelation of logical truth and I am still amazed how so few people in the world have accepted what is so obvious and logical. It is very difficult to put aside the two thousand years of Christian tradition, biased scriptural interpretations, parental and peer pressure and general acceptance of Christianity by a majority in Western countries to be the only one in your group of friends and acquaintances to hold such a “radical” view on religion. I have been told that I am “in a cult” and have been disowned by former Christian friends who will not even listen to what I have to say on the subject. The over -riding fact is that nothing can alter the truth and I thank and bless Ha‘Shiem that I have finally found that truth in the Torah.