Yirmeyahu Ben-David

I was raised in a Christian home and attended Hampden DuBose Academy (1956-58), an elite Christian boarding school for MKs, EKs, PKs – and a select few OKs, where I learned to study the NT, including the underlying Greek. As Edenic and culturally consummate as HDA was, after two years there I wanted to finish high school "in the real world." During my last two years in a public high school (1958-60), I was also the church organist for Conway Baptist Church near Orlando, Florida.

However, continuing and expanding that in-depth study began to expose contradictions in Christianity, and within the NT – which no one could resolve. Indeed, they proved so intractable that I realized that the claim to have displaced the "OT" and Judaism was logically impossible. These intractable contradictions, the central pillars upon which Christianity entirely stands, would later fill two+ pages of my book, WAN.

After military service (USAF Intelligence), getting my degree (BSBA, UF '68) and a failed marriage, I spent several years living the life of success, first in Toronto and later back in Orlando, slowly recovering my emotional and spiritual bearings. Finding a devout but thoughtful Christian woman (Karen), who had also realized some of the shortcomings in the Christianity she had always been taught and was trying to find answers to her own questions, we married and began working together to find answers. She inserted thousands of cross-referenced terms from a Greek concordance as I began translating my way through all of the earliest Greek manuscripts of the NT. We began to share what we were learning, teaching and publishing The N^әtzârim Reconstruction of Hebrew Matityâhu (NHM), verse & note by verse & note, with the few we could find who had also discovered contradictions in the Christianity they had been taught. When the prayer and study group grew too large for our tiny home, we leased space, I obtained legal ordination as a Baptist minister. and, though our stage of learning was still, in retrospect, vestigially Christian, I incorporated what would evolve, as we continued to learn, into the prototypical N^әtzârim study and prayer group.

By the time we decided to reach out and offer our prayer and study group to others, we had realized that Torâh was right and we had rejected Christianity and churches as wrong. In what would later prove pivotal, we decided to list in the yellow pages. Because we rejected churches, that listing was an anathema. A priori, the only appropriate listing that would communicate our group's orientation and direction to inquirers was "Synagogues." Apparently, no follower of "Y'shua" in the history of telephones had ever rejected churches and opted, instead, to gravitate toward Jews and synagogues. I joined the Orlando area Jewish Community Center (JCC) – straightforwardly as a non-Jew desiring to learn and keep Torâh and we continued to study Judaism and communicate it to other Christians who were interested. (While Jews were welcome, we viewed them mostly as teachers – and no Jewish teacher had the courage to face the criticisms, enmity and reprisals of their peers by teaching in our group.)

The yellow pages listing quickly ignited local and national attention in the Jewish community and flames of controversy erupted. I received curt phone calls from distant strangers that, without my knowledge, were transformed into slanderous distortions that began appearing in the Jewish press around North America, along with "interviews" and stories by people who had never even contacted me, as unauthorized "interviews" and the name Clint Van Nest became known, mostly infamous, throughout the 'movers and shakers' in the American Jewish community.

The controversy of whether I had a legal right to list as a synagogue triggered a video interview of me on the local evening TV news, which ignited a series of letters to the editor of The Orlando Sentinel newspaper – and our position was now in the public record. As part of our desire to identify with Torâh as closely as we could, Karen and I legally changed our last name to Ben-David and promptly notified the head of the JCC and the leading local (Conservative) rabbi of our name change, advising them that we realized we were still gentiles and didn't want to mislead anyone about that. Though I had no idea then, ha-Sheim had set the stage to ensure that no one could ever validly claim, years later when Orthodox rabbis converted Karen and me, that we hid our beliefs from them.

When I had finished translating the NT, incorporating the readings from all of the earliest extant source manuscripts up through the fourth century C.E. it left no doubt whatsoever. The contradictions were, indeed, intractable, indisputable and traced all of the way back to the earliest origins of the Christian Church's displacement of Torâh and Judaism.

The next step in our research was clear: learn enough Hebrew to relate directly to the Hebrew Tana"kh. Simultaneously, I began buying and devouring all of the scholarly literature about Judaism, and the Judaic writings, from Har Sinai through the fourth century C.E., especially the Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha by Charles (and, several years later, Charlesworth's sequel when it was first published). Soon, I was studying scholars of Judaism and historians of the first four centuries C.E. that no Christian teacher had ever told me about.

The more I researched the more unavoidable the logic became: Christianity's displacement of Torâh was based on Roman-Hellenist apostasy that wasn't conceived until Paul and wasn't born until 135 C.E. Christianity began in 135 C.E., no earlier, and was a Roman Hellenist perversion, a counterfeit, based on stories.

The implication was no less avoidable: the research left no doubt that the historical Pharisee Jew and rabbi, Y^әhoshua absolutely was a teacher of Torâh who never taught any Christian doctrines; the polar opposite of the antinomian Roman-Hellenist J*esus, which was a counterfeit spun by Paul the Hellenist apostate. Even the earliest extant Church historian, Eusebius, had documented how, in 135 C.E., the gentile Hellenist Christians, inadvertently aided by the Roman expulsion, forcibly displaced the 15^th and last Jewish N^әtzârim Pâqid with the first gentile "bishop." All of the research was consistent and inescapable: J*esus – and my "salvation" – was a lie of the ancient Roman Hellenist idolaters who had crucified him.

This wasn't a sudden realization. It had been a growing realization for months. Nevertheless, when all intellectual and logical doubt was gone it was such a spiritually painful and thunderously shattering realization that I couldn't bring myself to trust my own intelligence in abandoning what I had always believed was my eternal salvation. I was vexed and perplexed beyond description. On my own, I just couldn't believe that what I had been taught all my life, what all of my friends believed, was wrong; that every Christian believed in a false g*od of the Roman Hellenists, an idol, that NT salvation was a Roman deception and no Christian was saved.

Torâh allows for a sign to clarify what one should do as long as it doesn't test ha-Sheim. So i pondered, as I looked out the window of my study in Conway, what I could ask for that wouldn't be supernatural, so as not to test ha-Sheim, but would be so unlikely that it would just never happen unless it was a Sign from Him. As I gazed out of my window, a sparrow alighted in a branch of the Japanese plum tree outside my window. There was a young maple tree I had planted outside our kitchen window, on the other side of our house, next to a birdbath, outside of our kitchen window. Speaking with ha-Sheim, and reiterating that I had no intention of testing Him, I asked that, if I hadn't made any pivotal error in my research and should abandon J*esus, the NT and Christianity to, instead, follow Torâh, please cause the sparrow to fly to the maple tree next to the birdbath, then back to the Japanese plum outside my study window, then back to the maple tree by the birdbath, then to the birdbath and take a bath.

My Apple II-era study in Conway, suburb of Orlando, Florida

Our backyard facing northeast. The kitchen window is on the left and my study window is on the right. The birdbath was outside our kitchen window. The Japanese plum tree was outside my study window (partially visible at the right edge of the photograph). Karen is holding a branch of the maple tree beside the birdbath. In Conway, a suburb of Orlando, Florida.

Additionally, satisfying that specific chain of events would also mean that bringing the sparrow there in the first place was, itself, no accident either. Calculate those odds if you can!

Impossible, right?

Try to imagine how my heart leaped into my throat when the bird flew to the young maple tree by the birdbath. As the bird perched there, seemingly indecisive, I thought, "Well, this is the end of that." But it wasn't. The bird flew back to the Japanese plum in front of my study window. Karen was at work or I would have called her. I think my heart must have stopped and I probably forgot to breath. The bird returned to the maple tree, looking down at the birdbath, still seemingly undecided. After an interminable pause, the sparrow flew down and perched on the rim of the birdbath… and just sat there.

We've often watched birds go to the birdbath. Sometimes we would place a couple of pieces of stale bread in the water. The water made the bread soft and the birds loved it. They would often fly to perch on the rim of the birdbath to see if there was any bread. If not, they often simply flew away. Actually taking a bath was less frequent. There was no bread in the water that day. The sparrow looked, and looked, seemed disappointed and looked away as if to fly. But, as if it changed its mind, it hopped into the water and splashed around. I was dumbfounded. I didn't even think to call Karen and explain what had happened. When she came home and I told her we have never looked back, nor shall we.

That wasn't the last natural-miracle that ha-Sheim has performed for us. There had been no open follower of Ribi Y^әhoshua in the Pharisee / Orthodox Jewish community since 135 C.E. (There are, by contrast, numerous "Messianic Jews" who boast they are in the Orthodox community but are conspicuously secretive, knowing that they are frauds and charlatans and, if they are exposed in the Orthodox Jewish community, they will be discredited and expelled.) For an open follower of Ribi Y^әhoshua to be converted by Orthodox rabbis was an absolute impossibility! To open those doors would be an even bigger miracle of ha-Sheim. To open the doors for that first follower in nearly 2,000 years to be able to move to Israel, and to live and pray in the Israeli Orthodox Jewish community, ha-Sheim would have to perform an even bigger miracle yet. You can still ask many Jews today; they will assure you: "Absolutely impossible! Cannot be!"

S-o-o-o-o, accomplishing the "impossible," what :cannot be," is, by definition, a miracle.

Yet, here I am; impossibly – and, therefore, by a series of official miracles – an open follower of Ribi Y^әhoshua in the same Orthodox (Pharisee) Jewish community in Israel in which Ribi Y^әhoshua and his original Jewish followers, the N^әtzârim, lived and prayed. That, nothing less, is authentic!

Orthodox rabbis accepted and converted Karen and me together. Today, we pray in an Orthodox Teimâni Beit ha-K^әnësët (Moreshet Âvot here in Ra·ananâ(h)), the first time in nearly two millennia that an open follower of Ribi Y^әhoshua has been accepted openly by Orthodox rabbis and in the Israeli Orthodox (Pharisee) community in which Ribi Y^әhoshua and his original Jewish followers, the N^әtzârim, lived and prayed. (Though some Orthodox rabbis are still in disbelief and balk, Orthodox rabbis aren't perfect either. Some remain ignorant of the facts, making up their own straw man and rebelling against the Halâkhâh of Orthodox rabbinical authorities.) Ha-Sheim has made me the first legitimate open follower of Ribi Y^әhoshua – i.e., in the Pharisee / Orthodox Jewish community of Ribi Y^әhoshua – since the Christian Church ousted the 15^th N^әtzârim Jewish Pâqid in 135 C.E.!!!

These are miracles, doors that ha-Sheim chose to open for Karen and me, His Imprimatur on us. His Imprimatur, His Hand opening these doors for us and no one else, has set us apart, ordained by the Hand of ha-Sheim as N^әtzârim. Karen and I are N^әtzârim as a result of being accepted by fellow rabbis of Ribi Y^әhoshua into the same Pharisee-Orthodox community in Israel in which Ribi Y^әhoshua and his original Jewish N^әtzârim followers lived and prayed – doors that ha-Sheim opened for us but not for any of the self-proclaiming plagiarists. All those who self-proclaim themselves to be "Netzarim" are fakes – and there have become many plagiarists since ha-Sheim showed me, not them, to restore and first publish the term "Netzarim" in the early 1970s, as a result of His leading me in my own, personal, research.

The distinguishing determinant between Christianity and Torâh is compliance with an Orthodox Beit-Din (i.e., Halâkhâh.). Being outside the purview of an Orthodox Beit-Din and Halâkhâh distinguishes between Jew and Christian. Today, the N^әtzârim Beit-Din is the only Orthodox Beit-Din that accepts followers of Ribi Y^әhoshua. Consequently, all of those who call themselves "Netzarim" but haven't been recognized by our Orthodox Beit-Din here in Israel are Christian deceivers, charlatans; just another displacement counterfeit.

The only way to become a N^әtzârim is to learn to keep Torâh – which includes complying with a Beit-Din within the framework of the Orthodox Beit-Din system – not a gentile fake "bet din" spawn of a counterfeit "J*esus."

Lose the Hellenist counterfeit J*esus-idol with its fake "salvation." Follow the authentic Torâh teachings of the real Ribi Y^әhoshua.