If you were around during that part of my YouTube career you may already know that I amassed over 50,000 subscribers on the Christian Truthers channel. Ultimately, I was able to build a full-time job for myself creating documentaries and bible studies that reached well over 2.5 million people on YouTube alone. In those previous studies I shared the perspectives I developed from studying my personal library of biblical literature in the original Greek, Hebrew, Syriac and Latin languages. From 2017 to 2021, I was totally obsessed with finding out everything I could concerning "the truth" of this thing called the Bible - and the real history of the books that were added to it and removed from it (for example, the 1611 KJV Bible had 80 books instead of only 66 like today’s KJV). Literally, I became an obsessed Jesus freak (and Torah freak) that simply wouldn’t quit digging deeper.

 

For the sake of additional context, let me give you an extremely short run-down of my pre-YouTube life of Christianity and see if you can somehow relate. If you were also a lifelong Christian, you probably will. Ready?

 

Since I was a child I followed a pattern of life that may seem incredibly familiar to many of you out there who were raised in one of the 40,000 Christian church denominations that exist today. Since birth, it seems I have gone to every Church gathering available. I attended Christian schools, Christian Churches, Wednesday night Suppers and Sunday Night sermons. In High School I played on an all Christian basketball team, attended a Christian Homeschool group, performed in Christian theater and musicals and went to Christian Youth Groups every Friday night. In fact, I only hung out around Christian families and my entire family and I only maintained “Christian” friends. 

 

The events of 9/11 (September 11, 2001) sort of messed the holy streak up for me though, since my teenage obsession with combat (and movies like Black Hawk Down and The Patriot) had me perfectly primed to join the Marine Corps just two months after turning 18 in 2001. That’s right. As soon as those “planes hit” the World Trade Centers (and somehow knocked down WTC building 7) I was ready to trade in my previous hopes for a college basketball jersey for the new hope of a few combat deployments. To make a very long story short, I received more than my share of combat and deployments. Staying in the Marines for 13 years in total, I was a Machine-Gunner (0331), a Combat Instructor, a Counterintelligence Specialist (0211), A Light-Armored Reconnaissance Platoon Sergeant (0369) and more, traveling to over 23 countries for training and “other” operations. 

 

Leaving the Marines in 2015; however, left a massive hole in my existential little heart. Finally being free to search and climb any proverbial mountain I wanted, I studied to finish both a Bachelor’s (BSBA) and Master’s Degree (MBA) in Business. Ultimately I chose to focus all my heart, soul, mind and strength to finding the “truth” according to “God’s Word” in mid 2017. That is when this channel (previous channel) Christian Truthers was born.

 

As mentioned before, I had great success with YouTube Christianity. I created hundreds of videos studies, wrote a ton of articles, collaborated with a slew of massive Christian channels, traveled across the country to conduct baptism events and more. In 2019 for example, I was invited to attend 3 Christian and Torah related Conferences to be a key speaker to thousands. Working with other fledgling channels, I helped my partners grow their channels from just over 30k subs to well over 100k in just under 2 years. At one point, my online Bible study and research community had over 800 live, active members attending weekly studies for men, women and children. We even had a handful of full-time volunteers to help coordinate the chaos. It’s safe to say, I was very well entrenched in the deepest of studies about the true nature of our Christian existence and the intricate aspects of the religion’s oldest roots. Oh, and managing an online “Christian” community…good luck with that.

 

The crazy journey came to a very strange twist ending; however, when my research and faith hit a brick wall in 2020. While researching and writing what would become one of my most important pieces of literature to date (for a mini-book I was publishing), suddenly things took a very serious turn. In 2020 I began to challenge the traditional Christian belief that Paul was a true apostle (one of the 12 disciples, which he’s clearly not). This led to even more and more questions, which ultimately caused me to embark on a journey of defending the most important Christian character of them all, Jesus Christ the messiah.

 

You see, I wanted to prove that even though Paul was theoretically a false apostle, that Jesus the messiah could be defended and supported using both history and the Old Testament as a resource. This work was called “The Messiah Complex” and consisted of 7 studies I personally wrote in an attempt to prove that he (Jesus) was the real deal. 

 

Being intellectually honest, that study was cut short, because it actually caused me to come to the exact opposite conclusion. You see, during all my years as a researcher I had made a massive error in judgment. In every other area of Biblical study I studied very deeply into the text details. I tried to study the historical perspectives, texts in different languages, old and newer commentary concepts, scholarly books and more to arrive at the truth; however, I started off with one very big and very bad assumption within this research…that the Bible itself was a literally true and original work. This is an assumption I admittedly grew up with and never completely questioned until I had already researched, written and taught out of the Bible non-stop for nearly 4.5 years. 

 

As I began to publish my reasons for leaving Christianity on YouTube and Facebook, my popularity quickly declined (as I knew it would, of course). Coming under heavy personal attacks, I was ridiculed, slandered, falsely accused and lied about, even by my very own close “friends” that I had helped to firmly establish in the Christian world. I was so hurt by the total lack of scholarly rebuttal and empathetic leadership in the online community, I took all my work down off of the channel and decided I needed to focus my energy on my own emotional, mental and psychological well-being and figure out “who I am” now that I was no longer part of the fictitious family of Abraham. 

 

Frustrated and confused as to what direction to go, I deleted much of my own works, including works I developed supporting and deconstructing Biblical philosophies. At the time I didn’t want to create nor participate in some anti-holy war against Christianity – or a war with my friends and family who were so closely attached to it, so I walked away thinking I would find peace for myself and leave everyone else to do the same thing.

 

Now, after a year of reading, writing, researching, waiting, psychotherapy and counseling, I can safely and accurately say that I’m finally ready (once again) to share my personal perspectives on the topics of Christianity, Torah Observance and the Bible as a whole. Why the change of heart? There’s three very simple reasons:

 

1. It’s needed. Recovering from the psychological and emotional abuse that comes with living in the false reality of a fear-based control system is desperately needed. I genuinely hope I can help more people come to a deeper understanding of reality and free themselves from the psychological bonds the Christian religion and doctrines places on them.

2. It’s what I love to do. Everyone who knows me realizes I’m an obsessive researcher who loves to challenge what I think I know about topics. My closest friends and family know that discussing existentialism, philosophy, religion, history and science are by far my favorite things to do. There’s literally no reason why I shouldn’t pursue my passion once again.

3. I’m not afraid. Clearly, I’m not afraid of the religious consequences of denying the authenticity of the Bible because I think the consequences are good, not bad. If nothing else, I’ve proven that I’ve never been afraid to lose followers with challenging topical ideas (once again) and this is no different. I believe that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – I also believe that Christianity is the cause of many of those false fears. I’m simply not afraid. I’m not afraid of the ridicule, slander, mocking and accusations. I’m not afraid of losing more subscribers, being judged or being condemned to “hell.” I’m free.

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It’s for those simple reasons (and many more) that I’m here to say that…I’m back. If you’re ready to challenge yourself  to demystifying Christian spirituality and deconstructing the psychological construct of the Christian religion – do yourself a favor and subscribe to my channel on YouTube (and turn on post notifications). If you find helpful information on this site or YouTube, please share it with your friends and family so more can join the discovery and awakening that is recovering from religion.

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Until we meet again, I’m Justin Best with Bullet Holes in the Bible. I genuinely hope my journey somehow helps you along in your own!