30. The Conversation — How to Read It Together

The Source and the Conversation

The following documented account is drawn from the testimony of Stan Telchin, a Jewish businessman who investigated the New Testament in order to prove it false — specifically to rescue his daughter, who had become a believer in Jesus. His account is documented in his book Betrayed! (Chosen Books, 1981).

SOURCE: Stan Telchin, Betrayed! (Chosen Books, 1981). Telchin later became a Messianic Jewish pastor and speaker. His account is one of the most extensively documented Jewish investigative journeys to faith in Jesus in modern literature.

Telchin describes the moment he first read Isaiah 53 — alone, without a Christian present, in a Hebrew Bible:

Stan Telchin (documented testimony): I read Isaiah 53 and I couldn't breathe. I had read those words before. But I had never read them the way I read them that night — looking for the answer to whether my daughter had been deceived. I read: "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities." And I thought: who is this? I had been told it was Israel. But the text says "we" confess that our sin was laid on "him." If Israel is the servant, who is the "we" confessing that their sin was laid on Israel? It was my own prophet. Writing 700 years before Calvary. And I couldn't explain it.

Telchin did not convert that night. His investigation continued for months. But Isaiah 53, read without the corporate interpretation pre-installed, was the text that broke open the question he had decided was already answered.

The disciple who reads Isaiah 53 with a Jewish friend does not need to argue. They need to create the conditions for the text to be encountered honestly. A Jewish translation. Slow reading. Genuine questions. And the patience to let the text ask what it has always been asking.