The Banality of Delusion
A Field Guide to Epistemological Warfare
The Bible opens with a string of short, meaning-dense stories about a being, Yahuwah, the Ruach Elohim, speaking Creation into existence. He creates light on day 1, a division between waters on day 2, a boundary between land and sea and plant life on day 3, the timekeeping lights on day 4, the flying and swimming creatures on day 5, and terrestrial animals and mankind on day 6; then He rests on the seventh day, blessing the day, sanctifying it, and establishing the sevenfold cycle of time as an eternal ordinance.
With the cosmos arrayed, Yahuwah Elohim goes to a place where there was not yet an herb or shrub, and he forms a man there from dust. Upon breathing into the earthen mass, it becomes a living soul – Adam. He places the man, Adam, in a sacred garden space where there is one rule: don’t eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil which grows next to the Tree of Life in the middle of the garden.
What happens next doesn’t merely begin human history; it frames our entire existence through a singular symbolic act. Adam doesn’t merely make a mistake, a cosmic slip of the hand; he commits the archetypal cosmic betrayal of the Creator, with whom he would walk in the cool of the day and speak to like a modern child does his natural father, and plunges Creation into the curse of a maladaptive pattern, a denial of reality, an engine of folly, destruction, and separation from God, who is Spirit and Truth, and in Whom we have our Truest Habitation.
The deception of Eve and the following rebellion of Adam came through three aspects of the fruit and one question:
It was beautiful.
It was good for food.
It would open their eyes. They would be like God, knowing how to judge matters on their own.
“Did God really say…?”
By judging for themselves, according to their own understanding, they found their relationship with God strained from their side. They knew that they were naked. Ashamed, they ran and made clothing for themselves. The Father asks Adam why this happened, and he blames Eve. He turns to Eve, who blames the serpent. The serpent is silent. Judgements are given. The couple is kicked out of the sacred garden, and the Apostle Paul tells us that the serpent became the “God of this aeon.”
The adversary took over the world with bad-faith hermeneutics.
For Millennia, people have yearned to find a way back home to that garden-mountain which Genesis tells us is guarded by a cherub with a sword of fire. We have built ziggurats, pyramids, towers, governments, philosophies, armies – everything but what it actually takes to live in the Kingdom of God: proper image-bearing.
But it’s dangerous to go alone.
You’ll need this book.
You’ll need to fight the lie with the truth, bad hermeneutics with those used by the Savior of the World. You’ll have to pick up his methods from the Bible and follow him.
Two thousand years ago, a Gallilean Jew named Yahushua Ha’Nezer (the Nazarene) attended the Feast of Dedication, known today as Hannukah, to commemorate the cleansing of the temple after its desecration by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Seleucid general who slaughtered a sow on the Holy Altar, igniting a war with the locals that led to temporary independence for Judea.
The Pharisees, leaders respected by much of the community, had traditions which they claimed to have received through a lineage going back to the Exodus. In effect, because of its interpretive authority claim, these men had an authority that superseded the written instructions.
As with the seven commanded feasts, many would go to Yereushalaiym and many would mill about Solom’s temple, where Antiochus committed his desecration.
Here, in the Levantine winter, Yahushauh was confronted by the Pharisees in front of a crowd. He had been calling them out publicly throughout his ministry, using the Law and the Prophets to attack their credibility, calling them false shepherds, thieves, robbers, a den of vipers, and blind guides who keep the seekers from finding, those who desire God from entering the narrow gate that leads to life.
These men in fine clothes, politically connected, wealthy, generally trusted by the people, encircle him. They say to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are Ha’Mashiach, tell us plainly.”
But they are not asking honestly. They are asking adversarily, trying to catch him in something they can twist into a blasphemy charge to discredit him, so he answers him with something all of the prophets would have understood, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works I do in my father’s name, these testify of me. (In other words, by my fruit, you will know me.) But you do not believe it, because you are not of my sheepfold. My sheep hear and obey my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I am the Father are one.”
The men pick up stones to stone him.
He asks them to defend their actions before the commit it, saying, “I showed you many good works of the Father; for which of them are you stoning me?”
They answered, “We are not stoning you for a good work, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself out to be God.”
Yahushah remembers the words of a prophet and says, “Is it not written in your Torah, ‘I said, you are elohim? If He called them elohim to whom the word came – and scripture cannot be nullified – are you saying of the one whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming?’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God?’ If I do not the words of the Father, do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe my works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father.”
This worked.
Most people shrug this off and keep reading, but halt. Yahushua kept himself alive with a legal argument that appealed to something that makes Christians uncomfortable: the Tanakh, what we call the Old Testament, says that there are multiple gods, and he links that with men hearing the words of God.
If we take this seriously, Yahushua is telling us that those who hear God are sons of God and gods themselves.
The same author, the beloved disciple, John, wrote this in the beginning of his gospel:
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave legal right and authority (exousia) to become sons of Elohim, to those believing in his name.” This is not power (dynamis), but something truly given by God, the source of authority on the earth – standing, permission, agency, jurisdiction, and these to become, themselves, like Our Lord, sons of the Eternal, Living God.
Humans are created in the image of God.
Yet, greater than this, is the Gift of Sonship.
This Gift of Sonship destroys simple category arguments, and it comes with a charge, an immense responsibility to fulfill the prayer of the man by whose title billions have named themselves: the Christians are charged with the Gethsemane Prayer, “Keep them in your name, the name which you have given me, so that they may be One just as We are.” He then affirms that Our Father had answered his prayer, saying, “The Glory which You have given me I also have given them, so that they may be One just as we are One.”
In Hebraic thought, a name isn’t just the sounds by which a person is called, nor is it merely also about someone’s social record and standing. Shem, the Hebrew word for name, carries also the connotation of authority and identity. We see in the scriptures that Yahuwah chooses to place His Name in certain places where he is obeyed. Yahushua is saying that he is crowning us with obedience to and understanding of God. He has aligned his disciples with God’s nature through teaching, having empowered them to accomplish the task of becoming a Son of God themselves by the renewing of their psyches, by meditating on (eating) and practicing (working out) the commandments of God. To properly image God, not merely bear the design but to function properly, is the role of a Child of God – by their fruits will you know them; by the voice they obey will you know who their shepherd is.
Our Savior used the word genesthai, the same root from which we get Genesis, the Beginning, to describe what happens after we are given the authority to accomplish the task. Before the task beings, we are first commissioned, charged to accomplish the task and empowered legally to be successful. The seed was given the ability to germinate, and if we do not sprout and bear fruit, we are not his seed; if we do not do the works of the Father, we are not the answer to his prayer – and his prayer was surely answered, so we are not his if we do not finish the race.
We lose things in translation all the time. These disciples are sent out and called Apostles, but the word has become associated with an office or title as opposed to its functional meaning. The apostles (apostolos) are those sent forth (apostello), and the Hebrew has a similar concept in the root, shalach, which was used when Moses was sent toward Pharaoh as a representative (shaliach). Note this fascinating decree from the Creator:
“Therefore, come now, and I will send (shalach) you to Pharaoh.”
And when he resists, citing a problem with his speech, Yah tells Moses to bring Aaron to speak for him after He tells Moses what Aaron should say. Moses is the agent, but Aaron is the mouth piece, which splits the typical prophetic role wherein the agent will address the crowd.
Exodus 4:16 says, “He shall speak for you to the people; and he will be as a mouth for you, and you will be as God to him.”
Exodus 7:1 follows this with, “See, I make you God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your prophet.”
This sounds absurd and blasphemous. Had anyone said that they were God and their brother were his prophet to the Pharisees, they would have been stoned to death; yet, these are the words of God, to Moses, written in the Torah.
All over the Tanakh, messengers of God speak for Him, using first-person language, as God’s representative. This was common in the ancient near east, as they understood the shaliach principle, whereby the shaliach (sent one) bears the identity of his principal or master. We have a faded remnant of this in the English language, whereby women are called “misses-[Firstname Lastname]” of their husband, and a still active, though unconsidered, continuation of this with agents of agencies, such as when we say things like, “the County stopped by.” The literal county, FBI, Fish and Game service did not stop by, but an agent did. It’s right there in our everyday speech.
This brings us back to Hannukah, when the Pharisees surrounded Yahushua. Accepting this, re-read the discussion. Notice that Jesus is claiming to speak for God the same way that an angel or prophet would, and the Pharisees didn’t stone him, meaning that they ceded the point that was raised. Jesus and his enemies agreed that those who do the will of God are the children of God.
Now, reconsider what was granted is Gethsemene: You have been given the right, power, and jurisdiction over yourself to become One with God, just the same way that Our Lord is One with Him – to know Him, to keep His commandments, to walk in His Wisdom, to be set free by the Truth, and to go out into the world as a faithful Shaliach.
The Law of Truth and Freedom
“If you continue in my word, then you are truly my disciples; and you will know the Truth; and the Truth shall set you Free.”
In Chapter 8 of John’s gospel, Jesus connects abiding in his word, which is following the instructions of the Father, with us knowing something freeing; but from what are his disciples freed?
James calls us to the “perfect Torah of Freedom.”
Psalm 119 contains, “I will walk at liberty, for I seek Your precepts.”
In this chapter, John relates to us, “If the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Yahuwah is a loving Father, who teaches His children with examples. Yahushua images this by teaches us through his own example and through parables. To Yahushua, to Shaul (Paul), and to the psalmist, the instructions of Yah are liberating. To determine the chains, we can look at what the freedom is, knowing that it comes through instruction; and we can also remember what kind of slavery was constantly being alluded to in the gospels: slavery to sin.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”
To be free from sin is to walk in righteousness. We know what righteousness is because Our Father had his servants write it down.
We are called in John 1 to sonship with God, which is Yahushua’s request in John 17. Here, in John 8, we hear our lord say, “The slave does not remain in the house forever; [whereas] the son remains forever.” Recall that he wants us to be sons of God, remaining with, dwelling with, him and the Father forever. The slave cannot do this. The one who sees the Father as a master is unable to inherit eternal life, but the one who loves him can; the one who is in it for himself merely hires himself out to righteousness, being inwardly a slave to sin, whereas the one who loves righteousness is partaking in the nature of God.
If we need the Scriptures to know the precepts that allow us to walk in liberty, then freedom is by the written commandments of God.
Look at what the Pharisees were claiming, being called sons of the devil: they had proper authority – as Jesus said, the seat of Moses – to interpret the law written by Moses, having been orated by God; and they claimed to have never been a slave to a people whose identity includes having been ancestrally enslaved in Mitzrayim (Egypt). They supposedly had all of the fence laws, all of the exceptions, all of the details supposedly passed down from the original 70 who were instated over a thousand years prior; but Yahushua tells them, “Truly did Isaiah prophecy of you
Sin is bondage to lies.
Later in Chapter 8, Yahushua says to the scholars, “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear my word. You are of your father, the devil.”
This is not casual. This is a sonship claim. An authority-submission claim.
By their fruit are people known. By their rules are their masters known.
Yakov (James), the brother of the lord and leader of the Apostles, made it clear:
“But the one who looks intently at the perfect Torah, the Torah of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.”
Sin is anti-reality. Lies are the technology of sin, the generating phenomenon and the result of sin. These make an engine of sin, called iniquity:
1) People sin in thought (the fruit is attractive, good for food, and good for wisdom)
2) The sin matures and becomes embodied, acted out.
3) Consequences arrive: their eyes are open, and they are anxious.
4) God confronts them; Reality asks, “Where are you? Did you eat of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it?’”
5) The issue is avoided (“I hid because I was naked.”) and authority is offloaded. Another person or a circumstance is scapegoated (“This woman whom you have me did give me of the fruit and I did eat of it.”)
6) The individual internalizes and defends the lie. By this action, the sin has fully grown and brought death, enslavement to the lie, and deafness to the words of God.
Yakov also tells us:
“Each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own desire. Desire, when conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin when fully grown brings for death.”
Reality always wins. God is truth, and when people can not stand the truth, His presence destroys them, so people hide with fig leaves of any variety. Yah’s answer is always to remember both the sin and the cost. He reprimanded them, cast them out of the garden, made them animal skins to wear, and taught them sacrifices of the first fruit.
It came to pass that when the children of Israel were in the wilderness they again accused God of bringing them out into the wilderness to die, so Yah had nakhashim seraphim (firey serpents) bite them. When they started dying, He had Moses create a bronze serpent and lift it up on a standard.
Everyone knows John 3:16, but few can recite John 3:14-15:
“Just as Moshe lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
All of this is done so that we will accomplish the Shema (Deuteronomy 6):
“Hear, O Yashar’el: Yahuwah Elohaynu, Yahuwah is one: And you shall love Yahuwah Elohayka with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart: And you shall teach them diligently unto your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them upon the posts of your house, and on your gates.”
The Shema, The Creed of Hearing and Obeying, is not casual. These words are our Life.
The word Jakov would have naturally used is shema (“hear,” usually obediently / understandingly), which is related to shem (“name” or authority); and this passage shows us what it means to the Hebraic mind. He tells us, “Prove yourselves doers (asah / poietes) of the word, and not merely hearers (shomea / akroates) who delude themselves.” In other words, do not be self-deceived; do not think that you can override God’s precepts by your own judgement; do not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Do not serve your own lies about righteousness, thereby closing your ears and putting out your eyes (figuratively).
To bear the Name (shem) is to obey (shema) through obedient action.
Going the Way of Cain
Cain was a worker of the soil.
His brother, Havel, was a shepherd.
Both were priests, offering sacrifices before Yahuwah.
It comes to pass that Cain gives a First fruits offering, and whereas Yahuwah looks in favor upon Havel’s firstlings offering. This angered Cain, and he was downcast.
Yahuwah said to Cain something all should consider:
“Why is something kindled in you, and why has your face fallen? Is it not certain that if you do well, it be exalted? But if you do not do well, sin is crouching in wait at the threshold; it has urges toward you, but you must subdue and govern it.”
The Father likens the drive to sin to a predator sprung back, ready to pounce at the tent flap of Cain’s heart. His heart is full of darkness. A fire is burning. A dragon is lying low outside his tent. Cain know he must fight it – unless he makes it his master.
Cain went out into the field with Havel and murdered him.
Yahuwah asks him, “Where is Havel, your brother?”
Cain answers, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper.”
Notice how he follows the same pattern as his parents:
1) Cain sinned in thought.
2) It matured, kindled, crouched in him; then overtook him.
3) Consequence manifests: Havel is dead. His blood cries out. Reality is undeniable.
4) The truth comes: Havel’s blood cries out and Yahuwah asks, “Where is Havel?”
5) The issue is avoided; Authority structure is rejected: “I do not know. What am I? My brother’s keeper?””
6) The individual reframes the situation: “My punishment is more than I can bear.” Cain makes himself a victim of his own actions.
But Yah is gracious and protective. He gives Cain a mark so that no man who finds him will kill him. We see God’s wisdom and justice here: Cain understands justice, and fearing consequence means that his moral-causal reasoning is intact. He admits the law: “Whoever sheds human blood shall have his blood shed by humans, for humans are made in the image of God.”
This pattern of Cain is an intensification of what his parents practiced. It becomes another archetype of human error. Regarding the pattern, Yehudah (Jude) writes this:
“Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korach.”
Yehudah relates this pattern to something done by Balaam, the very real prophet of Most High who still rebelled in his office as a mouthpiece of Heaven, and also by Korach, who insisted on democratizing the Aaronic-Levitical priesthood system during the years of wandering. He says of them, “These are blemishes on your love feasts, as they boldly carouse together, looking after themselves; waterless clouds, carried along by ruachoth; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars for whom the nether gloom of darkness has been reserved forever.
He relates them to fallen angels, who are currently chained in the outer darkness under the earth, right before disclosing the book of Hanoch (Enoch) as the source of this reference in verses 14 and 15. These men, too, are messengers, “elohim” as we discussed in Psalm 82 – and they will all perish as mere mortal men. This loops his letter back in its chiastic structure to verses 6 and 7:
“And the angels that did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept by Him in eternal change in the nether gloom until the judgement of the great day ( summarizing 1 Hanoch 6-21); just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”
These people crossed divinely-assigned boundaries. This Enochic view permeates the 2nd Temple worldview, and references to this book are scattered throughout the New Testament writings. Jude is tying boundary violation to selfishness; disorder due to tyranny of one’s own appetite; a rebellion against the cosmic order with contempt in a way that corrupts or kills others.
Cain said, “I want to do things my own way and be accepted; and if I have one person to compete with, I can solve that with murder.” Cain did this as a practicing Yahwist priest, sacrificing to the One True God.
Balaam said, “I want reward and gain for a request I know that I cannot grant.” He did this while speaking the words of Yahuwah.
Korach said, “I want authority that was properly bestowed to another.” He wanted to obtain an office in service to Yahuwah.
All three have a forbidden desire that causes them to rebel against God by crossing a boundary, and it is still a sin even if their motives are good, even if they are attempting to serve God.
Notice also, the starting point of the letter:
“For admission has been secretly gained by some who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly persons who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Yahushua Ha’Mashiach.”
Licentiousness is Yehudah’s main concern.
Mere belief does not make one holy.
The angels believe, and they do so with fear; and the ones who sinned know Him factually.
Yehudah is warning us that it tends to work this way. The devil masquerades as a Messenger of the Light. Balaam spoke true words of God during an act of rebellion. Pharaoh’s magicians produced miracles that rivaled what God allowed Moshe to do. There is an epistemological problem at the root of this whole operation: how do we know what is true?
Yah had told Balaam not to go, and he went. He was a rebel speaking the truth.
The devil recited scripture to Yahushua in the desert, but not to truly correct him.
Balaam wanted a reward of money and honor.
The devil tried to keep his reward – the whole earth – to himself.
Balaam was supposed to be a seer. He was blind.
He was made in the image of God. God spoke through a donkey.
So Balaam solves the problem: He gets the Israelites to cross a divinely-appointed boundary by sleeping with and marrying Moabite pagan women, who cause them to worship Ba’al Peor (the Master of the Land), the local deity. 24,000 of them perish.
These people had been explicitly commanded not to do this in Exodus 34:15-16.
“Otherwise, you might make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land… and sacrifice to their gods… and take their daughters for your sons, and their daughters play the harlot after their gods and make your sons play the harlot after their gods…”
A lawyer’s mind might say, “Well, this isn’t the land, so the rule doesn’t apply.” This is backwards. The law is teleological: you don’t want the result, so don’t do the action, no matter where you are. If you don’t want to reap it, don’t sow it. They were already a holy people since Sinai – holy meaning “set apart” (here, specifically unto Yahuwah). Look at these passages:
“Sanctify to me every firstborn, the first offspring of every womb among the sons of Yasharel, both of man and beast; it belongs to me.” – Exodus 13:2
“Now then, if you will indeed obey by voice and keep (shamar, guard) My Covenant, then you will be My treasured possession among all the peoples… and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy (set-apart) nation.”
Even the firstborn calves were to be set apart to God. This is pre-Levitical national priesthood – that nation being all who heard the law at Sinai and agreed with it, saying, “All which Yahuwah has spoken, we will do, and we will understand (shema).” (Exodus 24:7)
The entire nation, which is the entire body of the Covenant Assembly, was to be separated from those outside its jurisdiction, theology, and practices.
Notice, also, that they did not say, “We will understand, and then we will obey.” Instead, they put obedience before understanding, that by living the life, they will understand.
This takes us back to Yahushua’s words: “If you abide in my word, then you are truly my disciples’ and you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free (John 8)… and bear much fruit (John 15).” But you must be doers, not merely hearers (James), practicing righteousness (1 John).
Knowledge is not enough. It must be practiced.
This brings us to the definition of wickedness in Psalms 50:
But to the wicked, Elohim says.
“What right have you to recount my statutes
And to take my covenant in your mouth?
For you hate discipline,
And you cast My words behind you.”
Wicked (rasha) describes someone who has heard God’s commandments and put them away. His charge is this: People know and repeat his statutes; claim that they are his covenant people; then, because they hate discipline, live contrary to His commandments. These are condemned.
This begs the question: How does a person get here?
The answer is: The same way we’ve always obtained the problem.
The Tree of Blindness Concerning Good and Evil
Perhaps the most sinister line in all of scripture is the false promise of enlightenment given to Chavah by the Serpent:
“For Elohim knows that on that day your eyes will be opened, and you will be like Elohim, knowing good and evil.”
And now, all we do is continuously eat of this same fruit, calling it holiness.
The banality of Delusion isn’t exotic; it’s commonplace. This is the default condition of mankind.
The durability of the pattern comes from its honest definition: any system that is not Yahuwah’s system is a false and rival system. Indeed, this system is attractive to those who do not know God; it has many attractive features, including permissions to satisfy desires, to think oneself wise, and to see oneself as more righteous than their neighbor according to a system of their own construction.
On the Last Day, as occurred in Gan Eden with Adam and Chavah, Yahuwah will arrive and expose what mankind has done. Until then, the bulk of humanity will judge unjustly and practice a life incompatible with the One who made them, and the Son of Man will say to those who work iniquity, “Depart from me, for I never knew you,” even though they call him Lord, because we followed another prescription for righteousness.
By attempting to become better judges, by attempting to legislate a greater law than Yah has given us, we have only managed to create inferior laws by which the consciences of the many have been bound, and these will be trained up in these distorted ideas of righteousness, have their consciences seared, and will hold to their traditions as though they were the very words of God, and so they will live deceived and be surprised at the end.
People keep believing in a higher way.
People keep eating the fruit of which God said, “You shall not eat of it.”
These will not be able to eat from the Tree of Life,
Just like Adam and Chavah.
