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PHARISEES

(Gk. Pharisaíoi)

An important group within Judaism of the late Second Temple period (2nd century b.c.e.–1st century c.e.). Because we have no surviving text written by a committed Pharisee and no archaeological finds that mention them, the reconstruction of the Pharisees’ aims and views must depend on the writings of third parties: the NT writers, the 1st-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, and the authors of rabbinic literature. None of these outsiders, however, was primarily interested in explaining who the Pharisees were.

All three source collections, although they understand the Pharisees very differently, support the conclusions that: they were a lay (not priestly) association who were thought to be expert in the laws; they were, in a sociological sense, “retainers” who brokered power between the aristocracy and the masses; they promoted a special living tradition in addition to the laws; they were very interested in issues of ritual purity and tithing; and they believed in afterlife, judgment, and a densely populated, organized spirit world. Few critics today would make the confident statements that characterized scholarship of a generation ago concerning the meaning of the Pharisees’ name (“separatists,” “the consecrated,” “Persians,” “specifiers”), the date and circumstances of their origin (in Ezra’s time, after the Maccabean Revolt, from the Hasidim), the degree of their involvement with apocalypticism, and their political platform. It is plausible that the Pharisees emerged from the turmoil following the Maccabean Revolt, but no more can be said at this point.

The most vigorously contested issue today concerns the degree and manner of the Pharisees’ influence over the Judean-Galilean populace in the time of Jesus and Paul. The NT authors use the Pharisees mainly as a negative foil for Jesus. Paul is the only writer known to us who actually lived as a Pharisee (Phil. 3:5), but because his writings are thoroughly conditioned by his encounter with the risen Christ (he dismisses his Pharisaic past as “dung”; v. 8), it is hazardous to make inferences about Pharisaism from them. Paul’s expert biblical knowledge doubtless comes from his former life as a Pharisee, and certain aspects of his worldview (belief in resurrection and spiritual powers) probably also continue from that past.

Mark and John portray the Pharisees as key elements of the cosmic battle between Jesus and the evil spirits. Lumped together in a scarcely differentiated Jewish leadership, they are presented as hostile to Jesus from the outset and in league with the devil (Mark 3:6, 19-30; John 8:13, 22, 44). In both texts the Pharisees appear as the most prominent Jewish group in Jesus’ environment. Mark shows them as preoccupied with issues of purity, tithing, and legal interpretation (Mark 2:1–3:6). Mark also attributes to them a special extrabiblical tradition, which Jesus denounces as merely human contrivance (Mark 7:5-8).

Matthew often couples the Pharisees with the Sadducees, even with the chief priests, to portray them all as the leadership of old Israel (Matt. 3:7; 16:1, 6), from whom the kingdom will be taken away (8:12; 21:43-45). However, tensions remain, perhaps partly as a result of Matthew’s conflicting sources. The Pharisees are both “blind guides,” whose teachings are harmful (Matt. 15:14; 16:11-12), and those who “sit on Moses’ seat,” whose teachings should be observed even while their practices are eschewed (23:2-3). Matthew introduces specific remarks about the Pharisees’ wearing of phylacteries and fringes and about their concern for tithing (Matt. 23:5, 23). This Gospel assumes their prominence in Galilean-Judean life.

Luke’s portrayal of the Pharisees recalls portraits of the Sophists in Hellenistic texts: the respected teachers of the common people, who come out to scrutinize Jesus’ activities (Luke 5:17). Though sometimes critical of him, they nevertheless address him respectfully as a fellow teacher, regularly invite him to dinner, and even try to help him in trouble (Luke 7:36; 11:37; 13:31; 14:1). Jesus is much more strident in his critique of them for typical Sophist’s faults — for being money-hungry, complacent, and ineffective in bringing about real change (Luke 11:39-44; 12:1; 16:14-15; 18:9-14). The Pharisees of Luke remain outside Jerusalem, and so are sharply distinguished from the temple authorities.

In Acts this openness continues at first, especially in the person of Gamaliel, an influential member of the Sanhedrin (Acts 5:33-39). But with the execution of Stephen, Acts presents a galvanizing Jewish opposition to the Christian “Path” (Acts 8:1-3). Some Pharisees convert, and they remain most zealous for the precise observance of torah (Acts 15:5). Indeed, Acts claims that the Pharisees are the most scrupulously precise of the schools (Acts 22:3; 26:5). When he is brought before the Sanhedrin, Acts’ Paul is able to make clever use of the Pharisees’ famous opposition to the Sadducees on the issue of resurrection (and angels) to deflect the charges against him.

Flavius Josephus, a representative of the priestly aristocracy, wrote the Jewish War in the late 70s c.e. to persuade Greek readers that the recent Jewish loss to Rome (66-74) was not a defeat of the Jewish God and that most Jews had nothing to do with the revolt. In recounting earlier history as evidence of the Jews’ good citizenship, he mentions the Pharisees incidentally as a destructive force, because of the inordinate power they wielded under the Hasmonean Queen Alexandra (BJ 1.110-14) and later under Herod (1.571). When the revolt against Rome finally broke out, however, the most eminent Pharisees joined with the temple authorities in trying to dissuade the revolutionaries, but they were equally unsuccessful (BJ 2.411). Describing the Jews’ philosophical traditions, Josephus briefly mentions that the Pharisees, in contrast to the Sadducees, believe in after life after death, judgment, and fate or providence (BJ 2.162-66).

In the Jewish Antiquities/Life, Josephus presents the Pharisees as the most influential of the Jewish parties, even though they do not officially control the organs of power, which are centered in the temple. He consistently and caustically repudiates their activities, whether under the Hasmonean prince John Hyrcanus, Alexandra, Herod the Great, or himself as commander of Galilean forces in the revolt: they allegedly use their vast popular support to cause problems for the proper leaders — i.e., for Josephus and the aristocrats (Ant. 13.288, 400-432; 17.41-45; Vita 189-98). He again cites their doctrine of the afterlife and their special extrabiblical tradition, which Josephus claims endear them to the masses (Ant. 13.297-98; 18.12-15). Throughout all his works, Josephus reiterates the Pharisees’ reputation as the most precise of the schools in interpreting the laws (BJ 1.110; 2.162; Ant. 17.41; Vita 191).

Rabbinic literature is extremely complex and multi-layered, written in Hebrew and Aramaic from the 3rd-6th centuries c.e., in Galilee and Babylonia. Because this literature mentions among its founding figures some who are elsewhere connected with the Pharisees (esp. Hillel and Shammai and the family of Gamaliel), scholars have traditionally identified the Pharisees with the rabbis. Those who liked what they found in rabbinic literature saw the Pharisees as a progressive party committed to making the Torah practicable for everyone. Those who were baffled and alienated by rabbinic style found support for their view of the Pharisees as petty legalists. Curiously, when these texts refer to a group called the pĕrûšîm, more often than not the tone is unfavorable (e.g., m. Soṭa 3.4); the rabbis do not call their own forebears pĕrûšîm. Scholars disagree, also for linguistic reasons, on the extent to which these pĕrûšîm should even be identified with the Pharisees (Gk. Pharisaíoi) of Josephus and the NT.

The general trend today is to see early rabbinic literature as the product of a small elite, which only gradually came to exert influence over larger circles of Jews toward the end of the 2nd century c.e. That elite claimed notable Pharisees among its founders, but it also took over the role of temple-related teaching. It probably originated not simply among the Pharisees but in a surviving coalition of priests, scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and others. Rabbinic literature should no longer be used, therefore, as direct evidence for the Pharisees.

Bibliography. L. L. Grabbe, Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian, 2 vols. (Minneapolis, 1992); S. N. Mason, “Chief Priests, Sadducees, Pharisees, and Sanhedrin in Acts,” in The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting, 4: Palestinian Setting, ed. R. Bauckham (Grand Rapids, 1995), 115-77; Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees. SPB 39 (Leiden, 1991); J. Neusner, The Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees before 70, 3 vols. (Leiden, 1971); A. J. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees in Palestinian Society (1988, repr. Grand Rapids, forthcoming); E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 b.c.e.–66 c.e. (Philadelphia, 1992); G. Stemberger, Jewish Contemporaries of Jesus: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes (Minneapolis, 1995).

Steve Mason

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

PHARISEES

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)