Pharisees
The Pharisees (from the Hebrew perushim, from parash, meaning "to separate") were one of the successor groups of the Hasidim (the "pious"), an anti-Hellenic movement that formed in the time of the Seleucid king, Antiochus Epiphanes (175-163 B.C.E.). The first mention of them is in a description by Josephus of the four schools of thought into which the Jews were divided (145 B.C.E.). The other three schools were the Essenes, revolutionaries, and the Sadducees. The Essenes were apolitical, and the revolutionaries, in the form of Sicarii and Zealots, formed specifically to resist the Roman Empire. The Saducees and Pharisees began as political factions in the early Hellenic period.
Conflicts between the Saducees and the Pharisees took place in the context of much broader conflicts among Jews in the post-exilic era. One conflict was class, between the wealthy and the poor. Another conflict was cultural, between those who favored hellenization and those who resisted it. A third was juridico-religious, between those who emphasized the importance of the Temple, and those who emphasized the importance of other Mosaic laws and prophetic values. Fundamentally, Saducees and Pharisees were divided concerning the third conflict, but at different times were influenced by the other conflicts. In general, whereas the Saducees were conservative, aristocratic monarchists, the Pharisees were ecclectic, popular, and more democratic. The Phariseeic position is exemplified by the assertion that "A learned bastard takes precedence over an ignorant High Priest."
The Saducees were aligned with the priests, members of the tribe of Levi, and descendants of Aaron who were given charge of the Tabernacle. The religious authority of the priests was institutionalized with the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem around 1000 B.C.E. At that time priestly power was constrained by the monarchy, controlled by the House of David of the tribe of Judah. Both the Temple and the Monarchy were destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E., and most Jews were sent into exile. In 539 B.C.E., however, the Persians conquored Babylon and in 537 B.C.E. Cyrus the Great allowed Jews to return to Judea and rebuild the Temple. He did not, however, allow the restoration of the monarchy, which ledt the priests as the dominant authority. By the second century B.C.E. Judea was subject to the Syrian-Hellenic Seleucid Empire. Following a bloody revolt, John Hyrcanus established a new monarchy in the form of the priestly Hasmonean dynasty in 152 B.C.E. -- thus establishing priests as political as well as religious authorities. (Saducee comes from Zadok, the name of the priestly house to which the Hasmoneans belonged).
The end of the Babylonian Exile saw not only the construction of the Second Temple, but the canonization of the Bible as well. Although the priests controlled the monarchy and the Temple, scribes and sages (who would later come to be addressed as rabbi, "my master") monopolized the study of the Torah, which was read publicly on market-days, a practice which was instutionalized after the return from the Babylonian exile. These rabbis developed and maintained an oral tradition alongside of the Holy Writ, and identified with the prophets (Biblical political and religious reformers who came from other tribes than Levi). These rabbis and their followers came to be known as the Pharisees, or "separatists." This term may owe to their objection to the Hasmonean monopoly on power, or to their rejection of Hellenic culture.
The political rift between the two parties became evident when Pharisees demanded that the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannai choose between being king and being High Priest. This demand led to a brief civil war that ended with a bloody repression of the Pharisees, although at his deathbed the king called for a reconciliation between the two parties. Alexander was succeeded by his widow, Salome Alexandra, whose brother, Simeon ben Shetah, was a leading Pharisee. Upon her death her elder son, Hyrcanus, sought Pharisee support, and her younger son, Aristobulus, sought the support of the Saducees. The result was a civil war that ended when the Roman general Pompey captured Jerusalem in 63 B.C.E., ended the monarchy, and named Hyrcanus High Priest. In 57 B.C.E. Hyrcanus was deprived of all political authority and rule over Judea was given to the Proconsul of Syria. In 40 B.C.E. the Romans installed the Idumean Herod as king, confirming the termination of the Hasmonean dynasty.
It was during this time that the Sanhedrin was established, which became a new site for the struggle between the Saducees and the Pharisees. In 57 B.C.E. the Proconsul Cabineus established five regional synhedria, or councils, of 23 elders, to regulate the internal affairs of the Jews. The Sanhedrin was a legislative council of 71 elders chaired by the High Priest, that interpreted Jewish law and adjudicated appeals, especially in ritual matters. The specific number of councils, members of councils, and their powers actually varied depending on Roman policy.
When the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. (during the Jewish revolt from 66 C.E. to 73 C.E.), the Saducees ceased to exist, and Phariseeism emerged as the dominant form of Judaism, which came to be known as "Tannaitic" (from the Aramaic word for "repeat," also used to mean "learn") or "Rabbinic" Judaism. During this period Romans governed Judea through a Procurator at Caesarea, and the Rabbis established authority over Jewish law and practice through the office of the Patriarch, and a reconstituted Sanhedrin at Javneh. Instead of giving tithes to the priests and sacrificing offerings at the Temple, Jews gave money to charities and studied in local Synagogues.
When the Emperor Hadrian threatened to rebuild Jerusalem as a pagan city dedicated to Jupiter, in 132 C.E., leading sages of the Sanhedrin supported a rebellion (and, for a short time, an independent state) led by Simon bar Kozeba (also called Bar Kochba, or "son of a star"); some, such as Rabbi Akiba, believed Bar Kochbat to be messiah, or king. This revolt ended in 135 C.E. when Bar Kochba and his army were defeated. According to a midrash, in addition to Bar Kochba the Romans executed ten leading members of the Sanhedrin: the high priest, R. Ishmael; the president of the Sanhedrin, R. Shimon ben Gamaliel; R. Akiba; R. Hanania ben Teradion; the interpreter of the Sanhedrin, R. Huspith; R.Eliezer ben Shamua; R. Hanina ben Hakinai; the secretary of the Sanhedrin, R. Yeshevav; R. Yehuda ben Dama; and R. Yehuda ben Baba. The Rabbinic account describes agonizing tortures: R. Akiba was flayed, and R. Hanania was burned at a stake, with wet wool held by a Torah scroll wrapped around his body to prolong his death. This account also claims that the rabbis were executed to atone for the guilt of the ten brothers who kidnaped Joseph. It is possible that this account represents a Phariseeic response to the Christian account of Jesus' crucifixion; in both accounts the Romans brutally punish rebels, who accept their torture as atonement for the crimes of others.
After the suppression of the revolt the vast majority of Jews were sent into exile; shortly thereafter, Judah haNasi edited together Tannaitic judgements and traditions into the Mishna, one of the key texts of Rabbinic Judaism.
At first the theology of the Pharisees developed through their conflict with the Saducees; then it developed as an adaptation to life without the Temple, and life in exile. In general, the Pharisees emphasized a committment to social justice, belief in the brotherhood of mankind, and a messianic faith in the redemption of the Jewish nation and, ultimately, humanity. Moreover, they believed that these ends would be achieved through halakha ("the way"), a corpus of laws derived from a close reading of sacred texts. This belief entailed both a commitment to study and scholarly debate, and a commitment to relate religion to ordinary concerns and daily life. This tradition reached its fullest expression in the development of the Talmuds, elaborations of the Mishnah and records of Rabbinic debates and discussions, compiled around 400 C.E. in Palestine and around 500 C.E. in Babylon.
"Pharisee" in the New Testament
The destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. put an end to that form of Judaism which was dominated by the priesthood and sacrifice. At that time two groups claimed authority based on the Bible: the Pharisees, and a new group, Christians, who were followers of Jesus. The Pharisees claimed that the Jewish people could achieve redemption through the observance of laws derived from the Bible; the Christians believed that people could be saved through the intercession of Jesus Christ, whose mission was predicted by the Bible, and superceeds the Biblical covenant. In the fourth century C.E., Christians canonized a "New Testament" consisting of texts written between 60 C.E. and about 150 C.E., which spell out the new covenant and provides the case for its basis in the Bible.
In the New Testament Pharisees are often represented as being the ideological foes of Jesus. An important binary in the New Testament is the opposition between law and love. Accordingly, the New Testament presents the Pharisees as obsessed with man-made rules (especially concerning purity) whereas Jesus is more concerned with God’s love; the Pharisees scorn sinners whereas Jesus seeks them out. Because of the New Testament's frequent depictions of Pharisees as self-righteous rule-followers, and because most scholars agree that the gospels place the blame for Jesus' crucifixion on a large faction of Pharisees, the word "pharisee" (and its derivatives: "pharisaical", etc.) has come into semi-common usage in English to describe a hypocritical and arrogant person who places the letter of the law above its spirit. Jews today, who ascribe to Pharisaic Judaism, typically find this insulting if not anti-Semitic.
Many non-Christians object that the four Gospels, the scriptures of a religion seeking to separate from Judaism, are likely a very biased source concerning the conduct of the Pharisees. Some have argued that Jesus was himself a Pharisee, and that his arguments with Pharisees is a sign of inclusion rather than fundamental conflict (disputation is the dominant narrative mode in the Talmud). Others have argued that the portrait of the Pharisees in the New Testament is an anachronistic caricature. For example, when Jesus declares the sins of a paralytic man forgiven, the New Testament has the Pharisees criticizing Jesus' blasphemy. But Jewish sources from the time commonly associate illness with sin and healing with forgiveness, and there is no actual Rabbinic source that questions or criticizes this practice. Although the New Testament presents the Pharisees as obsessed with avoiding impurity, Rabbinic texts reveal that the Pharisees were concerned merely with offering means for removing impurities, so that a person could again participate in the community. According to the New Testament, Pharisees wanted to punish Jesus for healing a man’s withered hand on the Sabbath, but there is no Rabbinic rule according to which Jesus had violated the Sabbath. According to the New Testament the Pharisees objected to Jesus's mission to outcast groups such as beggars and tax-collectors, but Rabbinic texts actually emphasize the availability of forgiveness to all. Indeed, much of Jesus' teaching is consistent with that of the Pharisees. Some scholars believe that those passages of the New Testament that present a caricature of the Pharisees were not written during Jesus' lifetime but rather sometime after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., at a time when it had become clear that most Jews did not consider Jesus to be the messiah. At this time Christians sought most new converts from among the gentiles. They thus presented a story of Jesus that was more sympathetic to Romans than to Jews. Moreover, it was only after 70 that the Phariseeism emerged as the dominant form of Judaism. For Christian leaders at this time to present Christianity as the legitimate heir to the Old Testament Covenant, they had to devalue Rabbinic Judaism.
Pharisees in Josephus
text needed here
Modern cultural assessments
text needed here
References
- Shaye J.D. Cohen 1988 From the Maccabees to the Mishnah ISBN 0-664-25017-3
- Paula Fredriksen 1988 From Jesus to Christ ISBN 0-300-04864-5