Pharisees
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The word Pharisees comes from the Hebrew פרושים prushim from פרוש parush, meaning "separated" , that is, one who is separated for a life of purity. (Ernest Klein, Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language) The Pharisees were, depending on the time, a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews that flourished during the Second Temple Era (536 B.C.E.–70 C.E.). After the destruction of the Second Temple, the Pharisaic sect was re-established as Rabbinic Judaism — which ultimately produced normative, traditional Judaism, the basis for all contemporary forms of Judaism, with the possible exception of the Karaites.
Background
Generally, the Jews accepted foreign rule when they were only required to pay tribute, and otherwise allowed to govern themselves internally. However, when the Seleucid Greek ruler Antiochus IV imposed a program of forced Hellenization, requiring Jews to abandon their own laws and customs, Judah Maccabee assumed leadership of a bloody revolt against the Seleucids. Judah liberated Jerusalem in 165 B.C.E. and restored the Temple. Judah's nephew John Hyrcanus established a new monarchy in the form of the priestly Hasmonean dynasty, thus establishing priests as political as well as religious authorities. Although the Hasmoneans were heroes for resisting the Seleucids, their reign lacked the legitimacy conferred by descent from the Davidic dynasty of the First Temple Era.
Around this time the Sadducees emerged as the party of the priests and allied elites, the name Sadducee coming from the ancient priestZadok). The Pharisee party emerged largely out of the group of scribes and sages who objected to the Hasmonean monopoly on power, hoped for a Davidic Messiah, and criticized the growing corruption of the Hasmonean elites. The emphasized that all Jews, not only the priests, were supposed to keep the entire Law of Moses.
During the Hasmonean period, the Sadducees and Pharisees functioned primarily as political parties. The Pharisees opposed the Hasmonean wars of expansion of the Hasmoneans against the Samaritans and the forced conversion of the Idumeans. The political rift between them became wider when a Pharisee insisted that the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus choose between being king and being high priest rather than occupying both positions himself. In response, Jannaeus sided with the Sadducees by adopting their rites in the Temple. His actions caused a riot in the Temple and led to a brief civil war that ended with a bloody repression of the Pharisees. Alexander was succeeded by his widow, Salome Alexandra, whose brother, Shimon ben Shetach, was a leading Pharisee. Josephus attests that Salome Alexandra was very favorably inclined toward the Pharisees and that their political influence grew tremendously under her reign, especially in the institution known as the Sanhedrin.
Upon Salome's death, her elder son, Hyrcanus, sought the Pharisees' support, and her younger son, Aristobulus, sought the support of the Sadducees. The conflict between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus culminated in a civil war that ended when the Roman general Pompey captured Jerusalem in 63 B.C.E. and inaugurated the Roman period of Jewish history. Echoing Jeremiah's attitude toward the Babylonian capture of Jerusaelm in 586 B.C.E., the Pharisees regarded Pompey’s defilement of the Temple in Jerusalem as a divine punishment of Sadducean misrule. They asked Pompey to restore the old priesthood and abolish the royalty of the Hasmoneans ("Ant." xiv. 3, § 2). Pompey ended the monarchy and named Hyrcanus high priest and "ethnarch," a lesser title than "king."
In 57 B.C.E. Hyrcanus was deprived of the remainder of political authority and ultimate jurisdiction was given to the Roman Proconsul of Syria. The Proconsul Cabineus established five regional synhedria (Sanhedrins, or councils) 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. Their specific composure and powers actually varied depending on Roman policy.
In matters of state finance, administration, and military affairs, the Proconsul ruled through Hyrcanus's Idumaean associate Antipater. Laterm Antipater's sons governed the northern and southern districts of the the former territory of Israel: Phasael administering Judea, and Herod ruling Galilee. In 40 B.C.E., however, Aristobulus's son Antigonus overthrew Hyrcanus and named himself both king and high priest.
Herod fled to Rome where he sought the support of Mark Antony and Octavian and secured recognition by the Roman Senate. He soon dislodged Antigonus and was installed as king, thus bringin and end to the Hasmonean dynasty. Sadducean opposition to Herod led him to treat the Pharisees favorably at first. His Idumean background and his close association with Rome, however, made him an unpopular ruler. His massive restoration and expansion of the Second Temple may have been designed to gain support, but his notorious treatment of his family his ruthless suppression of the Hasmonaeans further eroded his popularity. In the later years of his reign, the certain groups of the Pharisees opposed him and thus fell victims to his bloodthirstiness ("Ant." xvii. 2, § 4; 6, §§ 2-4). Meanwhile, Herod found willing allies among the Sadducees, who now re-emerged reclaim the high priesthood and challenge Pharisaic pre-eminence.
After Herod's death in 4 B.C.E., various radical Jewish elements rose in revolt: Judas in the Galilee.
Religious life under Roman
In the first decades of Roman rule, the Temple remained the center of Jewish ritual life. Jews were supposed to travel to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices at the Temple three times a year: Passover, Sukkot, and Shavuot. However the 70 year exile in Babylon, Jewish houses of assembly—known in Hebrew as a "beit knesset" or in Greek as a "synagogue"—were the primary meeting place for prayer. After the building of the Second Temple in the time of Ezra, the local houses of assembly and study remained important institutions in Jewish life.
During the Roman period the Pharisees were politically quiescent, and studied, taught, and worshiped in their own way. Although popular and respected, they had no political power. Rather, they only had the power of persuasion.
During this period the theological differences between the Sadducees and Pharisees intensified. According to Jacob Neusner (1998), two things fundamentally distinguished the Pharisaic from the Sadducean approach to the Torah.
First, Pharisees interpreted Exodus 19:3-6 literally: "if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." Or, in the words of 2 Maccabees 2:17, Pharisees believed that "God gave all the people the heritage, the kingdom, the priesthood, and the holiness." Moreover, the Torah already provided some ways for all Jews to lead a priestly life.The Pharisees believed that all Jews in their ordinary life, and not just the Temple priesthood or Jews visiting the Temple, should observe rules and rituals concerning purification.
Second, the Pharisees believed that there were two Torahs. In addition to the Torah recognized by both the Sadducees and Pharisees and believed to have been written by Moses, the Pharisees believed that there was another Torah. They referred to the five books of Moses as the “Written Torah,” and the corpus of oral laws and traditions as the “Oral Torah,” because it was not written down but was rather transmittted by God to Moses orally, and was then memorized and then passed down orally by Moses and his successors over the generations. In other words, they did not interpret the Written Torah liberally; rather, they asserted that the sacred scriptures were not complete and could therefore not be understood on their own terms. The Oral Torah functioned to elaborate and explicate what was written; it is unclear whether or not the Pharisees and later rabbis believed they were interpreting the Torah.
Also, unlike the Sadducees, the Pharisees also believed in the resurrection of the dead in a future, messianic age.
The destruction of the Temple and the end of the Second Temple era
By 66 C.E. Jewish discontent with Rome had escalated. At first, the priests tried to suppress rebellion, even calling upon the Pharisees for help. After the Roman garrison failed to stop Hellenists from desecrating a synagogue in Caesarea, however, the high priest suspended payment of tribute, inaugurating the Great Jewish Revolt. The destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. not only put an end to the revolt, it was a profoundly traumatic experience for the Jews that marked the end of an era.
From Pharisees to rabbis
Revolutionaries like the Zealots had been crushed by the Romans, and had little credibility (the last Zealots died at Masada in 73 C.E.). Similarly, the Sadducees, whose teachings were so closely connected to the Temple cult, disappeared. The Essenes too disappeared, perhaps because their teachings so diverged from the concerns of the times.
Of all the major Second Temple sects, only the Pharisees remained, poised with teachings directed to all Jews that could replace Temple worship. Such teachings extended beyond ritual practices. According to the classic midrash in Avot D'Rabbi Nathan (4:5):
- The Temple is destroyed. We never witnessed its glory. But Rabbi Joshua did. And when he looked at the Temple ruins one day, he burst into tears. "Alas for us! The place which atoned for the sins of all the people Israel lies in ruins!" Then Rabbi Yohannan ben Zakkai spoke to him these words of comfort: "Be not grieved, my son. There is another way of gaining ritual atonement, even though the Temple is destroyed. We must now gain ritual atonement through deeds of loving-kindness."
Following the destruction of the Temple, Rome governed Judea through a Procurator at Caesarea and a Jewish Patriarch. Yohanan ben Zakkai, a leading Pharisee, was appointed the first Patriarch (the Hebrew word, Nasi, also means prince, or president), and he reestablished the Sanhedrin at Yavneh under Pharisee control. Instead of giving tithes to the priests and sacrificing offerings at the Temple, the rabbis instructed Jews to give money to charities. Moreover, they argued that all Jews should study in local synagogues, because Torah is "the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob" (Deut. 33: 4).
After the destruction of the First Temple, Jews believed that God would forgive them and enable them to rebuild the Temple – an event that actually occurred within three generations. Would this happen again? When the Emperor Hadrian threatened to rebuild Jerusalem as a pagan city dedicated to Jupiter, in 132 C.E., some of the leading sages of the Sanhedrin supported a rebellion led by Simon Bar Koziba, who established a short-lived independent state that was conquered by the Romans in 135 C.E. 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.
Romans forbade Jews to enter Jerusalem and forbade any plan to rebuild the Temple. Instead, it took over the Province of Judea directly, and renamed Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina. Romans did eventually reconstitute the Sanhedrin under the leadership of Judah haNasi (who claimed to be a descendant of King David). They conferred the title of "Nasi" as hereditary, and Judah's sons served both as Patriarch and as heads of the Sanhedrin.
Pharisaic principles and values
At first the values of the Pharisees developed through their sectarian debates with the Sadducees; then they developed through internal, non-sectarian debates over the law as an adaptation to life without the Temple, and life in exile, and to a more limited degree, life in conflict with Christianity. These shifts mark the transformation of Pharasaic to Rabbinic Judaism.
One belief central to the Pharisees was shared by all Jews of the time: monotheism. This is evident in the practice of reciting the Shema, select verses from the Torah, at the Temple and in synagogues. The Shema begins with the verses, "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God; the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might." According to the Mishna, these passages were recited in the Temple along with the twice-daily Tamid offering; Jews in the diaspora, who did not have access to the Temple, recited these passages in their houses of assembly (in Hebrew: "batei knesset"). According to the Mishnah and Talmud, the Men of the Great Assembly instituted that Jews both in Judea and in the diaspora were required to pray three times a day (morning, afternoon and evening), and include in their prayers a recitation of these passages in the morning ("Shacharit") and evening ("Ma'ariv") prayers.
The book 2 Maccabees was written by a Pharisee or someone sympathetic toward Pharisees. It includes several theological innovations: propitiatory prayer for the dead, judgment day, intercession of saints, and merits of the martyrs.
According to Josephus, whereas the Sadducees believed that people have total free will and the Essenes believed that all of a person's life is predestined, the Pharisees believed that people have free will but that God also has foreknowledge of human destiny. According to Josephus, Pharisees were further distinguished from the Sadducees in that Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead.
It is likely that Josephus highlighted these differences because he was writing for a Gentile audience, and questions concerning fate and a life after death were important in Hellenic philosophy. In fact, it is difficult, or impossible, to reconstruct a Second Temple Pharisaic theology, because Judaism itself is non-creedal; that is, there is no dogma or set of orthodox beliefs that Jews believed were required of Jews. Josephus himself emphasized laws rather than beliefs when he described the characteristics of an apostate (a Jew who does not follow traditional customs) and the requirements for conversion to Judaism (circumcision, and adherence to traditional customs). In fact, the most important divisions among different Jewish sects had to do with debates over three areas of law: marriage, the Sabbath and religious festivals, and the Temple and purity. Debates over these and other matters of law continue to define Judaism more than any particular dogma or creed.
Not one tractate of the key Rabbinic texts, the Mishnah and the Talmud, is devoted to theological issues; these texts are concerned primarily with interpretations of Jewish law. Only one chapter of the Mishnah deals with theological issues; it asserts that three kinds of people will have no share in "the world to come:" those who deny the resurrection of the dead, those who deny the divinity of the Torah, and Epicureans (who deny divine supervision of human affairs). Another passage suggests a different set of core principles: normally, a Jew may violate any law to save a life, but in Sanhedrin 74a, a ruling orders Jews to accept martyrdom rather than violate the laws against idolatry, murder, or adultery. (Judah haNasi, however, said that Jews must "be meticulous in small religious duties as well as large ones, because you do not know what sort of reward is coming for any of the religious duties," suggesting that all laws are of equal importance). In comparison with Christianity, the Rabbis were not especially concerned with the messiah or claims about the messiah.
Fundamentally, the Pharisees continued a form of Judaism that extended beyond the Temple, applying Jewish law to mundane activities in order to sanctify the every-day world. This was a more participatory (or "democratic") form of Judaism, in which rituals were not monopolized by an inherited priesthood but rather could be performed by all adult Jews individually or collectively; whose leaders were not determined by birth but by scholarly achievement. In general, the Pharisees emphasized a commitment to social justice, belief in the brotherhood of mankind, and a faith in the redemption of the Jewish nation and, ultimately, humanity. Moreover, they believed that these ends would be achieved through halakha ("the way," or "the way things are done"), a corpus of laws derived from a close reading of sacred texts. This belief entailed both a commitment to relate religion to ordinary concerns and daily life, and a commitment to study and scholarly debate.
The commitment to relate religion to daily life through the law has led some to infer that the Pharisees were more legalistic than other sects in the Second Temple Era. This is not true — the Sadducees were committed to obeying the commandments of the Torah, and the Essenes governed themselves through elaborate rules and regulations (Josephus does claim that the Pharisees were the "strictest" observers of the law, but he likely meant "most accurate"). It is more accurate to say they were legalistic in a different way. In some cases Pharisaic values led to an extension of the law — for example, the Torah requires priests to bathe themselves before entering the Temple. The Pharisees washed themselves before Sabbath and festival meals (in effect, making these holidays "temples in time"), and, eventually, before all meals. Although this seems burdensome compared to the practices of other sects, in other cases, Pharisaic law was less strict. For example, Biblical law prohibits Jews from carrying objects from a private domain ("reshut ha-yachid") to a public domain ("reshut ha-rabim") on the Sabbath. This law could have prevented Jews from carrying cooked dishes to the homes of friends for Sabbath meals. The Pharisees ruled that adjacent houses connected by lintels or fences could become connected by a legal procedure creating a partnership among homeowners; thereby, clarifying the status of those common areas as a private domain relative to the members of the partnership. In that manner people could carry objects from building to building.
Just as important as (if not more important than) any particular law was the value the rabbis placed on legal study and debate. The sages of the Talmud believed that when they taught the Oral Torah to their students, they were imitating Moses, who taught the law to the children of Israel. Moreover, the rabbis believed that "the heavenly court studies Torah precisely as does the earthly one, even arguing about the same questions" (Neusner 1998: 8). Thus, in debating and disagreeing over the meaning of the Torah or how best to put it into practice, no rabbi felt that he (or his opponent) were in some way rejecting God or threatening Judaism; on the contrary, it was precisely through such arguments that the rabbis imitated and honored God.
One sign of the Pharisaic emphasis on debate and differences of opinion is that the Mishnah and Talmud mark different generations of scholars in terms of different pairs of contending schools. Around the time the Romans conquered Judea, for example, the two major Pharisaic schools were those of Hillel and Shammai. After Hillel died in 20 C.E., Shammai assumed the office of president of the Sanhedrin until he died in 30 C.E. Followers of these two sages dominated scholarly debate over the following decades (although the Talmud records the arguments and positions of the school of Shammai, the teachings of the school of Hillel were ultimately taken as authoritative).
Pharisaic wisdom was compiled in one book of the Mishna, Pirke Avot. The Pharisaic attitude is perhaps best exemplified by a story about Hillel the Elder, who lived at the end of the 1st century B.C.E.. A man once challenged the sage to explain the law while standing on one foot. Hillel replied, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and study it."
"Pharisees" and Christianity
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In the 4th century CE, Christians canonized a "New Testament" consisting of texts written between 60 C.E. and about 95 C.E., which spell out a New Covenant and provides the case for its basis in the Bible. In the "New Testament" the ruling Pharisees of his time (the house of Shammai) 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, 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 subscribe to Pharisaic Judaism) typically find this insulting if not anti-Semitic.
Many non-Christians object that the four Gospels, which were canonized after Christianity had separated from Judaism (and after Pharisaism emerged as the dominant form of 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).[citation needed] Jesus' emphasis on loving one's neighbor, for example, echoes the teaching of the school of Hillel (Jesus' views of divorce, however, are closer to those of the school of Shammai, another Pharisee). 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, for example the Sermon on the Mount, 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 written sometime after the destruction of Herod's Temple in 70 C.E. [citation needed], 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 would have presented a story of Jesus that was more sympathetic to Romans than to Jews. It was only after 70 C.E. that Phariseeism emerged as the dominant form of Judaism.
The Apostle Paul of Tarsus, who authored much of the New Testament, spoke positively of being a Pharisee. Acts 23:6 records Paul on trial in the Temple Courts. He apologized for speaking against a priest without knowing who he insulted, and then claimed his belief in the resurrection was based on his doctrinal beliefs as a Pharisee. Paul emphasized the disagreements between Pharisees and Sadducees for his own benefit, resulting in his release. As F.F. Bruce notes in a commentary on Acts, "A Sadducee could not become a Christian without abandoning a distinctive theological tenet of his party; a Pharisee could become a Christian and remain a Pharisee—in the apostolic age, at least." (F.F. Bruce, The Book of Acts, p. 428).
In the event known as the Council of Jerusalem, Paul argued strenuously that the ritual requirements of Judaism do not apply to Gentile Christians (Acts 15:1-29). In his writings to the church in Philippi, Paul referred to his strict Jewish credentials as a cause for boasting (Philippians 3:4-6), but then stated his belief in Christ Jesus was more glorious.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Boccaccini, Gabriele 2002 Roots of Rabbinic Judaism ISBN 0-8028-4361-1
- Bruce, F.F., The Book of Acts, Revised Edition (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988)
- Cohen, Shaye J.D. 1988 From the Maccabees to the Mishnah ISBN 0-664-25017-3
- Fredriksen, Paula 1988 From Jesus to Christ ISBN 0-300-04864-5
- Neusner, Jacob Torah From our Sages: Pirke Avot ISBN 0-940646-05-6
- Neusner, Jacob Invitation to the Talmud: a Teaching Book (1998) ISBN 1-59244-155-6
- Roth, Cecil A History of the Jews: From Earliest Times Through the Six Day War 1970 ISBN 0-8052-0009-6
- Schwartz, Leo, ed. Great Ages and Ideas of the Jewish People ISBN 0-394-60413-X
- Halevi, Yitzchak Isaac "Dorot Ha'Rishonim" (Heb.)
- Baron, Salo W. "A Social and Religious History of the Jews" Vol 2.
External links
- Resources > Second Temple and Talmudic Era > Jewish Sects The Jewish History Resource Center - Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Jewish Encyclopedia: Pharisees
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