Jesus and the Pharisees
One of the persistent features of common Christian readings of Scripture is a stereotype of hypocritical Pharisees. This is then often enlisted into a grace versus law debate, typical of the Reformation tradition. The range of scholarship that has argued against this stereotype seems either unknown or discounted.(At this point I must confess that in this field I’m a babe in the woods, — I still can’t quite always work out what gets Sanders and Neusner so passionate about each other’s positions.)
Some of this is no doubt down to the sharp divide between the church and academy. Some of it must owe something to the almost archetypal status of the Reformation tradition in both parts of Europe and the States. But some of it may also be down to the way in which most modern historical reconstructions assume that, on this topic at least, the gospels are historically inaccurate, and influenced primarily by the later separation of the church and the synagogue, and the polemic that arose between them towards the end of the first century. Views that simply dismiss the gospels’ historical value will always struggle to make headway in the church.
There is, for every reconstruction, a problem with sources. Josephus (himself a problematic witness) tells us little enough. The picture from the gospel traditions (with one direction of bias) is largely at odds with that of the rabbinic traditions (with another direction of bias). There may, however, be room for considering Paul further in these reconstructions. He could be the only first-century Pharisee who has left us his own words, even if his Christian perspective and polemic makes it hard to recover useful historical information. (Claims for Josephus being a Pharisee are often assumed, but heavily disputed.)
One area where I suggest we may take Paul’s witness as having some credibility is in his grounding in apocalyptic eschatology. Evidence that sits comfortably with this includes:
- The likely time of the Pharisees’ emergence roughly parallels the period when apocalyptic literature began to flourish.
- They share, with Essenes and the Jesus movement (and very probably wider circles) a belief in the resurrection.
- Their belief in “fate” (according to Josephus) may well, as Tom Wright (I think) suggests be an acceptably apologetic disguise for “divine intervention”
- At least a good number of Pharisees are to be found in support of the revolt, and, of course, no less a figure than Akiba hails bar Kochba as Messiah.
With this in mind, and very conscious that I’m very poorly read in the wider literature on this topic so that there may be significant data that I’m missing, I would suggest there is a reconstruction that makes more sense of all the witnesses we have, while still allowing for some significant reinterpretation of history as the gospel writers (particularly Matthew) assimilate the Pharisees to later opponents, and the rabbis de-eschatologise them in the service of a non-political remaking of Israel.
This tentative reconstruction in barest outline is threefold:
- Both the Pharisees and Jesus are concerned for the coming of God’s kingdom. Hence their frequent interactions with each other.
- The Pharisees believe that God’s kingdom will be hastened by demonstrating and enhancing the nation’s faithful and observant purity (and, possibly, by taking temple purity into the wider world will make up for the compromises of the temple elite with the Romans). By contrast Jesus believes that the kingdom of God brings its own purity with it.
- The Pharisees believe that impurity is contagious. Jesus believes that purity is contagious.
I think that such a reconstruction is historically plausible, allows us to see why the quite mixed traditions about Jesus and the Pharisees arose in the first place, does not present caricatures, and does not cast the arguments in terms of either law and grace, or religious superiority.
It may be that those who know the data better will be able to point out the flaws in this reconstruction. It’s final advantage (which ultimately, of course, depends on its being correct) is that it offers a way to engage the church positively and non-dismissively with the gospel material, without falling into anti-semitic stereotypes.