Pharisees

Scot McKnight has an interesting talk about the Pharisees. They are not quite what many Christians assume. He says we should not accuse any religious group of being hypocrites. It is not fair, and never true of everyone in the group.

Scot translates the word Greek word for Pharisees as “The Observants”.

• The Dead Sea Scrolls called the Pharisees “Seekers of Smooth Stones”. They were looking for interpretations that made the law easier to follow.

• The Essenes were conservatives. They thought the Pharisees were too liberal.

• The Sadducees were also conservative. They were the “sons of Zadok”, so they were the true priestly families. They also held political power in Jerusalem.

• The Pharisees were a reformed movement reacting to encroaching hellenisation (Greek influence through Jews in the Greed Diaspora).

• The Pharisees were trying to help the ordinary people obey the law. They believed their nation must go back to obedience to the law, and they expected the people to accept their interpretations. Religious groups have a tendency to claim that they have got things right and that if the people follow their guidance, they will be right with God.

• The Pharisees sometimes added to the law. For example, they suggested fines instead of stoning. For the Sabbath, they made rules that would help the people know what they could and could not do on the Sabbath. They were trying to make the law practical for ordinary people to understand and apply.

• The Pharisees were a populist movement. They had pastoral and social skills, because their teaching was popular with the people (until Jesus came along with better interpretation and greater authority).