Pharisees 'bum rap'

By Heather Wecsler

Religion News Service

When the Rev. Pat Madden calls his adult religious students in the Catholic Diocese of Shreveport, La., "Pharisees," it isn't an insult.

"The Pharisees were educated lay people, people who wanted to do a little extra for their faith," Madden explained. "If you're doing more for your faith than just going to church on Sunday, if you're coming to religion class after work on a Wednesday night, then you share something in common with the Pharisees."

That's a far cry from how most Christians think of Pharisees.

After all, throughout the biblical Gospels, Jesus often castigates them as "blind guides" who don't practice what they preach. Indeed, their name has become synonymous with hypocrite.

Some Christians confuse the Pharisees with Jerusalem's Temple elite, those who were possibly complicit in Rome's execution of Jesus.

As a matter of history, only Rome had the power to crucify - a public, excruciating death for those convicted of treason. As a matter of Christian doctrine, Jesus died for the sins of the world.

Still, the view of Pharisees and their Jewish followers as Christ-killers has helped perpetuate nearly 2,000 years of anti-Semitism. As Easter approaches, many Christians will reflect on Jesus' ministry and sacrifice.

This might be a good time to rethink the Pharisees' image as the conniving bad guys of the New Testament.

In truth, the Pharisees get "a bum rap," says Thomas Smith, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Loyola University in New Orleans and an early church historian.

"The Pharisees," he said, "were a major component of the `glue' that held Judaism together after ... the destruction of the Temple" (in A.D. 70). Indeed, the Pharisees were the predecessors of the modern rabbis.

They were in the lineage of scribes who first came to prominence at the end of the Babylonian exile in the sixth century B.C., Smith said.

They focused on careful interpretation of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, and in finding ways to make it applicable to everyday life.

By Jesus' day, the Pharisees had introduced two concepts into Jewish thinking, said Rabbi David Kline of Temple B'nai Israel, a Reform synagogue in Monroe, La. Kline also teaches biblical studies at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

• The first was an oral tradition to complement the Torah. This tradition would ultimately form the foundation of the Talmud, a multi-volume Jewish sacred text.
• The second idea was even more revolutionary - a belief in an afterlife.

The Sadducees, Judaism's priestly caste which included the temple elite - including Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest who handed Jesus over for execution - did not share the Pharisees' belief in resurrection.

Jesus, however, obviously did.

Indeed, as he is portrayed in the Gospels, Jesus shared a great deal in common with the Pharisees, including his teaching style.

"It's probably a bit beyond the evidence to say definitely that Jesus was a Pharisee," said Smith, "but it is a distinct possibility."

So why do the Gospels portray the Pharisees in such a negative light? The answer may reflect Christian attitudes at the time the Gospels were written more than attitudes during Jesus' day, Smith said.

"The Gospel writers, all of whom are anonymous (the titles come from the late second century), would have had some interest in portraying the Jewish religion as obsolete, and Jews as rejecting the true Messiah," Smith said.

Interestingly, Smith points out that Mark, the earliest of the Gospels, doesn't depict the Pharisees quite as harshly as subsequent Gospels.

Madden said the Pharisees enjoyed argument, and it's quite conceivable they would have debated at length with Jesus over interpretations of the law.

But he suggested that the Gospels used the Pharisees mostly as foils for Jesus, narrative devices to provide a counterpoint to his teachings.

Amy-Jill Levine, a professor of New Testament studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tenn., agrees.

"For a modern, albeit inexact, analogy: The New Testament's depiction of Pharisees is much like the depiction of very liberal Democrats by very conservative Republicans, or vice versa," she said. "Some Pharisees were hypocrites, as, of course, were some Christians; others were not."

But make no mistake, scholars say, whoever the Pharisees were, they had little to nothing to do with Jesus' crucifixion.

If you're looking for a historical villain in the Gospels, look no further than the character Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. From external sources and Luke 13:1, scholars know Pilate was a brute who cared little for the religious sensitivities of the people in his jurisdiction.<

Only Pilate had the authority to crucify, and he did so on plenty of occasions, often without trial. He also controlled the high priesthood, including Caiaphas, who was essentially a political appointee.

"It was the task of the high priests to maintain the peace of Jerusalem," Levine explained. "At Passover, when Jewish pilgrims streamed into the city to celebrate the `festival of freedom' even while surrounded by Pilate's troops, the arrival of anyone claimed to be `king' would have been dangerous."

Jesus was crucified by Pilate for the crime of sedition, not blasphemy. The Sadducees might have been complicit in Jesus' execution, but they did so as agents of Rome, according to many scholars.

Interestingly, the priestly caste did not last long after the fall of the Temple in A.D. 70, Madden said.

But the Pharisees survived, and they preserved the Jewish faith.

Still, regardless of how the Gospels portray Pharisees or other Jews, Kline said he doesn't consider the books inherently anti-Jewish.

"Anti-Semitism doesn't flow from the Gospels," he said. "The anti-Semitism is in the way demagogues choose to use these stories."