{"id":47946,"date":"2024-09-24T05:41:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T11:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=47946"},"modified":"2024-09-26T12:21:05","modified_gmt":"2024-09-26T18:21:05","slug":"historical-narratives-and-the-pharisees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/09\/historical-narratives-and-the-pharisees\/","title":{"rendered":"Historical Narratives and the Pharisees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Growing up in the Church, I repeatedly heard stories where missionaries encountered people who had been reading anti-Mormon literature and told them that &#8220;you wouldn&#8217;t decide on which car to buy by reading only the stuff put out by a company&#8217;s competitors &#8211; you would also read what the company that produced the car has to say to get a balanced view. The same should be true for religions.&#8221; When looking at historical sources, unfortunately, it isn&#8217;t always easy to do the same, because the religion&#8217;s own sources are no longer extant. Such was the case with the early <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/who-were-the-pharisees\/\">Pharisees<\/a> &#8211; a topic explored by Thomas Wayment in a recent interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog <em>From the Desk<\/em>. What follows here is a copost to the full interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-wp-embed is-provider-from-the-desk wp-block-embed-from-the-desk\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"XO2QKGiPEU\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/who-were-the-pharisees\/\">Who Were the Pharisees?<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Who Were the Pharisees?&#8221; &#8212; From the Desk\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/who-were-the-pharisees\/embed\/#?secret=AzNfif3mij#?secret=XO2QKGiPEU\" data-secret=\"XO2QKGiPEU\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In the interview, Thomas Wayment explained why the historic sources about the Pharisees must be treated with caution:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>No firsthand sources have survived that tell about the rise of the Pharisees in the mid-second century BCE. Instead, information about the movement must be traced through the works of others, most notably Flavius Josephus (who was both sympathetic to the movement and shared some of their beliefs), the New Testament, and a few other scattered references that mention them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All this is to remind the reader that what we know about the Pharisees must be viewed critically and with the skepticism that surrounds any movement whose story is told through historical sources that were subject to bias, differing conceptions, and unique agendas.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>He gave a few examples, noting that Jewish historian Flavius Josephus described them as &#8220;religious hard-liners, interested in being \u201cexact exponents of the laws,\u201d who were also interested in holding sway&#8221; in the royal court. On the other hand, &#8220;the Dead Sea Scrolls refer to the Pharisees as those who enjoyed &#8216;smooth things,&#8217; meaning easy teachings. This is precisely the opposite view of them that is presented in the canonical gospels, and so the scrolls help us see that Pharisees were not universally seen as hardline religious zealots.&#8221; (This is probably also a comment on the Qumran community&#8217;s own level of zealousness.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most prominent examples of portrayals of the Pharisees, however, is the ones early Christians made of them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>I think that the person who reads the Gospels might come away with the opinion that the Pharisees were united in their hatred of Jesus and that Jesus only rebuked them. This would, of course, overstate the historical evidence, which shows that Pharisees \u201cbelieved\u201d in Jesus (Acts 15:5) and that some leading Christians like Paul were either of the Pharisee tradition or were sympathetic to their teachings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The four gospels are not unanimous in their description of what things the Pharisees found offensive in Jesus\u2019s teachings, but it appears that some of the early points of disagreement were centered on ritual purity, the miracles performed on the Sabbath, and other matters of personal and public religious observance. &#8230; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The trend to make the Pharisees the bad guys of the gospels is quite pervasive, and while this likely overstates the moments of interaction and conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees, it does appear to be quite pervasive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reason for Matthew\u2019s antagonism might be rather simple. In particular, his readers needed clear differentiation between their teachings and Jesus\u2019s. With considerable overlap between the teachings of Jesus and those of the Pharisees, it is reasonable to assume that a first century author would need to offer as much clarity as possible in order for readers to make an informed choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A reasonable person in the first century would want clarity on a matter such as how Jesus\u2019s teachings on the resurrection differed from those of the Pharisees, who also believed in immortality of the soul.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve also read that the Pharisees made convenient scapegoats for the execution of Jesus at a time when the actual executioners (the Romans) were the major political power, thus leading Gospel writers to shift the focus to the Pharisees and other Jewish movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One way in which this discussion continues to be relevant is that, in many ways, early Pharisees laid the foundations of modern Judaism:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>During the medieval period, the rabbis traced their intellectual heritage to the Pharisees\u2014but that is a connection that was made later. Perhaps if we are to think of the rabbis and Pharisees as \u201cthe same,\u201d our thinking would need to focus on the concept that they were both deeply committed to living the Law and teaching it correctly. &#8230; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the rabbis began tracing their lineage to the Pharisees, it signaled a moment in history when the religious elites of a later generation saw value in aligning themselves with a respectable and notable past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are good reasons to think that the rabbis saw themselves as part of a noble heritage, a vibrant intellectual past, and a faithful people. This should cause all those who have maligned the Pharisees to pause and consider just what the Pharisees mean to the Jewish people. Certainly they carry the unfortunate stigma of the gospel authors\u2019 wrath, but I think many Christians today would applaud their commitment to maintaining the purity of their ancestral beliefs.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The Pharisees were likely less villainous than we think and are an honored part of the Jewish tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>For more on the question of &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fromthedesk.org\/who-were-the-pharisees\/\">who were the Pharisees?<\/a>&#8220;, head on over to read the full interview with Thomas Wayment at <em>From the Desk<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Growing up in the Church, I repeatedly heard stories where missionaries encountered people who had been reading anti-Mormon literature and told them that &#8220;you wouldn&#8217;t decide on which car to buy by reading only the stuff put out by a company&#8217;s competitors &#8211; you would also read what the company that produced the car has to say to get a balanced view. The same should be true for religions.&#8221; When looking at historical sources, unfortunately, it isn&#8217;t always easy to do the same, because the religion&#8217;s own sources are no longer extant. Such was the case with the early Pharisees &#8211; a topic explored by Thomas Wayment in a recent interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk. What follows here is a copost to the full interview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10397,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2890,2907],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-desk","category-new-testament"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47946"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47948,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47946\/revisions\/47948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}