The Pharisees (; ) were a Jewish social movement and school of thought in the Levant during the time of Second Temple Judaism. Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical, and ritualistic basis for Rabbinic Judaism. Although the group no longer exists, their traditions are of great importance for the manifold Jewish religious movements.
Conflicts between Pharisees and Sadducees took place in the context of much broader and longstanding social and religious conflicts amongst Jews (exacerbated by the Roman conquest). One conflict was cultural, between those who favored Hellenization (the Sadducees) and those who resisted it (the Pharisees). Another was juridical-religious, between those who emphasized the importance of the Temple with its rites and services (Sadducees), and those who emphasized the importance of other Mosaic Laws (Pharisees). A specifically religious point of conflict involved different interpretations of the Torah and how to apply it to Jewish life: Sadducees recognized only the Written Torah (), rejecting Prophets, Writings, and doctrines such as the Oral Torah and the resurrection of the dead.
The contemporary Jewish historian Josephus, believed by many historians to have been a Pharisee, estimated there were around 6,000 adherents to the Pharisee movement before the fall of the Second Temple.Antiquities of the Jews, 17.2.4 He said that Pharisee influence over the common people was so great that anything they said against the king or the high priest was believed, apparently in contrast to the more elite Sadducees, who were the upper class. Pharisees claimed Mosaic authority for their interpretationBer. 48b; Shab. 14b; Yoma 80a; Yeb. 16a; Nazir 53a; Ḥul. 137b; et al. of Jewish religious law, while Sadducees represented the authority of the priestly privileges and prerogatives established since the days of Solomon, when Zadok, their ancestor, officiated as high priest.
Etymology "Pharisee" is derived from Ancient Greek (), in Strong's Concordance from Aramaic (), plural (), meaning "set apart, separated", related to Hebrew (), plural (), the Qal passive participle of the verb (). in Strong's Concordance It may refer to their separation from Gentiles, sources of ritual impurity, or from irreligious Jews.Alternatively, it may have a particular political meaning as "separatists", due to their division from the Sadducee elite: Yitzhak Isaac Halevi characterizes the Sadducees and Pharisees as political rather than religious sects.Dorot Ha'Rishonim Scholar Thomas Walter Manson and Talmud expert Louis Finkelstein suggest that "Pharisee" derives from the Aramaic words or , meaning "Persian" or "Persianizer", based on the demonym , meaning 'Persian' in the Persian language, and further akin to and . Harvard University scholar Shaye J. D. Cohen denies this, stating: "Practically all scholars now agree that the name "Pharisee" derives from the Hebrew and Aramaic or ."
Early sources The first historical mention of the Pharisees and their beliefs comes in the four gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, in which both their meticulous adherence to their interpretation of the Torah as well as their eschatological views are described. A later historical mention of the Pharisees comes from the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus in a description of the "four schools of thought", or "four sects", into which he divides the Jews in the 1st century AD. (The other schools were the Essenes, who were generally apolitical, and may have emerged as a sect of dissident priests who rejected either the Seleucid-appointed or the Hasmonean high priests as illegitimate; the Sadducees, who were the main antagonists of the Pharisees; and the Zealots.Ant. 18.1) Other sects may have emerged at this time, such as the early Christians in Jerusalem and the Therapeutae in Egypt. However, their status as Jews is unclear.
The Books of the Maccabees—two deuterocanonical books in the Bible—focus on the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucids under King Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and concludes with the defeat of General Nicanor in 161 BC by Judas Maccabeus, the hero of the work. It includes several theological points: prayer for the dead, the last judgment, intercession of saints, and martyrology. The New Testament apocrypha, known as the Gospel of Peter, also alludes to the Pharisees.
Judah ha-Nasi redacted the Mishnah, an authoritative codification of Pharisaic interpretations, around 200 AD. Most of the authorities quoted in the Mishnah lived after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD; consequently, it marked the beginning of the transition from Pharisaic to Rabbinic Judaism. The Mishnah was important because it compiled the oral interpretations and traditions of the Pharisees (and later the rabbis) into a single authoritative text, thus allowing oral tradition in Judaism to survive the destruction of the Second Temple. However, none of the rabbinic sources include identifiable eyewitness accounts of the Pharisees and their teachings.
History
From The deportation and exile of an unknown number of Jews of the Kingdom of Judah to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar II—starting with the first deportation in 597 BC, and continuing after the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple in 587 BC—resulted in dramatic changes to Jewish culture and religion. During the 70-year exile in Babylon, Jewish houses of assembly (known in Hebrew as a , or in Greek as a synagogue) and houses of prayer (Hebrew ; Greek , ) were the primary meeting places for prayer, and the house of study () was the counterpart for the synagogue.
In 539 BC, the Persians conquered Babylon, and in 537 BC, Cyrus the Great allowed Jews to return to Judea and rebuild the Temple. He did not, however, allow the restoration of the Judean monarchy, which left the Judean priests as the dominant authority. Without the constraining power of the monarchy, the authority of the Temple in civic life was amplified. It was around this time that the Sadducee party emerged as the party of priests and allied elites. However, the Second Temple, which was completed in 515 BC, had been constructed under the auspices of a foreign power, and there were lingering questions about its legitimacy. This provided the condition for the development of various sects or "schools of thought", each of which claimed exclusive authority to represent "Judaism", and which typically shunned social intercourse, especially marriage, with members of other sects.
The Temple was no longer the only institution for Jewish religious life. After the building of the Second Temple in the time of Ezra, the houses of study and worship remained important secondary institutions in Jewish life. Outside Judea, the synagogue was often called a house of prayer. While most Jews could not regularly attend the Temple service, they could meet at the synagogue for morning, afternoon, and evening prayers. On Mondays, Thursdays, and Shabbat, a weekly Torah portion was read publicly in the synagogues, following the tradition of public Torah readings instituted by Ezra.See Although priests controlled the rituals of the Temple, the scribes and sages, later called rabbis (Hebrew for "Teacher/master"), dominated the study of the Torah. These men maintained an oral tradition that they believed had originated at Mount Sinai alongside the Torah of Moses; a God-given interpretation of the Torah.
The Hellenistic period of Jewish history began when Alexander the Great conquered Persia in 332 BC. The rift between the priests and the sages developed during this time, when Jews faced new political and cultural struggles. This created a sort of schism in the Jewish community. After Alexander's death in 323 BC, Judea was ruled by the Egyptian-Hellenic Ptolemies until 198 BC, when the Syrian-Hellenic Seleucid Empire, under Antiochus III, seized control. In 167 BC, the Seleucid King Antiochus IV invaded Judea, entered the Temple, and stripped it of money and ceremonial objects. He imposed a program of forced Hellenization, requiring Jews to abandon their own laws and customs, thus precipitating the Maccabean Revolt. Jerusalem was liberated in 165 BC, and the Temple was restored. In 141 BC, an assembly of priests and others affirmed Simon Maccabeus as high priest and leader, in effect establishing the Hasmonean dynasty.
Emergence of the Pharisees
After defeating the Seleucid forces, Judas Maccabaeus's nephew, John Hyrcanus, established a new monarchy in the form of the priestly Hasmonean dynasty in 152 BC, thus establishing priests as both political and religious authorities. Although the Hasmoneans were considered heroes for resisting the Seleucids, their reign lacked the legitimacy conferred by descent from the Davidic dynasty of the First Temple era.
The Pharisees emerged largely out of the group of scribes and sages.. The Pharisees, among other Jewish sects, were active from the middle of the 2nd century BC until the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. Josephus first mentions them in connection with Jonathan Apphus, the successor of Judas Maccabeus.Josephus, Antiquities, 13:5 § 9 One of the factors that distinguished the Pharisees from other groups prior to the destruction of the Temple was their belief that all Jews had to observe the purity laws (which applied to the Temple service) outside the Temple. The major difference, however, was the continued adherence of the Pharisees to the laws and traditions of the Jewish people in the face of assimilation. As Josephus notes, the Pharisees were considered the most expert and accurate expositors of Jewish law.
Josephus indicates that the Pharisees received the backing and good-will of the common people,Josephus, Antiquities, 13:10 § 6 apparently in contrast to the more elite Sadducees associated with the ruling classes. In general, whereas the Sadducees were aristocratic monarchists, the Pharisees were eclectic, popular, and more democratic.Roth, Cecil A History of the Jews: From Earliest Times Through the Six Day War 1970 , p. 84 The Pharisaic position is exemplified by the assertion that "A learned takes precedence over an ignorant High Priest." (A —literally "bastard", according to the Pharisaic definition—is an outcast child born of a forbidden relationship, such as adultery or incest, in which marriage of the parents could not lawfully occur. The word is often but incorrectly translated as "illegitimate".)
Sadducees rejected the Pharisaic tenet of an Oral Torah, creating two Jewish understandings of the Torah. An example of this differing approach is the interpretation of "an eye in place of an eye". The Pharisaic understanding was that the value of an eye was to be paid by the perpetrator.Babylonian Talmud tractate Bava Kamma Ch. 8 In the Sadducees' view, the words were given a more literal interpretation, in which the offender's eye would be removed.Encyclopaedia Judaica s.v. "Sadducees"
The sages of the Talmud saw a direct link between themselves and the Pharisees, and historians generally consider Pharisaic Judaism to be the progenitor of Rabbinic Judaism, that is normative, mainstream Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple. All mainstream forms of Judaism today consider themselves heirs of Rabbinic Judaism and, ultimately, the Pharisees.
Hasmonean period
Although the Pharisees did not support the wars of expansion of the Hasmoneans and the forced conversions of the Idumeans, the political rift between them became wider when a Pharisee named Eleazar insulted the Hasmonean ethnarch John Hyrcanus at his own table, suggesting that he should abandon his role as High Priest due to a rumour (probably untrue) that he had been conceived while his mother was a prisoner of war. In response, he distanced himself from the Pharisees.Ant. 13.288–296.Nickelsburg, 93.