September 11, 2006

By Ted Belman

There was an interesting exchange of comments following this post National Cathedral used for ‘propaganda’ having to do with Pharisees. A Christian friend of mine made reference in passing to “Anglican Pharisees” and explained the reference as follows,

I think my post suggests what this means, but I’ll try again: “Anglican Pharisees” is what the apostate (”a person who renounces a former belief”) Anglican leadership is.

From the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, the literal definition of Pharisee is “a member of an ancient Jewish sect, distinguished by strict observance of the traditional and written law, and commonly held to have pretensions to superior sanctity”. (In the sense of strict observance of tradition, “Anglican Pharisees” is sadly ironic.)

The figurative meaning of Pharisee is, “a self-righteous person, a hypocrite”. (This is the sense in which Jesus warned against being like the Pharisees.) The apostate leaders of the Anglican communions of the West, under the guise of championing justice for the downtrodden, usually choose the wrong side for the wrong reasons, e.g., championing Khatami, while ignoring the plight of Assyrian Christians and Israel, which Anglican synods routinely demonize. That seems pretty self-righteous and hypocritical to me.

I replied,

[..] The fact that she (my friend) has a Christian understanding of Pharisees is lamentable but understandable.

In my paper The Historical Jesus when referring to Paul, I wrote,

He claimed in his Epistles to have been born a Jew and to have been a Pharisee. The Pharisees at the time were held in high regard by the Roman and Parthian empires as a dedicated group who upheld religious ideals in the face of tyranny, supported leniency and mercy in the application of laws, and championed the rights of the poor against the oppression of the rich. Paul, who was earlier known as Saul, was claiming a high honour. Paul obviously was attempting to get greater legitimacy for his views by showing he was learned in the Law. It was only as a result of the Gospels that the Pharisees got an undeserved reputation for hypocrisy.

This was the perception at the time before the Gospels which denigrated Pharisees for political or religious purposes.

When Paul spoke to king Agrippa he said (my questions are bracketed),

“My life from my youth up, the life I led from the beginning among my people and in Jerusalem is familiar to all Jews.(This is not considered to be true.) Indeed they have known me long enough and could testify, if only they would, (but as you will see, they would never testify for him.) that I belonged to the strictest group in our religion: I lived as a Pharisee. (There were stricter groups.) And it is for a hope kindled by G-d’s promise to our forefathers that I stand in the dock today. Our twelve tribes hope to see the fulfillment of that promise … I myself thought it my duty to work actively against the name of Jesus of Nazareth; and I did so in Jerusalem. (Actually he worked for the High Priest who was a quisling and wanted to suppress the messianic revolt against the Romans and the establishment.) It was I who imprisoned many of G-ds people by authority obtained from the chief priests (you see); and when they were condemned to death my vote was cast against them (as though he were a member of the Sanhedrin and entitled to vote or perhaps it was the Romans who condemned them to death for being part of the resistance after Paul turned them in). In all the synagogues I tried by repeated punishment to get them to renounce their faith (more likely, their resistance.); indeed my fury rose to such a pitch that I extended my persecution to foreign cities. On one such occasion I was traveling to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests….”

I then wrote,

The Pharisees are depicted in Acts as opposing the persecution of the followers of Jesus and at odds with the Sanhedrin. Yet Paul as a Pharisee is virulently anti-Christian. To add to the confusion Paul is also described here as on a mission for the chief priest who was by definition a Saduccee. It is unlikely that the high priest would select a Pharisee (Paul) to work for him. Why all the confusion. We’ll see.

When referring to the Romans,

The conflict erupted in the decades following the conquest with the appointment by Rome of the gentile Herod to be king of the Jews and with the appointment Alexander’s anti-nationalist son to be the High Priest. There followed certain disturbances which resulted in the nationalist leaders taking refuge in the Temple. The Pharisees joined the Romans in storming the Temple “against the will of the people”. As Josephus bears witness, “the Pharisees engaged in the wholesale slaughter that ensued, even more enthusiastically than the Romans”.

Josephus reports in Antiquities that a movement began at this time among the people “who had an inviolable attachment to liberty” and were “zealous for the law”. He further notes that “the nation was infected by it to an incredible degree.”. This movement was reflected in Massada and breathed its last gasp in the Bar Kochba Revolt in 132CE.

Thus the stage is set for an endless succession of revolts culminating in final Uprising in 66-70 CE. On the one side we find the spiritual successors to Phinehas and the Maccabbees who were messianic, nationalistic, anti-foreign, anti-accommodationist and zealous for the law. These included such sects such as the Essenes, Zealots, Ebionites and the Qumran Community. It also included the early Christians, whoever they were. On the other side we have the Romans supported by the establishment i.e. Herodians, Pharisees and Saduccees. They were all accommodationists or as some historical writings put it, “seekers after smooth things.”. To the nationalist camp this was a betrayal of the worst kind and was “breaking the law”. They resented the foreign king Herod, the foreign appointed High Priest and sacrifices in the Temple by and on behalf of foreigners. They also resented that the Jewish daughters of Herod were marrying blood relatives contrary to Mosaic Law. They referred to them as prostitutes. In the Gospels, Jesus is shown to be befriending or eating meals with “prostitutes” and “tax collectors” whereas in reality it was the actions of these “prostitutes” and tax collectors which so offended the nationalist camp.

Both Josephus and Vespasian blamed the Uprising against Rome on the Messianic fervor that gripped the land . This flies in the face of the Gospel claims that Jews suffered the destruction of the Temple because they rejected the Messiah. The New Testament makes much of the persecution of the Christians due to their belief in the Jesus of faith. In fact, the persecution was due to their support of the historical Jesus who wanted to restore Jewish sovereignty. Actually the Romans tried to suppress all the groups which were messianic and nationalistic. Herod even ordered that all Jewish males in the line of David be put to death to put an end to this fervor. Once the Christians were removed from Judaism and accommodated themselves to Roman rule, they were no longer persecuted although they weren’t respected by Romans at first, because they were religious radicals in breaking with Judaism, and Rome preferred respect for authority and the established order..

Elsewhere I wrote,

The Pharisees we hear so much about in the New Testament may have got their name, which means “those who separated from”, from a group that deserted the cause of the Maccabeans in favour of a foreign appointed High Priestly claimant during the second century BCE

Alexander Jannaeus, Judas Maccabees’ grand nephew (103-76 BCE), also had similar problems with Greek intervention and with the support of the people defeated the Greek Syrians (Seleucids). He then turned on the Pharisees who had collaborated with the foreign invaders, and killed some 800 of them according to Josephus. Alexander had two sons; one was nationalistic and supported by the people because “they were sick of servility” and the other was anti-nationalist, more accommodating and supported by the Pharisees.

It would appear that the Pharisees were more accommodating to foreign influences and thus less nationalistic, then the people. This may explain why they were held in high regard as mentioned earlier and why Paul, being a Roman citizen, claimed to be one of them. The Gospels also considered Jesus to be a Pharisee..