Who were the Pharisees?

Bible People & HistoryIn theological review

The short answer

The Pharisees were a Jewish movement that arose in the second century BC, devoted to keeping God's law carefully in everyday life, not only in the temple. Josephus, writing outside the Gospels, describes them as the most popular party among the people and the most precise interpreters of the law; in the Gospels they clash with Jesus over Sabbath, ritual purity and their added traditions, while individual Pharisees range from secret sympathisers to Paul himself.

The fuller answer

The Pharisees emerged during the period between the Old and New Testaments, in the struggles over how Jewish life should survive under foreign rule and Greek cultural pressure. Their name is usually linked to a Hebrew word meaning separated ones. Unlike the Sadducees, who were tied to the priesthood and the temple, the Pharisees were mainly lay teachers and synagogue figures. They believed the whole of God's law could and should be lived at home, at table and at work, and they built careful fences of interpretation and tradition around the written law to stop people breaking it by accident.

And on returning from the market, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions for them to observe, including the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and couches for dining.

Mark 7:4 (BSB)

Our fullest outside witness is Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first century AD. In Antiquities books 13 and 18 he describes the Pharisees as having the support of the common people, as more lenient in punishments than the Sadducees, and as believing in fate and free will held together, in the resurrection of the dead, and in angels and spirits. The Sadducees denied resurrection and the afterlife. On those points Jesus and Paul stand closer to the Pharisees than to their rivals, which is why Paul could still call himself a Pharisee when it served the truth about the resurrection.

For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:20 (BSB)

The Gospels record real conflict, and its centre was not the law itself but the traditions added to it. In Mark 7 Jesus challenges rules about ritual handwashing and a practice that let people declare gifts dedicated to God in order to avoid supporting their parents, and he quotes Isaiah against honouring God with lips while the heart is far away. He also exposed show religion: praying and fasting for applause, tithing tiny herbs while neglecting justice, mercy and faithfulness, and loving the best seats. His strongest words target hypocrisy and pride, the corruption of a sincerely held system, rather than careful obedience as such.

Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. It is because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.”

Acts 23:6 (BSB)

The New Testament picture is not one sided, and fairness requires the rest of it. Nicodemus, a Pharisee and member of the council, came to Jesus, defended him in debate and helped bury him. Gamaliel, a respected Pharisee teacher, counselled caution toward the apostles. Pharisees warned Jesus that Herod wanted to kill him, and some Pharisees became believers in the early church. Paul, trained under Gamaliel, never renounced the hope he had learned as a Pharisee; he redirected it to Jesus. The warning of the Gospels is against trusting in one's own righteousness, a danger for any religious person in any age.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3

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