Who Were The Pharisees And What Did They Believe – During Jesus’ ministry, many people followed and loved him. However, there were also many people who disagreed with or struggled to understand his teachings. Sometimes this led to teaching opportunities, and other times it led to conflict.
A New Testament group that often disagreed with Jesus were the Pharisees. These men were scholars and community leaders who wielded considerable influence over political and religious standards, especially because the laws were still rooted in Jewish religion. The Pharisees were students of both the Law and the Torah, and their expertise in both made them powerful authorities over the people of Jerusalem and the surrounding areas.
Who Were The Pharisees And What Did They Believe
Jesus was not afraid to call these leaders out for their hypocrisy or misinterpretation of religious principles, which sometimes upset the control that the Pharisees had. The social, religious, and political power dynamics created tension in Israel between several groups, including the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Roman government, and the Jews. Jesus’ presence and his popularity disrupted the way things were and made those in power feel threatened. The Pharisees also believed that Jesus’ teachings were too loose and inconsistent with what they preached, making him an enemy of the Pharisaic organization as a whole. Although the more extreme leaders of the Pharisees often opposed Jesus, others embraced his teachings and recognized him as the Messiah.
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Who were the Pharisees? To fully understand, it is important to address the philosophical and political context of the time, as well as the multifaceted nature of this Jewish sect. Between their rivalry with the Sadducees and their social control over the people, the Pharisees played a largely oppositional role in Jesus’ earthly mission that ultimately led to his death.
The Pharisees were not just a group of men, but a social movement and a school of thought during the Second Temple period. They were most likely founded around 167 BC. and ended in 73 AD, although the principles practiced by the Pharisees at that time helped form the rabbinic Judaism practiced today. Of the two main religious sects, the Pharisees were the larger group and the more conservative compared to the Sadducees.
The name “Pharisee” literally means “separate”, giving scholars and historians a deeper understanding of how distant the Pharisees were from their fellow men. Because they were most likely composed of scribes and legal experts, they were distanced from mainstream society to study law and sharpen their expertise. Pharisees also distanced themselves from others because they saw themselves as better than most; where others were impure and unworthy, their austere practices made them feel superior. They avoided being around “sinners” and other people who did not follow the laws correctly, at least according to their expectations. This was a distinct departure from what Jesus actually taught and wanted people to practice, which is where much of the conflict between the Pharisees and Jesus stems from.
However, historians typically considered the Pharisees to be devout scholars who respected their elders and were content with a simple, industrious life. They spent much of their time teaching in synagogues and interpreting the Torah. They wanted to please God and dedicated themselves to understanding and practicing spiritual morality.
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Rome ruled over Israel, but although Roman governors were appointed to rule over the Jewish people, these authorities allowed religious leaders, such as the Pharisees, to monitor and supervise the people’s practices in Jerusalem. Instead of enforcing Roman philosophies, Jewish leaders were given the authority and responsibility to enforce their own religious customs. As long as the taxes were collected and Roman laws were not broken, the Pharisees and Sadducees could basically rule the people according to Jewish tradition. This weak relationship gave the Pharisees the power to judge and continue to enforce Jewish law among the people.
In some ways the Pharisees were teachers, and in others they were enforcers of tradition and law; but, especially in the context of the times, they stood between the people and Roman ideology. Despite their sometimes unbalanced strictness, the Pharisees were generally respected in the Jewish community and sought after for spiritual guidance and observance. Although they saw themselves as better than the average Jew, they also advocated the protection of Jewish law and culture.
The Pharisees helped maintain the spiritual standards of the Jews, although they were imperfect. Much of what they taught agreed with principles Jesus taught, but they interpreted certain concepts incorrectly, or sometimes in such a way that it would benefit them instead of teaching a true principle.
The Pharisees believed that God should be believed in and worshiped both inside and outside Jerusalem. They were dedicated to converting the Gentiles (or non-Jews) to Judaism.
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The Pharisees also believed in the power of the resurrection. Believing in life after death and that people would be resurrected was a key belief for this group and one that set them apart from others. Similarly, the Pharisees also supported the more supernatural side of religion, including the power of resurrection, but also embraced ideas such as hell, heaven, demons, etc. In this regard, they took the Law of Moses literally, so if the Torah described a , they believed that it literally spoken appeared, not conceptually or metaphorically.
The Pharisees believed in God’s law and the power of prayer. In particular, compared to others, the Pharisees saw their relationship with God as more direct and personal. They believed that God gave man free will and intellect to think for himself.
Another notable characteristic of the Pharisees was their interest in and belief in the Oral Law. Oral law included the unwritten teachings of Moses and other prophets after Moses. Because they believed in oral law and modern interpretation, the Pharisees interpreted and changed written law.
Although the Romans allowed the Jews to keep their own customs, not everyone in the Jewish faith agreed on one way of practicing their religion. The two most important religious sects we read about in the Bible are the Sadducees and the Pharisees. While the Pharisees taught in synagogues and were middle-class men, the Sadducees were usually wealthy, upper-class priests who worked in the temple. Certain principles and opinions set the Pharisees apart, and ultimately the Pharisees had a direct impact on the preservation of Jewish tradition and culture.
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The Pharisees and Sadducees were rivals when it came to Jewish customs. Some see the Sadducees as more progressive and willing to adopt certain elements of Roman and Greek traditions. In an effort to maintain their wealth and authority, Sadducean elitists worked more harmoniously with the Romans to maintain their position of power. The Sadducees were less concerned with Jewish traditions and instead embraced Roman authority and ideals. They were concerned with following the written Law of Moses, even to the point of picking apart everything the Jews did in their daily lives.
In contrast, the Pharisees were deeply loyal to the traditional elements of Judaism and strove to preserve both the written laws and the oral laws of their fathers. Their emphasis on oral traditions made them faithful not only to God, but also to the practice of their unwritten principles. In some ways this made the Pharisees more open to personal understanding of the teachings. On the downside, they sometimes overinterpreted to the point of contradicting written tradition, or sometimes misinterpreted the law to benefit themselves.
The major differences between the doctrinal beliefs of the Pharisees and the Saccades include topics such as life after death, the more supernatural elements of their beliefs, and God’s role in the lives of his children. The Sadducees were skeptical of heaven and hell, s and demons, and other “supernatural” religious concepts. They did not believe in resurrection, even after Jesus was resurrected, or that life continued after death. Instead, the Sadducees believed that a person’s righteousness was measured by their temporal successes and wealth. The Sadducees also believed that God was not as directly involved in human life, while the Pharisees emphasized prayer.
Although both sects were leaders of society and believed in the same basic principles, their beliefs varied slightly based on the intentions and priorities of each party. In general, the Sadducees were motivated by wealth and power and depended only on written laws to make decisions and discipline their fellow Jews. The Pharisees were more in tune with the spiritual elements of Judaism and believed that our actions on earth affected the afterlife.
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Unfortunately, despite their differences, it was their dislike of Jesus that united the Pharisees and Sadducees. Although the Sadducees were more extreme in their conflict, both groups feared losing their power and influence over the people and worried that Jesus’ teachings and miracles threatened their way of life. The two sects often worked together to persecute Jesus and attempt to abolish his teachings.
To be clear, most of the teachings that the Pharisees preached were pretty much in line with what Jesus taught. However, Jesus dealt with the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and how proud they had become at the expense of the people.
For example, the Pharisees were hypercritical of everyone and expected them
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