Dr. Helen Bond

And so John Hykenus thinks, ah, they're all in it.

And so he then moves over to the Sadducees and he sort of ingratiates himself with them.

And the Pharisees and the Sadducees do seem to have some kind of political influence at this time.

So there they are under the sons of John Hykenus.

The Sadducees are sort of the ones in power, I suppose, and the Pharisees are out of it.

But there's lots and lots of sort of upheaval under Alexander Jeneas, who's the son of John Hykenus.

And it gets to such a state that Alexander Jeneas has 800 opponents crucified whilst he and his concubines are feasting in the middle of it.

We're not told specifically that these are Pharisees, but the implication seems to be that they are.

And according to Josephus, on his deathbed, Alexander Janais says to his wife, who actually succeeds him as Queen Salome Alexandra, he says to her, if I were you, I would just throw in your lot with the Pharisees because there's so much trouble.

Just listen to the Pharisees.

And so that's what she does.

So Josephus is not particularly positive about that.

He says, you know, she was the ruler, but the Pharisees ruled her and it wasn't a great reign because of that.

This whole sort of thing is very strange.

I mean, obviously, it's got a legendary sound to it.

What does Josephus know about anybody's deathbed?

But it does seem perhaps to sort of reflect some sort of movement that the Pharisees were perhaps...

more influential earlier on under the Hasmoneans, and then out of favour, and then maybe they came back towards the end.

But generally speaking, they don't have much real political power.

It's more a case of influence over people, I think.