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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Chapter 2: Who were the Pharisees and what role did they play in ancient Judea?
The Pharisees, we've all heard the name, remembered for their opposition to Jesus of Nazareth during his teachings in Judea 2000 years ago, educated men who challenged him on his beliefs. Today the Pharisees divide opinion, positively portrayed in Judaism, negatively for so long in Christianity. But who actually were these people? How much power and influence did they have in ancient Judea?
What did they believe in? And did they really have next to nothing in common with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth? Welcome to the Ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is the story of the Pharisees. Our guest is Dr. Helen Bond, Professor of Christian Origins at Edinburgh University and the host of the podcast Biblical Time Machine. Helen, it's been too long.
Great to have you back on the show.
Thank you, Tristan. It's great to be here.
And to talk about the Pharisees, and they are much more than just these portrayed villains in the New Testament.
Yeah, that is the trouble, actually. The two groups of people who are interested in them are Jews and Christians. And we'll come on to this, but we've got very little evidence about the Pharisees. And the problem is that Jews tend to see them as everything that's good. They're the precursors of rabbinic Judaism. They're the good guys of antiquity.
Christians, because they've had such a bad press in the New Testament, particularly the Gospels, tend to see them as everything that's bad. And Luther didn't like them in the Reformation. And they're sort of the poster boy for everything that's wrong with Judaism at the time of Jesus. So it's really difficult to sort of steer your way between these two poles.
And also from what you're saying, is it quite difficult to get a sense of who the Pharisees really were? Are they still quite a mysterious group?
Very, very mysterious. The difficulty is because there's so little evidence, people just fill in the gaps. So, you know, Christians say, oh, well, you know, they must have been bad guys. And, you know, rather than just looking at where do we get the evidence, what do we know about them? So, yeah, it's very difficult.
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Chapter 3: What beliefs and practices distinguished the Pharisees from other Jewish groups?
Do we think their origins stretch that far back?
Yes, I think that's exactly when they are most likely to have emerged. I mean, some people push their origins even further back. I mean, there's no evidence for that whatsoever. The first evidence we have for the Pharisees is in the late 2nd century BCE. And I think the most likely time for the emergence of many of these groups and different sects within Judaism is the Hasmonean takeover.
The thing about the Hasmoneans is that they're kings, but they're also high priests. And so they're combining religious and political power in one person. And this was unheard of until now. And some people don't care. Some people are happy. Other people find this really too much and they're against this.
And I think it's at this period, just as in a way they get a certain stability and home rule is established, that you get all this sort of squabbling and infighting about who has the right idea for Israel? What's the way that we should organize ourselves?
So the Hasmoneans, they're the dynasty, shall we say, that comes to power after they throw off the Seleucids. They are the rulers who take over Judea and independent Judea after victory in the Maccabean revolt.
Yes, exactly. They are the Maccabees, actually. Maccabee is just a nickname. Their family name is Assyminia, so they become the Hasmonean dynasty.
And the Pharisees, they really thrive at that time, do we think?
Maybe not so much thriving. We're dependent on Josephus for this. They're strangely sort of absent from the books of Maccabees. But Josephus tells us, and it has a legendary sound to it. So one of the greatest Maccabean kings was John Hykenus. So we're right at the end of the second century BCE here.
And Josephus says that one day John Hykenus has this dinner party and he invites the Pharisees and he says to them, oh, I'm trying to be so pious. You know, let me know if I'm doing anything wrong. And all the Pharisees just sort of say, oh, no, you're great. You're great. You're doing well.
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Chapter 4: What sources provide insight into the lives of the Pharisees?
Although we do find elements to do with purity in rural places, probably Jerusalem was their main base. Even in the Gospels, when Pharisees come, quite often they come from Jerusalem. They may well have been all sorts of different social orders. I imagine that they're not from the very lowest. You have people like Paul. We hear of people like Gamaliel, maybe Nicodemus in John's Gospel.
And both of those have they've left sort of remains in the historical record, too. So they're probably more likely to be people with a bit of education. But, you know, I'm kind of making it up here. Not entirely, but, you know, that we don't have anything really solid to go on.
No, and it harkens back to what we were saying earlier, you know, how mysterious these people are. And I appreciate I'm pushing, I'm prodding.
Well, sometimes it's good to know, you know, that we don't know. And a lot of what you might read in, you know, if you go to an encyclopedia, there'll be a little authoritative entry on what the Pharisees were like, what they thought, who they were. But it's good to know that most of the time, this is sort of conjecture.
6,000, Josephus says, only 6,000 odds, Pharisees in total.
Yeah. I mean, again, the problem is we don't know how many people were there in Judea. Half a million, a million, two million. But even on a fairly conservative estimate, they're a small percentage of the population.
It's just the difficulties of then, if I was to ask, how powerful and how prominent do you think, how popular do you think the Pharisees were by the time we get to the birth of Jesus, the time of Jesus, and the time that the Romans are entering onto the stage in Judea too?
Well, I think the thing is you need to sort of distinguish between actual power and influence. So I think earlier on in sort of Hasmonean times, they might have been periods when they had a certain amount of power. I think certainly by the time of Herod, they're a little bit there. But Josephus really says very little about them in the time of Herod. You know, they're not making the headlines.
And I think that continues under the rule of his sons and then direct Roman rule of Judea itself. But I think they have a certain amount of influence. I think people think that they have popular ideas. They are the innovators. For us reading the New Testament, it sounds a little bit like they're these rigid legalists and you wouldn't want to have anything to do with them.
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