The Birth of Pharisaic Judaism

The Birth of Pharisaic Judaism

By: Evangelos Dim. Kepenes  (01/24/2018)

 The Birth of Pharisaic Judaism 

God had appointed the priests, the sons of Aaron, as responsible for teaching the people of Israel and interpreting the written law, and for matters and differences among them, He indicated that they should appoint judges.

"[...] that ye may put difference [Aaron and his sons] between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean; And that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses." [Lev. 10:10-11]

"Judges and officers [teachers] shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment." [Deut. 16:18]

The institution of the monarchy, which the Hebrews requested from the last judge, Samuel, created, as in every kingdom, family-based oligarchies. Combined with the ignorance of the law due to the faulty teaching of the priests, who sometimes even neglected the maintenance of the temple [2 Kings 12:4], it created rival political and religious currents, which brought about schisms among the people of Israel, apostasy from God, the division of the kingdom, and civil wars. In the acts of the kings, Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, stands out, who attempted to do what was right in the sight of God and sent, along with the Levites and unauthorized officials, to the cities of Judah to teach the people the book of the Law of the Lord [2 Chr. 17:7-9]. Consequently, the involvement of the elite in religious matters was in action, and the safeguarding of interests required the survival of the nation, resulting in the gradual development of a nationalist religious consciousness and faith in a God, a national protector, who would ensure the prosperity and supremacy of the state against others. Thus, the perception of God's good intention to bless all nations, as it had been announced to the patriarch Abraham, was overshadowed.

Later, during the Babylonian captivity and diaspora, the destruction of the built Temple, the strongest institution of Judaism, highlighted intensely the need for the survival of Jewish identity and the elevation of national and religious morale. This need was met by the houses of prayer and study which evolved into synagogues, with educators, learned Jews, the later rabbis. The synagogues were places of prayer usually built outside the city and near rivers or coasts to facilitate purifications, and they compensated for the lack of the Temple, continuing as a secondary religious institution even after its rebuilding, which was done with the support and sponsorship of a foreign power, Persia. [Ezra 7:14-15]

The leading figures during the period of the Temple's rebuilding, which however lacked the splendor of the first, were the political leader Zerubbabel and the priest and scribe Ezra, skilled in the written law of the Lord, who largely restored the knowledge of the law, appointed Levitical priests, judges, and magistrates, and thus the kingdom of Judah continued its survival with those whose spirit God had stirred to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. [Ezra 1:5]

Until the birth of Jesus, the Hebrew nation continued its schismatic religious and political course. Apart from the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem, a temple also operated in Samaria, on Mount Gerizim, which was built by the ten tribes of the kingdom of Israel and according to Josephus was destroyed by the high priest and king of the Jews John Hyrcanus in 128 BC, who inaugurated in Israel the institution of dual power, political and religious. Also, archaeologists confirm a Jewish temple on the island of Elephantine in Egypt which served the needs of the Jewish community there. With the support of Ptolemy VI, another temple was built by the high priest Onias in Leontopolis, Egypt, where he had fled after being persecuted by the Maccabee family; this temple was a spiritual center for the Jews of Egypt. The participation of the Jews of Alexandria in the revolt of the Jews of Palestine against Roman domination brought about the destruction of the temple in Leontopolis.

Political Division of the Jews

The civil war among the Greeks between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, who eventually prevailed in Palestine, turned the land of Judea, due to its geographical location, into a battlefield, dragging the Hebrews into political division, splitting them into Hellenizers and nationalists. The violent policy of Hellenization by King Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Seleucid Empire (175-164 BC), outlawed the Jewish religion, causing civil war among the Jewish factions, with the participation of Hellenizing high priests. The Maccabean revolt, after many struggles, eventually granted independence again to the Jews, and peace ensued between the factions, but the spread of Greek thought and the tendency towards Hellenization were not curbed. The hostilities between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, the prevalence of Antiochus IV, the desecration of the Temple of Jerusalem, and the death of many Jews by the latter, who imposed the worship of Zeus upon them, are mentioned in the eleventh chapter (11) of the book of Daniel.

The involvement of the priestly institution with politics weakened its original mission and created a rift between the priests and the wise men and scribes who controlled the synagogues. In this way, the ground was cultivated for the emergence, from among the learned, of the sect of the Pharisees [= those who are separated] who claimed to be the legitimate representatives, interpreters, and guardians of Judaism. They recognized, besides the written Torah, the oral secret tradition which operated parallel to and complementarily with official Judaism, thus creating the dipole, commandments of God – commandments of men, which culminated in today's esoteric Judaism, the Kabbalah. They placed particular importance on man-made types, elevated national morale, and were popular among the common people. The Pharisees were in constant social and religious opposition to the sect of the Sadducees, who rejected the oral secret tradition, strongly pursued Hellenization, and defended the rights and privileges of the ruling class.

As forerunners of the Pharisees, they are characterized by many historians as the Hasidim or Chasidim or Hassidim (meaning "pious ones"), who were a Jewish movement in the late 3rd century BC with traditional, messianic, nationalist beliefs and expectations like those of the Pharisees and modern Jewish Zionism, as well as modern Christian Zionism.

The Roman conquest, the pro-Roman policy of the Jewish rulers, and the Hellenistic tendency of the wealthy Jews mainly of Palestine and those colonized in Egypt, strengthened the position of the Pharisees but created a side effect in the Hebrew perception, that of the predominance of oral traditions over the written Law of Moses, resulting in the birth of extreme nationalism. The prophet Isaiah foresaw this event and the Lord Jesus confirmed it.

"This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." [Matt. 15:6-9]

Throughout His ministry on the land of Israel, Jesus always referred to the written Law and the Prophets and never to human secret traditions and teachings which He rejected.

"And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." [Luke 24:27]

The Apostle Paul, "of the tribe of Benjamin," was a Pharisee, who studied in Jerusalem "at the feet" of Gamaliel, also a Pharisee. He was a great zealot for his ancestral traditions and before his conversion to Christ, not having the spiritual understanding of the written law, he persecuted and harassed the church of God.

"For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers." [Gal. 1:13-14]

But when he came to his senses, he understood that the Scriptures spoke not of a carnal but of a spiritual people, who would receive a heavenly inheritance and kingdom, which would not be of this world. Thus, what he had previously considered as gains, he counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Having this understanding, he instructs the church "not to think beyond what is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another." [Phil. 3:8, 1 Cor. 4:6].

In his letter to Timothy, the same apostle exalts the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, placing the written word of the Hebrew Bible unquestionably above any human tradition and philosophy.

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." [2 Tim. 3:16-17]

And again: "For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope." [Rom. 15:4]

No "genuine child of faith," of the true Jesus, was led astray by the human traditions of the Pharisees, whose adherents, hoping in them, believed about Jesus that He was the Jew who would restore the kingdom to the carnal Israel according to the earthly pattern of David.

"When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone." [John 6:15]

These same unbiblical Pharisaic perceptions stood as an obstacle to recognizing the heavenly Jesus as the One true God, and for this reason they sought to kill Him, believing that Jesus was, like them, an earthly man who made Himself God.

"Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God." [John 5:18]

"The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God." [John 10:33]

Pharisaic Judaism remained in the nationalist, earthly view of God's promises and, not understanding the written prophetic word, rejected the finisher of faith, Jesus Christ, and persecuted true Christianity from its birth, thus failing to achieve its spiritual completion and become a recipient of the heavenly goods.

"And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." [John 5:40]

"For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him. And though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain." [Acts 13:27-28]

Modern Rabbinic Judaism, which revels in a collection of human Jewish traditions, presents itself as the ideological continuation of Pharisaic Judaism with various trends, stripped of the elements that legitimized Judaism, namely the Temple, the Prophets, the Priests, the sacrifices, the baptisms, the offerings, and the genealogical Jewish bloodline. It posits the modern political "Israel" instead of Christ as the fulfillment of the biblical promises and maintains the expectation of a third handmade Temple in Jerusalem as the means of fulfilling its nationalist ideologies, completely ignoring that:

"God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands." [Acts 17:25]

Flee from religions, Christ is our life

<< Back to Homepage