Similarities Between The Pharisees And Sadducees

This message of morality is accompanied by one emphasizing faith in the Jesus/Lord unit, a value that had always been present in Judaism but never to the degree that Jesus requires. This address the loss of spirituality that resulted from the Pharisees’ emphasis on tradition as the basis of society. Jesus repeatedly criticizes the Pharisees as “hypocrites” (Cousland 1747) that just go through the motions of prayer and giving alms to be seen by others as pious (NOAB Matt 6:1-5). Instead, the people are told to do these things in secret (NOAB Matt 6:3-6). The good that comes from faith and the disaster that comes from the lack of it are the driving messages behind most of the parables (NOAB Matt 13:1-53). In addition, many of the sick and dead that Jesus heals are revived because of their faith or that of others close to them (NOAB Matt 8:5-13, NOAB Matt 9:20-22, NOAB Matt 9:27-29).

The major groups of the religious Jewish authority that are present in The Shadow of the Galilean are the members of the Sadducidic and Pharisidic movements. The movement that best illustrates how Theissen illuminates the actions and sayings of Jesus are the Pharisees. Theissen helps show that the characterization of the Pharisees in the Gospels is shallow, and that they were not as condemnatory or unified as the Bible presents them.

In Chapter 2 of Encountering the New Testament the author talks about a few of the different practices that unified the Jews as well the different religious groups that had different beliefs. Judaism was unified in the beliefs that they had been chosen by God, they were waiting for the messiah to come, they respect the synagogues, they shared the same laws and traditions of elder. Although these beliefs were unifying there were seperate religious groups and leaders that held different beliefs. Probably the most well known group of religious leaders were the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a small group of religious leaders that believed in God, and the coming messiah. Although many of the Pharisees did live good lives many of them were

did not stand with the church were not looked at as ethical people. In the sense that they could not

The Pharisees, scribes, priests and Sadducees were all classified as religious leaders in the bible. None of them had any faith in Jesus, they believed he was a fake of who he said he was on this earth. During this time in the bible, no one really knew who Jesus really was

During the time of Jesus, Josephus claimed “there were five sects of Jews at the time of Jesus: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots and Sicarii” (How Jews lived in Jesus time). These groups had their own way of interpreting the scriptures to fit their lives in present and in future.

At this point the Jews believed a messiah would restore their unity and take away the Roman state of oppression. Among the different sects, each one had a different messianic expectation or none at all, the aristocratic Sadducees held no messianic expectations because they worried that a messianic claimant would instigate friction with the Romans, therefor ridding the Sadducees of their lifestyle. The Essenes predicted the coming of two messiahs, a priestly messiah and a Davidic King messiah. Many of the leaders that appeared as messianic claimants came forth with numerous and creative solutions to free the Jewish people from their social, political, and religious suffering. While some of these leaders revolted for an immediate change, others rebelled just to fulfill their given or claimed messianic role.

Pharisees were one of three major Jewish sects at the time, the other two being the Sadducees, which we hear a lot of in the Gospel, and the Essenes, whom we here almost none of. The word Pharisee comes from the Hebrew word ‘pharisaios’, which means “Separated One”, and they definitely separated themselves from other beliefs and customs of the Jewish lands. Before the Jewish Exile in, the Jews worshipped in the temple of Jerusalem, after the exile, the Jews worshiped in the synagogue, having taken on pagan religions of the Greek upon being Hellenized.

Jesus had no patience with Jewish leaders who disagreed with his conclusions because of the way Matthew describes Jesus’s personal religion as Torah Judaism. Church comes from the Greek word Ecclesia, although the church never existed in Jesus’s life. While Matthew was in the church he saw Jesus as a hero and labeled the Jewish leaders as ‘blind guides” and “hypocrites.” Even though he had a high disregard for the Jewish opponents, Matthew remained respectful to their self-righteous, hypocritical teachings and urged them to pay attention to the words of the church.

The Pharisaical Jews, on the other hand, were much more peaceful, and believed that the Roman occupation was all a part of God’s plan. They emphasized non-belligerence against their conquerors, and focused on maintaining internal peace and stability. From lecture, we learned that they often emphasized many Hellenistic ethics. Rather than taking a literal interpretation of the Torah, like the Zealots, the Pharisees preferred to debate how the Torah could be applied to their lives based on the events unfolding around them. Much like Job, in his attempts to be a good servant of God, the Pharisees believed that one must remain steadfast in their works for God. In both interpretations, God is portrayed as a wise deity who will guide men to salvation.

To understand the way Jesus, the disciples, and most of the Jewish community lived, 7-2 B.C. to 30-33 A.D., one must look into further detail at the surrounding communities. One of the surrounding nations to the Jewish were the Samaritans - ‘…an offshoot the Jewish religion, from which they split over the question of the location of the temple as week as other matter; the descendants of settlers who were transplanted into palestine in 722 B.C. by the Assyrian king Sargon…’. It is possible to summarize their alienation and and their main differences saying that it was a process that began with the Kindgom of Israel being divided, and with promoted antagonism it continued through successive incidents, including the foreign tribes sent into Samaria by Assyria, rejection of this new Samaritan community by Jewish people, the building of a temple on Mount Gerazim instead of Jerusalem, the political and religious opportunism of the Samaritans, and the destruction of both the Samaritan temple and their capital of Shechem by John Hyrcanus during the 2nd century B.C. The Samaritan religion at the time of Jesus had become strongly anti-Jewish, but was also Mosaic and quasi-Sadducean. Jesus recognized their pagan origins and the falsity of their religious claims. To fully understand how this knowledge aids are interpretation of the people living in Jesus’ time and the Gospels, one must analyze the Samaritans origins, their beliefs and writings, and their relationship with the Jewish

The Sadducees were the wealthy members of Judea who welcomed the secular world into their heart and rejected any ideas that were not written down and resisted any form of change (Regev, 2006). Pharisees were the middle class members of Judean society that believed in good and evil and rejected those who did not meet their standards of behavior. The Zealots were the politically radical group that stood up to the Romans and attempted to overthrow the regime, but was not able to do so. Essenes rejected the views of all other groups and concentrated on living a spiritually purified life full of contemplation within a religious community.

Thirdly, there are the Essenes. The Essenes were “a monastic group reported to have lived in the Dead Sea area” In the book The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah by Alfred Edersheim, the Essenes are described as “strict Jews, yet separatists, and, alike in doctrine, worship, and practice, outside the Jewish body ecclesiastic.” These Jewish outsiders kept to themselves, were not mentioned in the New Testament, and “their numbers amounted to only about 4,000.” The Essenes came about out from denial of the ways of the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The Essenes believed the other two sects had “corrupted the city and the Temple.” This corruption took form in avarice, poor practice, and hierarchal obsession. This pollution of practice morphed the

The religious philosophy of Judaism during the Second Period time includes: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots. Judaism is based on worshipping the one true God, circumcision as a sign of being one of God’s chosen people, worships on the Sabbath, obeying God’s laws and following the traditions given from one generation to another.

In the Gospels, the Pharisees appear to be the enemies of Jesus, but actually are responsible for having Him crucified. They Constantly tried to find fault with Him, and violation of their vast, ridiculous law. The Pharisees were a pack of religious wolves that roamed among the Jews in Jesus day. They formed around 200 BC and existed throughout the first century. It is stated that there were about six thousand of them. They held to the Law and were ritually pure. As with many things though, their purity was sacrificed to power, and in the New Testament, the Pharisees represent the worst of the sects. As they became powerful in Israel, They were challenged by Jesus. His Truth and miracles exposed them to their deepest parts and Jesus labeled them as “hypocrites” because their outer appearance in no way justified the evil in their hearts.