Full Question
What were the beliefs of the Pharisees?
Answer
It is very difficult to write justly of the beliefs of others, especially when we have no acquaintance with the persons themselves, and are dependent upon accounts which have come down to us through well-nigh two thousand years.
The Pharisees were the popular religious party at the time of the Lord Jesus, and, as all readers of the New Testament know, they aimed at observing the Law in all its details, and endeavoured to regulate every action of life by religion, yet they had a peculiar aptitude for evading moral obligations. (Mk., 7, 1-13).
Gentile writers are prone to be content to remember only that Jesus denounced the Sect. Jewish writers, usually, naturally defend their ancient compatriots upon the plea that, for the sins of a few, the whole were condemned. The middle path is nearer the truth. They were not condemned for everything. We may be certain that whatever Jesus said of them was just; for his judgment was discriminating. The Sect itself was denounced because it had lost the spirit in the letter, and by over-emphasising tradition had made the Word of God of no effect. A modern Jewish writer, Joseph Klausner, approves Christ’s estimate. In his “Jesus of Nazareth” (Eng. Trans., 1929), he writes : —
“Much of what Josephus tells us in the Talmu’d of the Pharisees is to be found also in the New Testament. But the Gospels are also a severe attack upon the Pharisees. Jesus included them together with the Scribes, rightly, and condemned them for preaching the good but not practising it, for priding themselves in the carrying out of the commandments, for enlarging their phylacteries and wearing long tassels, for seeking after honour, sitting in the chief places at table and seizing the chief seats in the synagogue, loving to be styled `rabbi’.”
“He charged them with being hypocrites, tithing mint and anise and cum-min, cleansing the cup and platter, such time as they swallowed up widows’ houses and left undone the graver commands of the Law justice and mercy and faith. He described them as ‘blind leaders of the blind,’ straining out the gnat and swallowing the camel’ as ‘whited sepulchres,’ fair without but full of rottenness and uncleanness within. Though they adorned the tombs of the dead prophets, if prophets like them were to come to life they would stone them.”
” It is not worth while to deny all these things and, like most Jewish scholars with an apologetic bias, assert that they are nothing but inventions” (p. 213).
It is only fair, however, to mention that Klausner points out the universal tendency in every system of teaching for deterioration to take place, and for disciples to distort and transform the most exalted ideas.
Originally the Sect must have had something of greater value than the hard, narrow and self-righteous formalism so detestable to the Master, and individuals could be found who, showing the better spirit underlying the artificial exterior, gained Christ’s highest esteem (comp. Matt. 22, 35, and Mark 12, 33, 34: Acts 26, 5: Phil. 3, 5).
The importance of the religion of the Pharisees appears to have consisted more in the observance of a rule of life (“Righteousness”) than in clear-cut beliefs which might be formulated into a set of ” First Principles.” (Luke 18, 11-12: Matt. 5,20). With regard to the first aspect of the matter Klausner writes :–
“Contrary to the Essenes the Pharisees held that all was not predestined : though divine providence governed all things men still had freedom of choice in Which also might be seen a divine decree. And this is the view to which R. Akiba, the heir of the Pharisees, gave permanence at a latter stage in his apophthegm. All is foreseen but the right (of choice) is permitted.’ThePharisees preserved and developed the traditions of the Fathers, and with this tradition as their basis they gave many rules to the nation not to be found in the Law of Moses. They followed the more stringent interpretations of the rules of the Torah, but adopted more lenient interpretations in all pertaining to punishments.”
They were remarkable for their high ethical standards and their aloofness from the pleasures of life, and for this reason Josephus likens them to the Greek Stoics” (p. 212, “Jesus of Nazareth”).
Coming to specific dogma, the fact that the Lord Jesus repeatedly quoted from the Old Testament when in dispute with the Pharisees, shews that it was accepted as of Divine authority. They also believed in the One God, (Mk., 12, 32) in resurrection, angels and spirits, (Acts, 23, 8-9), and in the establishment on earth of the Messianic Kingdom (Luke 17, 20), although in but a crude form, a Kingdom little more than earthly, in contrast with the high spiritual conception which Jesus persistently set forth.
Again quoting from Klausner’s work above referred to, “They believed in the survival of the soul, in post-mortem rewards and punishments, that the souls of the righteous are transferred to other bodies and that the souls of the wicked are reserved for perpetual tortures (in (lehenna), (p. 212).
Klausner acknowledges his indebtedness to Josephus, himself a Pharisee, for the matter contained in the above quotations.
It is a very strange mixture, accounted for doubtless by the fact that time and time again during their long and chequered history Israel ” were mingled among the heathen and learned their works” (Psa. 106, 35).
“The Valley of the Shadow”