juergen

So yesterday I was having dinner with my dad.

And he's merging the current topic of conversation with simplistic theological concepts like he always does (always getting back to the topic of God), and even though I've decided to be cautious and refrain from opening cans of worms, I just couldn't but scratch that itch.

So I start questioning the image of the Pharisees that the NT casts on them a bit - you know, the villains, anti-jesus, anti-god, opposing goodness, putting heavy yokes on the shoulders of their followers, being the sons of satan and all that.

The literalist that he is, he was appaled at the idea that the NT would not be telling the truth about how things were, for being the inspired word of God, but he asked me to send him some articles. He was going to send them to some friends at Regent University (yes, THAT Pat Robertson's Regent University), to see what they think.

He's a busy guy, and he's a smart guy too - he's incredibly reasonable and practical towards a bunch of things, and also used to people summarizing things for him, and I'm sure he's looking for that to happen with sending this big thing to Regent U. He trusts their authority on the issue (which derailed the conversation into a late night "how do you know who to trust in regards to the true interpretation?").

Could you recommend some online sources or books regarding what the Pharisees were like? If there are any Spanish or German speakers out there, I welcome articles in those languages too (he's comfy reading those too). I have very recently read Maccoby's The Mythmaker, but all this info is still a little green in my head, and I'm sure there is disagreement btw scholars over this issue as well. I already googled for 2 hours, but that's bringing up a lot of non-relevant crap for me...

I remember taking some of this stuff in NT Survey at college. Should've paid more attention.

Thanks!
juergen

PIPBoy

I found this article which gives a general overview of the Pharisees and specifically addresses the charge of hypocrisy amoung the Pharisees.

http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.j...=Pharisees#926

And another...

http://www.pfo.org/pharisee.htm

No Robots

Josephus routinely calls the Pharisees "sophists." The Pharisees and the Sophists were the professional intellectual establishment of, respectively, Judea and Greece. They correspond to our scholastic/academic establishment. The struggle against this establishment undertaken by Socrates and Christ is the struggle of genius against cold intellectual formalism.

Stumpjumper

I'm thinking this will get better play in BC&H.

andrewcriddle

I would recommend reading some of the (numerous) works by Jacob Neusner.

There is a recently published book which I haven't read yet.
In Quest of the Historical Pharisees (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Jacob Neusner and Bruce Chilton which looks particularly interesting.

Andrew Criddle