Thanks for the history lesson. The Essenes wouldn’t fit the rhetorical role, and I don’t really understand the history of the Saducees to know how they’d fit. Classically my understanding of the role of the Pharisees, filtered through the lens of Christianity because of course that is the only yardstick defining reality that matters in this thread, has them as the lawgivers and judges that decided whether those spreading the gospel of Jesus were prophets or madmen inciting social threats. So in the context of my rhetorical construct they are well suited for the role of court inquisitor not because of any religious or ethnic alignment but because that is what they did.
Incidentally thinking of my view through the lens of a naive Christian I’m tempted to think of the Pharisees as being the Jewish Taliban developing Jewish Shariah. There are a couple of aspects to that worthy of discussion. One is that in those days it led to violence against or persecution of the Christian disciples of Christ. That’s where the problems arise, just as they do with the Muslim Taliban and the Muslin Shariah, and equally with today’s domestic Christian Taliban and Christian Shariah.
When I was a kid my father was a Goldwater Republican, and I remember one of his axioms being “your rights end where my nose begins.” I think that needs to be a guiding principle of religious freedom: you are free to practice your religion up to the point it conflicts with anyone else’s right to practice their religion. For example, if you want to post Bible verses in public don’t discriminate by opposing those who would post from the Quran or the Talmud. Don’t erect statues and of Jesus and the Saints but oppose those of Vishnu or Krishna.
The other aspect worthy of discussion is that your commentary highlights how difficult it is to criticize the <%wildcard_religion%>_Taliban and <%wildcard_religion%>_Shariah in any way without being accused of attacking <%wildcard_religion%> itself. That’s a consequence of the nature of religious warfare I think, and illustrative of it as well. My choice to use the Pharisees as a rhetorical device was not because they were Jewish, but because of what they did the the Christian prophets. Of course that is leaving aside the detail that they did what they did in defense of their Jewish beliefs, but if we go there soon we have Crusaders up in arms defending their Holy Land, and that’s just too much for this screed.
That’s probably a good point to end this overlong ramble, now that I’ve proved that you’re not the only one who can post long bbs lectures, lol. Thanks for your patience!
I totally get the rights/nose/swing your arm point, and I get the argument about the Pharisees. It's based on the needs of the gospel writers, though in combination with whatever historical info survives in the gospels and might be gleaned from the historical earliest letters of Paul,
in the context of examination without assuming belief in the religion. (The same method is used all the time re: Judaism, and I am comfortable with it.)
The historical Jesus and early Christian history is only important here to highlight how fair or unfair the depictions of the Pharisees in the Greek bible are. It's pretty much agreed upon that there's an animus there against the Jewish authorities, and an effort to make the Christian religion acceptable to Rome -- e.g.., Pontius Pilate's unlikely reluctance to deal harshly with Jesus, the "tradition" of setting one prisoner free for Passover, etc. They do make the Pharisees the villain of the story. The historicity is of course a whole field of study (as it is with historical views on Judaism, and scholars from all backgrounds are pretty savage about the storytelling freedom of those who put together the Hebrew bible.)
Here's how one religion professor explained the "Sadducees and Pharisees" in the context of first century Christian writings, especially those purporting to echo Jesus' actual words - Saying "O ye Sadducees and Pharisees" is sort of like a modern American saying "O ye Democrats and Republicans." They were the two main "parties" in the Jewish hierarchy. The Pharisees were always more numerous, and favored an interpretation of the law that everybody could embrace; the Sadducees were an elite, fewer in number, I believe more likely to be wealthy, and stricter in terms of adherence to the law. Critically, they held that you could only perform meaningful worship in the Temple in Jerusalem. No temple, no Sadducees. They also, if I recall my studies correctly, denied life after death, whereas the Pharisees were cool with varying beliefs on the topic (for example, a spiritual life to come and a physical resurrection, the same circle Christians have been squaring for a couple thousand years.)
I can't vouch for the extent to which the Jewish authorities of the first centuries were comparable to the Taliban. I wouldn't be shocked to learn that they still did some barbaric sh*t, but in practice, Jewish authorities rarely carried out death penalties (for example.)
The Death Penalty in Jewish Tradition | My Jewish Learning
The famous "Eye for an eye" code we hear so much about was reduced to a monetary award system, similar to insurance payouts we hear so much about, but due from wrongdoer to an aggrieved party. I believe that also happened in ancient times, rather than the comparatively modern medieval era
By the way, I don't think it's a coincidence that the two child religions, which both preach that they have a new dispensation to universalize the religion of the God of the Jews, developed systems of enforcement that led to enormous persecutions. One simple explanation has nothing to do with "morality": They both achieved power at the level of empire. That's a huge enabler, if you have intolerant doctrine. Your local San Hedrin can't get together the resources to achieve what Christendom or Islam could, not to mention the toll they exacted vis a vis their coreligionists, when in-house disagreements occured.
Anyway, within a couple of centuries of Jesus' life, the Sadducees didn't even figure into things, although he never saw that happen in his lifetime.
This stuff will set off the same "authorities" who dictate to us all how we should feel about morality, and sorry if/when that happens. I don't have any problem, really, with Christians using the tropes of the Christian religion regarding the tag of "Pharisees"; it's more a "fun fact" point, although people do use the "Pharisees" language in such a way as to make it stealth-antisemitic (so probably there are some activists who might make more of it.) In any event, I know that no harm was intended and that there's no hidden antisemitic agenda on your part!
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
