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At least a couple of well-known biblical scholars do give us reason to doubt the popular gospel image of Jesus bumping into Pharisees with every step he took in Galilee. They met him in the corn-fields, they argued with him in the synagogues, they were even found in houses with him. Jesus warned his Galilean followers to beware of them. They even plotted his death from Galilee.
Along with this image we are frequently told in scholarly tomes that Jesus and his disciples were devout Jews who followed the customs one reads about in later rabbinical literature, and that were said to be led by the religious leaders based in Jerusalem and Judea (south of Galilee). The assumption is usually made that the Old Testament writings (Jewish scriptures) were on the lips, fringes, doorposts and hearts of the generally devout Jews (such as Jesus’ disciples and closer followers) throughout not only Judea but also Galilee where Jesus preached.
So it is interesting to stop and consider the implications of the following scholarly claims that Pharisees were really quite a rare site in Galilee in the time of Jesus.
Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician
. . . there is strong evidence that there were practically no Pharisees in Galilee during Jesus’ lifetime. A generation later, when the great Pharisee Yohanan ben Zakkai lived there for eighteen years, only two cases were brought to him for decision; he reportedly cursed the country for hating the Law – it was destined to servitude. Y. Shabbat XVL.8 (15d. end). The story may be a legend – the curse looks like a prophesy ex eventu of the results of the later revolt – but at least the legend shows that the Pharisees remembered Galilee before 70 as a land where they had few followers. More important is the evidence of Josephus; it is clear from his War II. 569-646, and even more from his Vita (28-406 and especially 197f.), that as late as 66 Pharisees might be respected in Galilee for their legal knowledge (through Josephus’ suggestion of this is suspect as part of his pro-Pharisaic propaganda), but there were certainly rare: the only ones Josephus encountered were sent from Jerusalem, and had been chosen to impress the Galileans by their rarity. Thus the synoptics’ picture of a Galilee swarming with Pharisees is a further anachronism. John at least avoided this, his Pharisees all appear in Jerusalem, and Jesus goes to Galilee to get out of their reach (4.1ff.) (p.157)
Finally, a further confirmation of our conclusion is to be found in the extreme poverty of the rabbinic tradition about Jesus . . . . The rabbis inherited the traditions of the Pharisees; among these traditions, it seems, there were none about Jesus. The lack can be explained in various ways, but the most natural and easiest explanation (and in view of the above evidence, the likeliest) is that few Pharisees encountered him and those few did not think their encounters memorable. (p.157)
The following extract was originally copied from a Jesus and the Pharisees website that no longer appears active:
Richard Horsley, Archaeology, History and Society in Galilee: The Social Context of Jesus and the Rabbis (1998) p. 182
The regional differences between Galilee and Jerusalem (and Judea) were rooted in many centuries of separate historical development prior to the Hasmonean takeover. Galilee was then under Jerusalem rule, presumably with exposure to the Torah of ‘laws of the Judeans’ and some sort of relations with the Temple, for only one hundred years before the death of Herod and the birth of Jesus. There is no literary or material evidence and little historical likelihood - given the political crises raging in Jerusalem, Palestine and the Roman empire during the first two thirds of the first century BCE – that over such a short period of time traditional Israelite culture and local customs in Galilee had become conformed to what may have been standard in Jerusalem or Judea. It is highly unlikely that the high priesthood or its scribal ‘retainers’ (including the Pharisees) would have been able to mount a program by which the Galileans could have been effectively ‘resocialized’ into habitual loyalty to the Temple and the Torah (or the ‘laws of the Judeans.)
Related articles
- Pharisees in Galilee? (vridar.wordpress.com)
I think why the absence of Pharisees in Galilee, along with the the possible lack of Galilean synagogues and the questionable habitation of Nazareth during Jesus’ lifetime is felt so keenly is because these areas are prime real estate where many HJ scholars look to build their their depictions of Jesus. Jews disagreeing with other other Jews about Torah is by no means historically unbelievable. As EP Sanders has shown, it was perfectly normal for first century Jews to argue the finer points of the Law (with, of course, not threatening the other person with destruction if they disagree).
Take the above three (potential)things – no Pharisees, no synagogues, no Nazareth – into account, and it creates a massive unsightly gash in the gospel accounts; all we have is a cluster of clunking anachronisms instead of any reliable historical data. Perhaps this is why some scholars simply ignore these problems and hope that they might go away. Their possible factuality simply causes too many problems for the HJ quest.
Comment by Daryl — 2011/01/25 @ 8:30 am |
Purely by coincidence I’ve been reading Stemberger’s Jewish Contemporaries of Jesus: Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. A point he brings out that’s easy to gloss over is Matthew’s penchant for continually adding Pharisees to Mark’s narrative, as the ubiquitous bogeyman.
For example, in Mark 12:28 it’s a scribe who asks Jesus to identify the greatest commandment. And after a bit of back and forth dialog, Jesus says, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” However, when Matthew tells the story, it’s a Pharisee, a lawyer, who asks. As Stemberger puts it, “the entire scene changes into one of hostility.” By the end of the exchange, nobody dares ask Jesus any further questions.
Not only does Matthew pepper the landscape with Pharisees, but he often throws the Sadducees in with them, as if they were working in concert. Stemberger writes, “In general, the Pharisees are the regular, ever-present, principal enemies of Jesus. The are largely indistinguishable from the Sadducees.”
It strikes me that Matthew’s tossing together of the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees shows that he’s writing many years after Mark. He uses them as cartoon enemies, exactly the way American Teabaggers lump fascists and communists together. They don’t have a clue about what those terms really mean; they just need a bad guy. For them, like Matthew, it’s all about giving the demon a dirty name. Actually understanding the terms would undermine the process.
Comment by Tim Widowfield — 2011/01/25 @ 10:06 am |
You have to admit, it makes the stories more interesting when Jesus has intellectual foils with whom to argue and illustrate theological points.
Luke, at least, seems to know the sects well enough and uses them properly in his version.
Comment by Paul D. — 2011/01/25 @ 10:32 pm |
Yep, and we know he knows them well enough because luckily he limits all he says about them to what we find in Josephus!
Comment by Neil Godfrey — 2011/01/25 @ 11:18 pm |
I am enjoying catching up some reading here.
This conversation is most important to me as you address the exact problems I find in determining what to take as fact and what has been taken “on faith”.
Anyway, this particular conversation brings up other questions. Like if Jesus was well known among the Jews, and had so much interaction with them, then why did Judas have to point him out to them for the 30 pieces of silver?
I am so thankful for this blog. Now back to more catch-up reading.
Comment by Reality — 2011/03/27 @ 8:46 am |
It’s one of those questions that probably hits most readers when they first hear the story. Why a need for Judas at all? Why not just have Jesus followed and taken one night from a house at Bethany, etc? One of the advantages of a good seminary education is that one can learn to lose sight of such questions and even scoff at them as being “hypersceptical” whenever they do arise.
So many of the “historical problems” that arise from the gospels are, like the case of Judas, the result of overlooking their nature as entirely literary artifices from their inception.
Comment by Neil Godfrey — 2011/03/27 @ 9:06 am |