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Pharisees
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For the followers of the Vilna Gaon, see Perushim.
For the followers of the Zoroastrian faith, see Parsi.
"Parush" redirects here. For places in Iran, see Parush, Iran.
Pharisees
פְּרוּשִׁים
Historical leaders
John Hyrcanus
Alexander Jannaeus
Hyrcanus II
Salome Alexandra
Founded
167 BCE
Dissolved
73 CE
Headquarters
Jerusalem
Ideology
Theocracy
Oral Torah
Populism[1]
Religion
Rabbinic Judaism
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The Pharisees (/ˈfærəˌsiːz/) were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought in the Holy Land during the time of Second Temple Judaism. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical and ritualistic basis for Rabbinic Judaism.
Conflicts between Pharisees and Sadducees took place in the context of much broader and longstanding social and religious conflicts among Jews, made worse by the Roman conquest.[2] Another conflict was cultural, between those who favored Hellenization (the Sadducees) and those who resisted it (the Pharisees). A third was juridico-religious, between those who emphasized the importance of the Second Temple with its rites and services, and those who emphasized the importance of other Mosaic Laws. A fourth point of conflict, specifically religious, involved different interpretations of the Torah and how to apply it to current Jewish life, with Sadducees recognizing only the Written Torah (with Greek philosophy) and rejecting doctrines such as the Oral Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, and the resurrection of the dead.
Josephus (37 – c. 100 CE), believed by many historians to be a Pharisee, estimated the total Pharisee population before the fall of the Second Temple to be around 6,000.[3] Josephus claimed that Pharisees received the full support and goodwill of the common people, apparently in contrast to the more elite Sadducees, who were the upper class. Pharisees claimed Mosaic authority for their interpretation[4] of Jewish Laws, while Sadducees represented the authority of the priestly privileges and prerogatives established since the days of Solomon, when Zadok, their ancestor, officiated as High Priest. The phrase "common people" in Josephus' writings suggests that most Jews were "just Jewish people", distinguishing them from the main liturgical groups.
Outside Jewish history and literature, Pharisees have been made notable by references in the New Testament to conflicts with John the Baptist[5] and with Jesus. There are also several references in the New Testament to the Apostle Paul being a Pharisee.[6] The relationship between Early Christianity and Pharisees was not always hostile however: e.g. Gamaliel is often cited as a Pharisaic leader who was sympathetic to Christians.[7]
Contents
1 Etymology
2 Sources
3 History (c. 600 BC – c. 160 BC)
4 Emergence of the Pharisees
5 The Hasmonean period
6 The Roman period
7 The Pharisaic legacy
7.1 Beliefs
7.1.1 Monotheism
7.1.2 Wisdom
7.1.3 Free will and predestination
7.1.4 The afterlife
7.2 Practices
7.2.1 A kingdom of priests
7.2.2 The Oral Torah
7.2.3 Innovators or preservers
7.2.4 Significance of debate and study of the law
8 From Pharisees to rabbis
8.1 Post-Temple developments
9 Pharisees and Christianity
10 See also
11 Footnotes
12 References
13 External links
Etymology[edit]
"Pharisee" is derived from Ancient Greek Pharisaios (Φαρισαῖος),[8] from Aramaic Pərīšā (פְּרִישָׁא), plural Pərīšayyā (פְּרִישַׁיָּא), meaning "set apart, separated", related to Hebrew pārûš (פָּרוּשׁ), plural pĕrûšîm (פְּרוּשִׁים), the Qal passive participle of the verb pāraš (פָּרַשׁ).[9][10]
Sources[edit]
The first historical mention of the Pharisees and their beliefs comes in the four gospels and the Book of Acts, in which both their meticulous adherence to their interpretation of the Torah as well as their eschatological views are described. A later historical mention of the Pharisees comes from the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus (37–100 CE) in a description of the "four schools of thought", or "four sects", into which he divided the Jews in the 1st century CE. (The other schools were the Essenes, who were generally apolitical and who may have emerged as a sect of dissident priests who rejected either the Seleucid-appointed or the Hasmonean high priests as illegitimate; the Sadducees, the main antagonists of the Pharisees; and the "fourth philosophy".[11]) Other sects emerged at this time, such as the Early Christians in Jerusalem and the Therapeutae in Egypt.
2 Maccabees, a deuterocanonical book of the Bible, focuses on the Jews' revolt against the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes and concludes with the defeat of his general, Nicanor, in 161 BCE by Judas Maccabeus, the hero of the work. It was likely written by a Pharisee or someone sympathetic toward Pharisees, as it includes several theological innovations: propitiatory prayer for the dead, judgment day, intercession of saints and merits of the martyrs.
Judah haNasi redacted the Mishnah, an authoritative codification of Pharisaic interpretations, around 200 CE. Most of the authorities quoted in the Mishnah lived after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE; it thus marks the beginning of the transition from Pharisaic to Rabbinic Judaism. The Mishnah was supremely important because it compiled the oral interpretations and traditions of the Pharisees and later on the Rabbis into a single authoritative text, thus allowing oral tradition within Judaism to survive the destruction of the Second Temple.
However, none of the Rabbinic sources include identifiable eyewitness accounts of the Pharisees and their teachings.[12]
History (c. 600 BC – c. 160 BC)[edit]
The deportation and exile of an unknown number of Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar II, starting with the first deportation in 597 BCE[13] and continuing after the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple in 587 BCE,[14] resulted in dramatic changes to Jewish culture and religion. During the 70-year exile in Babylon, Jewish houses of assembly (known in Hebrew as a beit knesset or in Greek as a synagogue) and houses of prayer (Hebrew Beit Tefilah; Greek προσευχαί, proseuchai) were the primary meeting places for prayer, and the house of study (beit midrash) was the counterpart for the synagogue.
In 539 BCE the Persians conquered Babylon, and in 537 BCE Cyrus the Great allowed Jews to return to Judea and rebuild the Temple. He did not, however, allow the restoration of the Judean monarchy, which left the Judean priests as the dominant authority. Without the constraining power of the monarchy, the authority of the Temple in civic life was amplified. It was around this time that the Sadducee party emerged as the party of priests and allied elites. However, the Second Temple, which was completed in 515 BCE, had been constructed under the auspices of a foreign power, and there were lingering questions about its legitimacy. This provided the condition for the development of various sects or "schools of thought," each of which claimed exclusive authority to represent "Judaism," and which typically shunned social intercourse, especially marriage, with members of other sects. In the same period, the council of sages known as the Sanhedrin may have codified and canonized the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), from which, following the return from Babylon, the Torah was read publicly on market-days.
The Temple was no longer the only institution for Jewish religious life. After the building of the Second Temple in the time of Ezra the Scribe, the houses of study and worship remained important secondary institutions in Jewish life. Outside Judea, the synagogue was often called a house of prayer. While most Jews could not regularly attend the Temple service, they could meet at the synagogue for morning, afternoon and evening prayers. On Mondays, Thursdays and Shabbats, a weekly Torah portion was read publicly in the synagogues, following the tradition of public Torah readings instituted by Ezra.[15]
Although priests controlled the rituals of the Temple, the scribes and sages, later called rabbis (Heb.: "Teacher/master"), dominated the study of the Torah. These sages maintained an oral tradition that they believed had originated at Mount Sinai alongside the Torah of Moses; a God-given interpretation of the Torah.
The Hellenistic period of Jewish history began when Alexander the Great conquered Persia in 332 BCE. The rift between the priests and the sages developed during this time, when Jews faced new political and cultural struggles. After Alexander's death in 323 BCE, Judea was ruled by the Egyptian-Hellenic Ptolemies until 198 BCE, when the Syrian-Hellenic Seleucid Empire, under Antiochus III, seized control. Then, in 167 BCE, the Seleucid king Antiochus IV invaded Judea, entered the Temple, and stripped it of money and ceremonial objects. He imposed a program of forced Hellenization, requiring Jews to abandon their own laws and customs, thus precipitating the Maccabean Revolt. Jerusalem was liberated in 165 BCE and the Temple was restored. In 141 BCE an assembly of priests and others affirmed Simon Maccabeus as high priest and leader, in effect establishing the Hasmonean dynasty.
Emergence of the Pharisees[edit]
After defeating the Seleucid forces, Judas Maccabaeus's nephew John Hyrcanus established a new monarchy in the form of the priestly Hasmonean dynasty in 152 BCE, thus establishing priests as political as well as religious authorities. Although the Hasmoneans were considered heroes for resisting the Seleucids, their reign lacked the legitimacy conferred by descent from the Davidic dynasty of the First Temple era.[16]
The Pharisee ("separatist") party emerged largely out of the group of scribes and sages. Their name comes from the Hebrew and Aramaic parush or parushi, which means "one who is separated." It may refer to their separation from Gentiles, sources of ritual impurity or from irreligious Jews.[17] The Pharisees, among other Jewish sects, were active from the middle of the second century BCE until the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.[18] Josephus first mentions them in connection with Jonathan, the successor of Judas Maccabeus ("Ant." xiii. 5, § 9). One of the factors that distinguished the Pharisees from other groups prior to the destruction of the Temple was their belief that all Jews had to observe the purity laws (which applied to the Temple service) outside the Temple. The major difference, however, was the continued adherence of the Pharisees to the laws and traditions of the Jewish people in the face of assimilation. As Josephus noted, the Pharisees were considered the most expert and accurate expositors of Jewish law.
Josephus indicates that the Pharisees received the backing and good-will of the common people, apparently in contrast to the more elite Sadducees associated with the ruling classes. In general, whereas the Sadducees were aristocratic monarchists, the Pharisees were eclectic, popular, and more democratic. (Roth 1970: 84) The Pharisaic position is exemplified by the assertion that "A learned mamzer takes precedence over an ignorant High Priest." (A mamzer, according to the Pharisaic definition, is an outcast child born of a forbidden relationship, such as adultery or incest, in which marriage of the parents could not lawfully occur. The word is often, but incorrectly, translated as "illegitimate".)[19]
Sadducees rejected the Pharisaic tenet of an Oral Torah. In their personal lives this often meant an excessively stringent lifestyle from a Jewish perspective, as they did away with the oral tradition, and in turn the Pharisaic understanding of the Torah, creating two Jewish understandings of the Torah. An example of this differing approach is the interpretation of, "an eye in place of an eye". The Pharisaic understanding was that the value of an eye was to be paid by the perpetrator.[20] In the Sadducees' view the words were given a more literal interpretation, in which the offender's eye would be removed.[21] From the point of view of the Pharisees, the Sadducees wished to change the Jewish understanding of the Torah, to a Greek understanding of the Torah. The Pharisees preserved the Pharisaical oral law in the form of the Talmud. They would become the foundation of Rabbinic Judaism.
The sages of the Talmud see a direct link between themselves and the Pharisees, and historians generally consider Pharisaic Judaism to be the progenitor of Rabbinic Judaism, that is normative, mainstream Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple. All mainstream forms of Judaism today consider themselves heirs of Rabbinic Judaism and, ultimately, the Pharisees.
The Hasmonean period[edit]
Main articles: Hasmoneans and Maccabees
Although the Pharisees did not support the wars of expansion of the Hasmoneans and the forced conversions of the Idumeans, the political rift between them became wider when a Pharisee named Eleazar insulted the Hasmonean ethnarch John Hyrcanus at his own table, suggesting that he should abandon his role as High Priest due to a rumour, probably untrue, that he had been conceived while his mother was a prisoner of war. In response, he distanced himself from the Pharisees.[22][23]
After the death of John Hyrcanus his younger son Alexander Jannaeus made himself king and openly sided with the Sadducees by adopting their rites in the Temple. His actions caused a riot in the Temple and led to a brief civil war that ended with a bloody repression of the Pharisees. However, on his deathbed Jannaeus advised his widow, Salome Alexandra, to seek reconciliation with the Pharisees. Her brother was Shimon ben Shetach, a leading Pharisee. Josephus attests that Salome was favorably inclined toward the Pharisees, and their political influence grew tremendously under her reign, especially in the Sanhedrin or Jewish Council, which they came to dominate.
After her death her elder son Hyrcanus II was generally supported by the Pharisees. Her younger son, Aristobulus II, was in conflict with Hyrcanus, and tried to seize power. The Pharisees seemed to be in a vulnerable position at this time.[24]
The conflict between the two sons culminated in a civil war that ended when the Roman general Pompey intervened, and captured Jerusalem in 63 BCE.
There are some reasons to think that Josephus' account overstates the role of the Pharisees. He reports elsewhere that the Pharisees did not grow to power until the reign of Queen Salome Alexandra (JW.1.110). As Josephus was himself a Pharisee, his account might represent a historical creation meant to elevate the status of the Pharisees during the height of the Hasmonean Dynasty.[25]
Later texts like the Mishnah and the Talmud record a host of rulings by rabbis, some of whom are believed to be from among the Pharisees, concerning sacrifices and other ritual practices in the Temple, torts, criminal law, and governance. In their day, the influence of the Pharisees over the lives of the common people was strong and their rulings on Jewish law were deemed authoritative by many.
The Roman period[edit]
Main article: Judaea (Roman province)
Pompey in the Temple of Jerusalem, by Jean Fouquet
According to Josephus, the Pharisees appeared before Pompey asking him to interfere and restore the old priesthood while abolishing the royalty of the Hasmoneans altogether ("Ant." xiv. 3, § 2). Pharisees also opened Jerusalem's gates to the Romans, and actively supported them against the Sadducean faction.[26] When the Romans finally broke the entrance to the Jerusalem's Temple, the Pharisees killed the priests who were officiating the Temple services on Saturday.[27] They regarded Pompey's defilement of the Temple in Jerusalem as a divine punishment of Sadducean misrule. Pompey ended the monarchy in 63 BCE and named Hyrcanus II high priest and ethnarch (a lesser title than "king").[28] Six years later Hyrcanus was deprived of the remainder of political authority and ultimate jurisdiction was given to the Proconsul of Syria, who ruled through Hyrcanus's Idumaean associate Antipater, and later Antipater's two sons Phasael (military governor of Judea) and Herod (military governor of Galilee). In 40 BCE Aristobulus's son Antigonus overthrew Hyrcanus and named himself king and high priest, and Herod fled to Rome.
In Rome, Herod sought the support of Mark Antony and Octavian, and secured recognition by the Roman Senate as king, confirming the termination of the Hasmonean dynasty. According to Josephus, Sadducean opposition to Herod led him to treat the Pharisees favorably ("Ant." xiv. 9, § 4; xv. 1, § 1; 10, § 4; 11, §§ 5–6). Herod was an unpopular ruler, perceived as a Roman puppet. Despite his restoration and expansion of the Second Temple, Herod’s notorious treatment of his own family and of the last Hasmonaeans further eroded his popularity. According to Josephus, the Pharisees ultimately opposed him and thus fell victims (4 BCE) to his bloodthirstiness ("Ant." xvii. 2, § 4; 6, §§ 2–4). The family of Boethus, whom Herod had raised to the high-priesthood, revived the spirit of the Sadducees, and thenceforth the Pharisees again had them as antagonists ("Ant." xviii. 1, § 4).
While it stood, the Second Temple remained the center of Jewish ritual life. According to the Torah, Jews were required to travel to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices at the Temple three times a year: Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks), and Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles). The Pharisees, like the Sadducees, were politically quiescent, and studied, taught, and worshiped in their own way. At this time serious theological differences emerged between the Sadducees and Pharisees. The notion that the sacred could exist outside the Temple, a view central to the Essenes, was shared and elevated by the Pharisees.
The Pharisaic legacy[edit]
At first the values of the Pharisees developed through their sectarian debates with the Sadducees; then they developed through internal, non-sectarian debates over the law as an adaptation to life without the Temple, and life in exile, and eventually, to a more limited degree, life in conflict with Christianity.[citation needed] These shifts mark the transformation of Pharisaic to Rabbinic Judaism.
Beliefs[edit]
No single tractate of the key Rabbinic texts, the Mishnah and the Talmud, is devoted to theological issues; these texts are concerned primarily with interpretations of Jewish law, and anecdotes about the sages and their values. Only one chapter of the Mishnah deals with theological issues; it asserts that three kinds of people will have no share in "the world to come:" those who deny the resurrection of the dead, those who deny the divinity of the Torah, and Epicureans (who deny divine supervision of human affairs). Another passage suggests a different set of core principles: normally, a Jew may violate any law to save a life, but in Sanhedrin 74a, a ruling orders Jews to accept martyrdom rather than violate the laws against idolatry, murder, or adultery. (Judah haNasi, however, said that Jews must "be meticulous in small religious duties as well as large ones, because you do not know what sort of reward is coming for any of the religious duties," suggesting that all laws are of equal importance). In comparison with Christianity, the Rabbis were not especially concerned with the messiah or claims about the messiah or ranking the laws in importance.
Monotheism[edit]
One belief central to the Pharisees was shared by all Jews of the time is monotheism. This is evident in the practice of reciting the Shema, a prayer composed of select verses from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4), at the Temple and in synagogues; the Shema begins with the verses, "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God; the Lord is one." According to the Mishna, these passages were recited in the Temple along with the twice-daily Tamid offering; Jews in the diaspora, who did not have access to the Temple, recited these passages in their houses of assembly. According to the Mishnah and Talmud, the men of the Great Assembly instituted the requirement that Jews both in Judea and in the diaspora pray three times a day (morning, afternoon and evening), and include in their prayers a recitation of these passages in the morning ("Shacharit") and evening ("Ma'ariv") prayers.
Wisdom[edit]
Pharisaic wisdom was compiled in one book of the Mishna, Pirkei Avot. The Pharisaic attitude is perhaps best exemplified by a story about the sages Hillel the Elder and Shammai, who both lived in the latter half of the 1st century BCE. A gentile once challenged Shammai to teach him the wisdom of the Torah while he stood on one foot. Shammai drove him away. The same gentile approached Hillel and asked of him the same thing. Hillel chastised him gently by saying, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation – now go and study."[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]
Free will and predestination[edit]
According to Josephus, whereas the Sadducees believed that people have total free will and the Essenes believed that all of a person's life is predestined, the Pharisees believed that people have free will but that God also has foreknowledge of human destiny. This also accords with the statement in Pirkei Avot 3:19, "Rabbi Akiva said: All is foreseen, but freedom of choice is given". According to Josephus, Pharisees were further distinguished from the Sadducees in that Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead.
The afterlife[edit]
See also: Afterlife
Unlike the Sadducees, who are generally held to have rejected any existence after death, the sources vary on the beliefs of the Pharisees on the afterlife. According to the New Testament the Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead, but it does not specify whether this resurrection included the flesh or not.[41] According to Josephus, who himself was a Pharisee, the Pharisees held that only the soul was immortal and the souls of good people would be reincarnated and "pass into other bodies," while "the souls of the wicked will suffer eternal punishment."[42] The Apostle Paul, declared himself to be a Pharisee before his conversion to Christianity.[43][44]
Practices[edit]
A kingdom of priests[edit]
Fundamentally, the Pharisees continued a form of Judaism that extended beyond the Temple, applying Jewish law to mundane activities in order to sanctify the every-day world. This was a more participatory (or "democratic") form of Judaism, in which rituals were not monopolized by an inherited priesthood but rather could be performed by all adult Jews individually or collectively; whose leaders were not determined by birth but by scholarly achievement.
Many, including some scholars, have characterized the Sadducees as a sect that interpreted the Torah literally, and the Pharisees as interpreting the Torah liberally. R' Yitzhak Isaac Halevi suggests that this was not, in fact, a matter of religion. He claims that the complete rejection of Judaism would not have been tolerated under the Hasmonean rule and therefore Hellenists maintained that they were rejecting not Judaism but Rabbinic law. Thus, the Sadducees were in fact a political party not a religious sect.[45] However, according to Jacob Neusner, this view is a distortion. He suggests that two things fundamentally distinguished the Pharisaic from the Sadducean approach to the Torah. First, Pharisees believed in a broad and literal interpretation of Exodus (19:3–6), "you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,"[46] and the words of 2 Maccabees (2:17): "God gave all the people the heritage, the kingdom, the priesthood, and the holiness."
The Pharisees believed that the idea that all of the children of Israel were to be like priests was expressed elsewhere in the Torah, for example, when the Law itself was transferred from the sphere of the priesthood to every man in Israel (Exodus 19: 29–24; Deuteronomy 6: 7, 11: 19; comp. 31: 9; Jeremiah 2: 8, 18:18). Moreover, the Torah already provided some ways for all Jews to lead a priestly life: the precepts concerning unclean meat were perhaps intended originally for the priests, but were extended to the whole people (Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14:3–21); the prohibition of cutting the flesh in mourning for the dead (Deuteronomy 14: 1–2, Leviticus 19: 28; comp. Lev. 21: 5). The Pharisees believed that all Jews in their ordinary life, and not just the Temple priesthood or Jews visiting the Temple, should observe rules and rituals concerning purification.
The Oral Torah[edit]
Main article: Oral Torah
The standard view is that the Pharisees differed from Sadducees in the sense that they accepted the Oral Torah in addition to the Scripture. Saldarini argues that this assumption has neither implicit nor explicit evidence. A critique of the ancient interpretations of the Bible are distant from what modern scholars consider literal. Saldarini states that the Oral Torah did not come about until the third century AD, although there was an unstated idea about it in existence. Every Jewish community in a way possessed their own version of the Oral Torah which governed their religious practices. Josephus stated that the Sadducees only followed literal interpretations of the Torah. To Saldarini, this only means that the Sadducees followed their own way of Judaism and rejected the Pharisaic version of Judaism.[47] To Ruether the Pharisaic proclamation of the Oral Torah was their way of freeing Judaism from the clutches of Aaronite priesthood, represented by the Sadducees. The Oral Torah was to remain oral but was later given a written form. It did not refer to the Torah in a status as a commentary, rather had its own separate existence which allowed Pharisaic innovations.[48]
The sages of the Talmud believed that the Oral law was simultaneously revealed to Moses at Sinai, and the product of debates among rabbis. Thus, one may conceive of the "Oral Torah" not as a fixed text but as an ongoing process of analysis and argument in which God is actively involved; it was this ongoing process that was revealed at Sinai, and by participating in this ongoing process rabbis and their students are actively participating in God's ongoing act of revelation.
As Jacob Neusner has explained, the schools of the Pharisees and rabbis were and are holy
"because there men achieve sainthood through study of Torah and imitation of the conduct of the masters. In doing so, they conform to the heavenly paradigm, the Torah believed to have been created by God "in his image," revealed at Sinai, and handed down to their own teachers ... If the masters and disciples obey the divine teaching of Moses, "our rabbi," then their society, the school, replicates on earth the heavenly academy, just as the disciple incarnates the heavenly model of Moses, "our rabbi." The rabbis believe that Moses was (and the Messiah will be) a rabbi, God dons phylacteries, and the heavenly court studies Torah precisely as does the earthly one, even arguing about the same questions. These beliefs today may seem as projections of rabbinical values onto heaven, but the rabbis believe that they themselves are projections of heavenly values onto earth. The rabbis thus conceive that on earth they study Torah just as God, the angels, and Moses, "our rabbi," do in heaven. The heavenly schoolmen are even aware of Babylonian scholastic discussions, so they require a rabbi's information about an aspect of purity taboos.[49]
The commitment to relate religion to daily life through the law has led some (notably, Saint Paul and Martin Luther) to infer that the Pharisees were more legalistic than other sects in the Second Temple Era. The authors of the Gospels present Jesus as speaking harshly against some Pharisees (Josephus does claim that the Pharisees were the "strictest" observers of the law).[50] It is more accurate to say they were legalistic in a different way.[citation needed]
In some cases Pharisaic values led to an extension of the law — for example, the Torah requires priests to bathe themselves before entering the Temple. The Pharisees washed themselves before Sabbath and festival meals (in effect, making these holidays "temples in time"), and, eventually, before all meals. Although this seems burdensome compared to the practices of the Sadducees, in other cases, Pharisaic law was less strict. For example, Jewish law prohibits Jews from carrying objects from a private domain ("reshut ha-yachid") to a public domain ("reshut ha-rabim") on Sabbath. This law could have prevented Jews from carrying cooked dishes to the homes of friends for Sabbath meals. The Pharisees ruled that adjacent houses connected by lintels or fences could become connected by a legal procedure creating a partnership among homeowners; thereby, clarifying the status of those common areas as a private domain relative to the members of the partnership. In that manner people could carry objects from building to building.
Innovators or preservers[edit]
The Mishna in the beginning of Avot and (in more detail) Maimonides in his Introduction to Mishneh Torah records a chain of tradition (mesorah) from Moses at Mount Sinai down to R' Ashi, redactor of the Talmud and last of the Amoraim. This chain of tradition includes the interpretation of unclear statements in the Bible (e.g. that the "fruit of a beautiful tree" refers to a citron as opposed to any other fruit), the methods of textual exegesis (the disagreements recorded in the Mishna and Talmud generally focus on methods of exegesis), and Laws with Mosaic authority that cannot be derived from the Biblical text (these include measurements (e.g. what amount of a non-kosher food must one eat to be liable), the amount and order of the scrolls to be placed in the phylacteries, etc.).
The Pharisees were also innovators in that they enacted specific laws as they saw necessary according to the needs of the time. These included prohibitions to prevent an infringement of a biblical prohibition (e.g. one does not take a Lulav on Shabbat "Lest one carry it in the public domain") called gezeirot, among others. The commandment to read the Megillah (Book of Esther) on Purim and to light the Menorah on Hanukkah are Rabbinic innovations. Much of the legal system is based on "what the sages constructed via logical reasoning and from established practice".[51] Also, the blessings before meals and the wording of the Amidah. These are known as Takanot. The Pharisees based their authority to innovate on the verses: "....according to the word they tell you... according to all they instruct you. According to the law they instruct you and according to the judgment they say to you, you shall do; you shall not divert from the word they tell you, either right or left" (Deuteronomy 17:10–11) (see Encyclopedia Talmudit entry "Divrei Soferim").
In an interesting twist, Abraham Geiger posits that the Sadducees were the more hidebound adherents to an ancient Halacha whereas the Pharisees were more willing to develop Halacha as the times required. See however, Bernard Revel's "Karaite Halacha" which rejects many of Geiger's proofs.
Significance of debate and study of the law[edit]
Just as important as (if not more important than) any particular law was the value the rabbis placed on legal study and debate. The sages of the Talmud believed that when they taught the Oral Torah to their students, they were imitating Moses, who taught the law to the children of Israel. Moreover, the rabbis believed that "the heavenly court studies Torah precisely as does the earthly one, even arguing about the same questions."[52] Thus, in debating and disagreeing over the meaning of the Torah or how best to put it into practice, no rabbi felt that he (or his opponent) were in some way rejecting God or threatening Judaism; on the contrary, it was precisely through such arguments that the rabbis imitated and honored God.
One sign of the Pharisaic emphasis on debate and differences of opinion is that the Mishnah and Talmud mark different generations of scholars in terms of different pairs of contending schools. In the first century, for example, the two major Pharisaic schools were those of Hillel and Shammai. After Hillel died in 20 CE, Shammai assumed the office of president of the Sanhedrin until he died in 30 CE. Followers of these two sages dominated scholarly debate over the following decades. Although the Talmud records the arguments and positions of the school of Shammai, the teachings of the school of Hillel were ultimately taken as authoritative.
From Pharisees to rabbis[edit]
Following the Jewish–Roman wars, revolutionaries like the Zealots had been crushed by the Romans, and had little credibility (the last Zealots died at Masada in 73 CE). Similarly, the Sadducees, whose teachings were closely connected to the Temple, disappeared with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The Essenes too disappeared, perhaps because their teachings so diverged from the concerns of the times, perhaps because they were sacked by the Romans at Qumran.
Of all the major Second Temple sects, only the Pharisees remained,[citation needed] poised with teachings directed to all Jews that could replace Temple worship. Such teachings extended beyond ritual practices. According to the classic midrash in Avot D'Rabbi Nathan (4:5):
The Temple is destroyed. We never witnessed its glory. But Rabbi Joshua did. And when he looked at the Temple ruins one day, he burst into tears. "Alas for us! The place which atoned for the sins of all the people Israel lies in ruins!" Then Rabbi Yohannan ben Zakkai spoke to him these words of comfort: "Be not grieved, my son. There is another way of gaining ritual atonement, even though the Temple is destroyed. We must now gain ritual atonement through deeds of loving-kindness."
Following the destruction of the Temple, Rome governed Judea through a Procurator at Caesarea and a Jewish Patriarch and levied the Fiscus Judaicus. Yohanan ben Zakkai, a leading Pharisee, was appointed the first Patriarch (the Hebrew word, Nasi, also means prince, or president), and he reestablished the Sanhedrin at Yavneh (see the related Council of Jamnia) under Pharisee control. Instead of giving tithes to the priests and sacrificing offerings at the (now-destroyed) Temple, the rabbis instructed Jews to give charity. Moreover, they argued that all Jews should study in local synagogues, because Torah is "the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob" (Deut. 33: 4).
After the destruction of the First Temple, Jews believed that God would forgive them and enable them to rebuild the Temple – an event that actually occurred within three generations. After the destruction of the Second Temple, Jews wondered whether this would happen again. When the Emperor Hadrian threatened to rebuild Jerusalem as a pagan city dedicated to Jupiter, in 132, Aelia Capitolina, some of the leading sages of the Sanhedrin supported a rebellion led by Simon Bar Kosiba (later known as Bar Kokhba), who established a short-lived independent state that was conquered by the Romans in 135. With this defeat, Jews' hopes that the Temple would be rebuilt were crushed. Nonetheless, belief in a Third Temple remains a cornerstone of Jewish belief.
Romans forbade Jews to enter Jerusalem (except for the day of Tisha B'Av), and forbade any plan to rebuild the Temple. Instead, it took over the Province of Judea directly, renaming it Syria Palaestina, and renaming Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina. Romans did eventually reconstitute the Sanhedrin under the leadership of Judah haNasi (who claimed to be a descendant of King David). They conferred the title of "Nasi" as hereditary, and Judah's sons served both as Patriarch and as heads of the Sanhedrin.
Post-Temple developments[edit]
According to historian Shaye Cohen, by the time three generations had passed after the destruction of the Second Temple, most Jews concluded that the Temple would not be rebuilt during their lives, nor in the foreseeable future. Jews were now confronted with difficult and far-reaching questions:
How to achieve atonement without the Temple?
How to explain the disastrous outcome of the rebellion?
How to live in the post-Temple, Romanized world?
How to connect present and past traditions?
Regardless of the importance they gave to the Temple, and despite their support of Bar Koseba's revolt, the Pharisees' vision of Jewish law as a means by which ordinary people could engage with the sacred in their daily lives provided them with a position from which to respond to all four challenges in a way meaningful to the vast majority of Jews. Their responses would constitute Rabbinic Judaism.[53]
During the Second Temple era, when Jews were divided into sects, the Pharisees were one sect among many, and partisan. Each sect claimed a monopoly on the truth, and discouraged marriage between members of different sects. Members of different sects did, however, argue with one another over the correctness of their respective interpretations, although there is no significant, reliable record of such debates between sects. After the destruction of the Second Temple, these sectarian divisions ended. The Rabbis avoided the term "Pharisee," perhaps because it was a term more often used by non-Pharisees, but also because the term was explicitly sectarian. The Rabbis claimed leadership over all Jews, and added to the Amidah the birkat haMinim, a prayer which in part exclaims, "Praised are You O Lord, who breaks enemies and defeats the wicked," and which is understood as a rejection of sectarians and sectarianism. This shift by no means resolved conflicts over the interpretation of the Torah; rather, it relocated debates between sects to debates within Rabbinic Judaism. The Pharisaic commitment to scholarly debate as a value in and of itself, rather than merely a byproduct of sectarianism, emerged as a defining feature of Rabbinic Judaism.
Thus, as the Pharisees argued that all Israel should act as priests, the Rabbis argued that all Israel should act as rabbis: "The rabbis furthermore want to transform the entire Jewish community into an academy where the whole Torah is studied and kept .... redemption depends on the "rabbinization" of all Israel, that is, upon the attainment of all Jewry of a full and complete embodiment of revelation or Torah, thus achieving a perfect replica of heaven."[54]
The Rabbinic era itself is divided into two periods. The first period was that of the Tannaim (from the Aramaic word for "repeat;" the Aramaic root TNY is equivalent to the Hebrew root SNY, which is the basis for "Mishnah." Thus, Tannaim are "Mishnah teachers"), the sages who repeated and thus passed down the Oral Torah. During this period rabbis finalized the canonization of the Tanakh, and in 200 Judah haNasi edited together Tannaitic judgements and traditions into the Mishnah, considered by the rabbis to be the definitive expression of the Oral Torah (although some of the sages mentioned in the Mishnah are Pharisees who lived prior to the destruction of the Second Temple, or prior to the Bar Kozeba Revolt, most of the sages mentioned lived after the revolt).
The second period is that of the Amoraim (from the Aramaic word for "speaker") rabbis and their students who continued to debate legal matters and discuss the meaning of the books of the Bible. In Palestine, these discussions occurred at important academies at Tiberias, Caesarea, and Sepphoris. In Babylonia, these discussions largely occurred at important academies that had been established at Nehardea, Pumpeditha and Sura. This tradition of study and debate reached its fullest expression in the development of the Talmudim, elaborations of the Mishnah and records of Rabbinic debates, stories, and judgements, compiled around 400 in Palestine and around 500 in Babylon.
Rabbinic Judaism eventually emerged as normative Judaism and in fact many today refer to Rabbinic Judaism simply as "Judaism." Jacob Neusner, however, states that the Amoraim had no ultimate power in their communities. They lived at a time when Jews were subjects of either the Roman or Iranian (Parthian and Persian) empires. These empires left the day-to-day governance in the hands of the Jewish authorities: in Roman Palestine, through the hereditary office of Patriarch (simultaneously the head of the Sanhedrin); in Babylonia, through the hereditary office of the Reish Galuta, the "Head of the Exile" or "Exilarch" (who ratified the appointment of the heads of Rabbinical academies.) According to Professor Neusner:
The "Judaism" of the rabbis at this time is in no degree either normal or normative, and speaking descriptively, the schools cannot be called "elite." Whatever their aspirations for the future and pretensions in the present, the rabbis, though powerful and influential, constitute a minority group seeking to exercise authority without much governmental support, to dominate without substantial means of coercion.[55]
In Neusner's view, the rabbinic project, as acted out in the Talmud, reflected not the world as it was but the world as rabbis dreamed it should be.
According to S. Baron however, there existed "a general willingness of the people to follow its self imposed Rabbinic rulership". Although the Rabbis lacked authority to impose capital punishment "Flagellation and heavy fines, combined with an extensive system of excommunication were more than enough to uphold the authority of the courts." In fact, the Rabbis took over more and more power from the Reish Galuta until eventually R' Ashi assumed the title Rabbana, heretofore assumed by the exilarch, and appeared together with two other Rabbis as an official delegation "at the gate of King Yazdegard's court." The Amorah (and Tanna) Rav was a personal friend of the last Parthian king Artabenus and Shmuel was close to Shapur I, King of Persia. Thus, the Rabbis had significant means of "coercion" and the people seem to have followed the Rabbinic rulership.
Pharisees and Christianity[edit]
Gustave Doré: Dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees
Jesus at the house of the Pharisean, by Jacopo Tintoretto, Escorial
See also: Early Christianity and Judaism, Paul of Tarsus and Judaism, Christianity and Judaism, and Law and Gospel
The Pharisees appear in the New Testament, engaging in conflicts between themselves and John the Baptist[5] and with Jesus, and because Nicodemus the Pharisee (John 3:1) with Joseph of Arimathea entombed Jesus' body at great personal risk. Gamaliel, the highly respected rabbi and defender of the apostles, was also a Pharisee, and according to some Christian traditions secretly converted to Christianity.[56]
There are several references in the New Testament to Paul the Apostle being a Pharisee before converting to Christianity,[6] and other members of the Pharisee sect are known from Acts 15:5 to have become Christian believers. It was some members of his group who argued that gentile converts must be circumcised and obliged to follow the Mosaic law, leading to a dispute within the early Church addressed at the Apostolic Council in Jerusalem,[57] in 50 CE.
The New Testament, particularly the Synoptic Gospels, presents especially the leadership of the Pharisees as obsessed with man-made rules (especially concerning purity) whereas Jesus is more concerned with God’s love; the Pharisees scorn sinners whereas Jesus seeks them out. (The Gospel of John, which is the only gospel where Nicodemus is mentioned, particularly portrays the sect as divided and willing to debate.) Because of the New Testament's frequent depictions of Pharisees as self-righteous rule-followers (see also Woes of the Pharisees and Legalism (theology)), the word "pharisee" (and its derivatives: "pharisaical", etc.) has come into semi-common usage in English to describe a hypocritical and arrogant person who places the letter of the law above its spirit.[58] Jews today typically find this insulting and some consider the use of the word to be anti-Semitic.[59]
Some have speculated that Jesus was himself a Pharisee and that his arguments with Pharisees is a sign of inclusion rather than fundamental conflict (disputation being the dominant narrative mode employed in the Talmud as a search for truth, and not necessarily a sign of opposition).[60] Jesus' emphasis on loving one's neighbor (see Great Commandment), for example, echoes the teaching of the School of Hillel. Jesus' views of divorce, however, are closer to those of the School of Shammai, another Pharisee.
Others have argued that the portrait of the Pharisees in the New Testament is an anachronistic caricature. Although a minority of scholars follow the Augustinian hypothesis, most scholars date the composition of the Christian gospels to between 70 and 100 CE, a time after Christianity had separated from Judaism (and after Pharisaism emerged as the dominant form of Judaism). Rather than an accurate account of Jesus' relationship to Pharisees and other Jewish leaders, this view holds that the Gospels instead reflect the competition and conflict between early Christians and Pharisees for leadership of the Jews, or reflects Christian attempts to distance themselves from Jews in order to present themselves in a more sympathetic (and benign) light to Romans and other Gentiles — thus making them a biased source concerning the conduct of the Pharisees.[citation needed]
Examples of disputed passages include the story of Jesus declaring the sins of a paralytic man forgiven and the Pharisees calling the action blasphemy. In the story, Jesus counters the accusation that he does not have the power to forgive sins and forgives them, and also heals the man. Christians interpret the account of the Paralytic Man as showing that the "man-made" teachings of the Pharisees had so "blinded their eyes" and "hardened their hearts"[This quote needs a citation], that they were persisting (unlike the crowds) in refusing to credit his authority. Hence, the New Testament describes Jesus as tackling what he saw as the Pharisees' non-scriptural judgmentalism concerning sin, disability and sickness.[citation needed]
Some historians, however, have noted that Jesus' actions are actually similar to and consistent with Jewish beliefs and practices of the time, as recorded by the Rabbis, that commonly associate illness with sin and healing with forgiveness.[61] Jews (according to E.P. Sanders) reject the New Testament suggestion that the healing would have been critical of, or criticized by, the Pharisees as no surviving Rabbinic source questions or criticizes this practice.[61] Another argument is that according to the New Testament, Pharisees wanted to punish Jesus for healing a man's withered hand on Sabbath. No Rabbinic rule has been found according to which Jesus would have violated Sabbath.[62]
Some scholars believe that those passages of the New Testament that are seemingly most hostile to the Pharisees were written sometime after the destruction of Herod's Temple in 70 CE.[63][64] Only Christianity and Pharisaism survived the destruction of the Temple, and the two competed for a short time until the Pharisees emerged as the dominant form of Judaism. When many Jews did not convert, Christians sought new converts from among the Gentiles.[65] Christians had to explain why converts should listen to them rather than the Non-Messianic Jews, concerning the Hebrew Bible, and also had to dissociate themselves with the rebellious Jews who so often rejected Roman authority and authority in general. They thus were perceived to have had presented a story of Jesus that was more sympathetic to Romans than to Jews.
Some scholars have found evidence of continuous interactions between Jewish-Christian and rabbinic movements from the mid- to late second century c.e. to the fourth century c.e.[66]
See also[edit]
Criticism of the Talmud
The Seekers after Smooth Things
Tannaim
Woes of the Pharisees
Footnotes[edit]
Jump up ^ Cecil Roth (1961). History of the Jews. Schocken Books. p. 84.
Jump up ^ "History & Overview of the Dead Sea Scrolls". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.
Jump up ^ Antiquities of the Jews, 17.42
Jump up ^ Ber. 48b; Shab. 14b; Yoma 80a; Yeb. 16a; Nazir 53a; Ḥul. 137b; et al.)
^ Jump up to: a b Matthew 3:1–7,Luke 7:28–30
^ Jump up to: a b Apostle Paul as a Pharisee Acts 26:5 See also Acts 23:6, Philippians 3:5
Jump up ^ Acts 5:34-39
Jump up ^ Greek word #5330 in Strong's
Jump up ^ Klein, Ernest (1987). A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English. City: University of Haifa. ISBN 965-220-093-X.
Jump up ^ Hebrew word #6567 in Strong's Concordance
Jump up ^ Ant. 18.9
Jump up ^ "Jacob Neusner, 'The Rabbinic traditions about the Pharisees before 70' - Friends of Louis Jacobs". 12 May 2016.
Jump up ^ The Oxford History of the Biblical World, ed. by Michael D Coogan. Pub. by Oxford University Press, 1999. pg 350
Jump up ^ Jeremiah 52:28–30
Jump up ^ See Nehemiah 8:1–18
Jump up ^ Catherwood, Christopher (2011). A Brief History of the Middle East. Hachette Book Group. ISBN 9780762441020.
Jump up ^ Cohen, Shaye J.D., From the Maccabees to the Mishnah. The Westminster Press, 1987, p. 159.
Jump up ^ Ibid, p. 143.
Jump up ^ Schwartz, Leo, ed. Great Ages and Ideas of the Jewish People
Jump up ^ Babylonian Talmud tractate Bava Kamma Ch. 8
Jump up ^ Encyclopaedia Judaica s.v. "Sadducees"
Jump up ^ Ant. 13.288–296.
Jump up ^ Nickelsburg, 93.
Jump up ^ Junghwa Choi, Jewish Leadership in Roman Palestine from 70 C.E. to 135 C.E. BRILL, 2013 ISBN 9004245146 p90
Jump up ^ Sievers, 155
Jump up ^ The History of the Second Temple Period, Paolo Sacchi, ch. 8 p. 269: "At this point, the majority of the city's inhabitants, pro-Pharisee and pro-Hyrcanus, decided to open the city's gates to the Romans. Only a small minority of Sadducees took refuge in the Temple and decided to hold out until the very end. This was Autumn 63 BCE. On this occasion Pompey broke into the Temple."
Jump up ^ The Wars of the Jews, Flavius Josephus, Translated by William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo John E. Beardsley, 1895, sections 142–150: "And now did many of the priests, even when they saw their enemies assailing them with swords in their hands, without any disturbance, go on with their Divine worship, and were slain while they were offering their drink-offerings, ... The greatest part of them were slain by their own countrymen, of the adverse faction, and an innumerable multitude threw themselves down precipices"
Jump up ^ A History of the Jewish People, H.H. Ben-Sasson, page 223: "Thus the independence of Hasmonean Judea came to an end;"
Jump up ^ The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics, edited by Roger Crisp, 2013, p.129
Jump up ^ Saving the Bill of Rights: Exposing the Left's Campaign to Destroy American Exceptionalism, Frank Miniter, 2011, p.268
Jump up ^ Kissing Fish, Roger Wolsey, 2011, p.265
Jump up ^ The Moral Foundation of Economic Behavior, David C. Rose, 2011, p.142
Jump up ^ Healer and Rebel: Life of Historical Jesus, Flemming O. Fischer, 2013, p.115
Jump up ^ Elaine Bernstein Partnow, 2008, p. 196
Jump up ^ The Book of Asher: Memoirs of a Passionate Jewish Life, Sonia Usatch-Kuhn, 2018, p.9
Jump up ^ The Religions Book, Penguin 2014, p.174
Jump up ^ The Freethinker's Prayer Book: And some word to live by, Khushwant Singh, 2013
Jump up ^ 100 Most Influential Jews of All Times for Smartphones and Mobile Devices, Mobile Reference 2007
Jump up ^ Why Loyalty Matters: The Groundbreaking Approach to Rediscovering Happiness, Meaning and Lasting Fulfillment in Your Life, Timothy Keiningham, Lerzan Aksoy, 2013
Jump up ^ Law, Not War: The Long, Hard Search for Justice and Peace, Richard Derecktor Schwartz, 2014, p.33
Jump up ^ Acta 23.8.
Jump up ^ Josephus Jewish War 2.8.14; cf. Antiquities 8.14–15.
Jump up ^ Acta 23.6, 26.5.
Jump up ^ Udo Schnelle (15 October 2013). Apostle Paul: His Life and Theology. Baker Publishing Group. pp. 51–. ISBN 978-1-4412-4200-6.
Jump up ^ Dorot Ha'Rishonim
Jump up ^ Neusner, Jacob Invitation to the Talmud: a Teaching Book (1998):40
Jump up ^ Anthony J. Saldarini (2001). Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society: A Sociological Approach. W.B. Eerdmans. pp. 303–. ISBN 978-0-8028-4358-6.
Jump up ^ Rosemary Ruether (8 September 1996). Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism. Wipf and Stock Publishers. pp. 53–. ISBN 978-0-9653517-5-1.
Jump up ^ Neusner, Jacob Invitation to the Talmud: a Teaching Book (1998): 8)
Jump up ^ Josepheus. The Antiquities of the Jews. pp. 13.5.9.
Jump up ^ See Zvi Hirsch Chajes The Students Guide through the Talmud Ch. 15 (English edition by Jacob Schacter
Jump up ^ Neusner, Jacob Invitation to the Talmud: a Teaching Book (1998): 8
Jump up ^ Cohen, Shaye J.D. 1988 From the Maccabees to the Mishnah
Jump up ^ Neusner, Jacob Invitation to the Talmud: a Teaching Book (1998): 9)
Jump up ^ Neusner, Jacob Invitation to the Talmud: a Teaching Book (1998): 4–5
Jump up ^ Acts 5 merely reads: "33 When they heard this, they were furious and plotted to kill them. 34 Then one in the council stood up, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in respect by all the people, and commanded them to put the apostles outside for a little while. 35 And he said to them: “Men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what you intend to do regarding these men. 36 For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody. A number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was slain, and all who obeyed him were scattered and came to nothing. 37 After this man, Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census, and drew away many people after him. He also perished, and all who obeyed him were dispersed. 38 And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing; 39 but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it—lest you even be found to fight against God.”" (New King James Version)
Jump up ^ Acts 15
Jump up ^ "pharisee" The Free Dictionary
Jump up ^ Michael Cook 2008 Modern Jews Engage the New Testament 279
Jump up ^ H. Maccoby, 1986 The Mythmaker. Paul and the Invention of Christianity
^ Jump up to: a b E.P. Sanders 1993 The Historical Figure of Jesus 213
Jump up ^ E.P. Sanders 1993 The Historical Figure of Jesus 215
Jump up ^ Paula Frederiksen, 1988 From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus
Jump up ^ Michael J. Cook, 2008 Modern Jews Engage the New Testament
Jump up ^ e.g., Romans 11:25
Jump up ^ See for instance: Lily C. Vuong, Gender and Purity in the Protevangelium of James, WissenschaftlicheUntersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.358 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,2013), 210-13; Jonathan Bourgel, "The Holders of the “Word of Truth”: The Pharisees in Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 1.27–71," Journal of Early Christian Studies 25.2 (2017) 171-200. https://www.academia.edu/34049435/Bourgel_The_Holders_of_the_Word_of_Truth_The_Pharisees_in_Pseudo-Clementine_Recognitions_1.27_71_JECS_25.2_2017_.pdf?auto=bookmark&campaign=weekly_digest
References[edit]
Baron, Salo W. A Social and Religious History of the Jews Vol 2.
Boccaccini, Gabriele 2002 Roots of Rabbinic Judaism ISBN 0-8028-4361-1
Bruce, F.F., The Book of Acts, Revised Edition (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988)
Cohen, Shaye J.D. 1988 From the Maccabees to the Mishnah ISBN 0-664-25017-3
Fredriksen, Paula 1988 From Jesus to Christ ISBN 0-300-04864-5
Gowler, David B. 1991/2008 Host, Guest, Enemy, and Friend: Portraits of the Pharisees in Luke and Acts (Peter Lang, 1991; ppk, Wipf & Stock, 2008)
Halevi, Yitzchak Isaac Dorot Ha'Rishonim (Heb.)
Neusner, Jacob Torah From our Sages: Pirke Avot ISBN 0-940646-05-6
Neusner, Jacob Invitation to the Talmud: a Teaching Book (1998) ISBN 1-59244-155-6
Roth, Cecil A History of the Jews: From Earliest Times Through the Six Day War 1970 ISBN 0-8052-0009-6
Schwartz, Leo, ed. Great Ages and Ideas of the Jewish People ISBN 0-394-60413-X
Segal, Alan F. Rebecca's Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World, Harvard University Press, 1986, ISBN 0-674-75076-4
Sacchi, Paolo 2004 The History of the Second Temple Period, London [u.a.] : T & T Clark International, 2004, ISBN 9780567044501
External links[edit]
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Pharisees
Resources > Second Temple and Talmudic Era > Jewish Sects[permanent dead link] The Jewish History Resource Center – Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jewish Encyclopedia: Pharisees
Driscoll, James F. (1913). "Pharisees". Catholic Encyclopedia.
"Pharisees". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
Letchford, Roderick R., Pharisees, Jesus and the Kingdom (2001), Australian National University.
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text:
Doki Doki Literature Club!
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Doki Doki Literature Club!
The cover art of Doki Doki Literature Club!, featuring the four main characters.
Developer(s)
Team Salvato
Designer(s)
Dan Salvato
Programmer(s)
Dan Salvato
Artist(s)
Satchely, Velinquent
Writer(s)
Dan Salvato
Composer(s)
Dan Salvato
Engine
Ren'Py
Platform(s)
Microsoft Windows
macOS
Linux
Release
WW: September 22, 2017
Genre(s)
Visual novel
Mode(s)
Single-player
Doki Doki Literature Club! is a 2017 visual novel developed by Team Salvato for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux.[1] The story follows a male high school student who joins the school's Literature Club and interacts with its four female members. The game features a mostly linear story, with some alternate scenes and endings depending on the choices the player makes. While it appears at first glance to be a lighthearted dating simulator, it is in fact a psychological horror game that involves heavy use of breaking the fourth wall.[2][3]
The game was developed in an estimated two-year period by a team led by Dan Salvato, known previously for his modding work for Super Smash Bros. Melee. According to Salvato, the inspiration for the game came from his mixed feelings toward anime, and a fascination for surreal and unsettling experiences.[4] Upon its release, Doki Doki Literature Club! received critical praise for its metafictional and horror elements, with PC Gamer calling it "one of the most surprising games of the year."[5]
Contents
1 Gameplay
2 Plot
2.1 Possible endings
3 Development and release
4 Reception
5 References
6 External links
Gameplay
The poem writing mini-game in Doki Doki Literature Club!
Doki Doki Literature Club! is a visual novel, as such, the majority of the gameplay consists of the player reading the game's story with little impact on what direction the plot takes. At certain points in the game the player is prompted to make decisions which may affect how the story progresses. The game also features a poetry writing mechanic as part of the Literature Club.[2] The player is given a list of various words to select from that will make up their poem. Each girl in the Literature Club has different word preferences, and will react when the player picks a word that they like. The player is able to create poems for only three of the four girls, which serves as a plot point in the game. Additional scenes can be unlocked for each girl if the player writes poems targeted at that girl's tastes, and chooses the correct dialogue options. If the player goes through all of the options, they will unlock an alternate ending. At one point in the game, the player is required to access the game's files and delete a specific file in order to progress further; throughout the game, files will be added and deleted automatically from the game.
Plot
The protagonist is invited by his childhood friend, Sayori, to join their high school's literature club. The protagonist then meets the other members of the club: Natsuki, Yuri, and the club president Monika.[6] The protagonist starts to participate in the club's activities such as writing and sharing poetry, and grows close to the four girls. Many of the poems written by the four girls foreshadow or hint at their troubled home life, or depressed state.
Whilst preparing for an upcoming school festival, Sayori reveals that she suffers from depression and confesses her love for the protagonist. As the day of the festival approaches, Sayori's usually bittersweet poem is replaced with a dark and morbid note repeatedly telling someone to get out of her head. When Sayori does not answer his text messages, the protagonist leaves the club meeting and rushes to Sayori's home, where he discovers that she has hanged herself. The game begins to glitch, and as the protagonist wonders if they could have saved Sayori, the game abruptly ends.
The player is sent back to the main menu, with all previous save files erased. The game starts as usual, but what used to be Sayori's text and name is replaced with unreadable text. The game suddenly glitches and restarts; however, Sayori is absent, and any previous references to her are either completely removed or replaced by glitches and meshes of portions of other characters' sprites. Monika instead invites the protagonist to the club. Unsettling events begin occurring: the game rewinds after the protagonist finds Yuri cutting herself, features disturbing bad endings such as Natsuki’s neck snapping, and refuses to accept dialog options that do not favor Monika. Yuri becomes increasingly psychotic and obsessive towards the protagonist, brutally insulting Natsuki and Monika and trying to keep the protagonist with her. Just before the festival, Yuri presents the protagonist with a stained, illegible poem, and apparitions of a faceless Natsuki appear. Yuri later confesses her love to the protagonist, then stabs herself to death, out of grief or excitement, depending on whether the protagonist accepted her confession. Due to another glitch, the protagonist unwittingly spends the weekend sitting by her body. On Monday, Natsuki enters, vomits at the sight of Yuri's corpse, and flees. Monika then appears, apologizes, and deletes the "character files" for Yuri and Natsuki, causing the game to restart once again.
After being automatically taken to a new file, the protagonist is placed in a room with Monika seated across from them. Monika explains that she is aware that she is a character in a game, and that she is able to manipulate the game's files to alter the other characters' personalities or erase them altogether. She admits to making Sayori "more and more depressed" and "amplifying Yuri's obsessive personality" to make them more unlikable so the player would focus on her instead, having had an identity crisis from not being designed as a potential love interest. She confesses her love directly not to the protagonist, but to the player. Monika will sit and talk to the player indefinitely about various topics until the player manually enters the game's directory and deletes Monika's character file. Upon doing this, the game glitches once more and Monika panics as she is deleted from the game's world. Monika initially lashes out at the player, but after a pause, she confesses that she still loves the player, and expresses regret for everything she has done. Monika then restores the other girls, and removes herself from the game.
Possible endings
Choices the player can make in the playthrough can lead to three possible conclusions.
The first (and default) ending, following Monika's removal from the directory, the game starts over once again with Sayori, Yuri and Natsuki all alive, playing out similarly to the initial playthrough. Shortly after meeting everyone, Sayori tells the player that now that she is the president of the literature club, she knows everything about the game and what happened with Monika, and intends to do the same thing Monika did. Monika immediately intervenes once more via text prompt and deletes Sayori to save the player. Monika then speaks audibly to the player, and sings a song titled "Your Reality" to the player while the credits roll and Monika slowly deletes the game. After the credits, the game displays a note from Monika, stating that she has disbanded the literature club because "there is no happiness" in it.
Another possible ending may take place if Monika's character file is prematurely deleted before starting a new game, resulting in Sayori becoming the default leader of the club. Upon realizing the true nature of the game and her role in it, Sayori will panic and hijack the controls, deletes all the character files, and forcefully closes it. Opening the game again will result to a black end screen followed by an image of Sayori hanging herself, staying with the screen after 10 minutes will reveal a message — "Now everyone can be happy."
However, an alternate ending may occur if the player has viewed all of the optional scenes in a single playthrough, which requires saving and loading at several points before witnessing Sayori's initial suicide. Sayori instead accepts the nature of her reality and tearfully expresses her gratitude to the player for trying to make all of the girls happy. She bids goodbye, hoping that the player will visit once again sometime and concluding that the girls all love the player before deleting the game herself. After the credits, which also feature "Your Reality", the player is presented with a thank-you note from the game's developer, Dan Salvato.
In all outcomes, further playthroughs require the game to be re-installed or hard reset.
Development and release
Dan Salvato spent an estimated two years working on Doki Doki Literature Club! in secret before releasing it as his first game.[4] Prior to its release, Salvato was known for creating the FrankerFaceZ extension for Twitch.tv,[4] his modding work in the Super Smash Bros scene,[7] and for his custom Super Mario Maker levels.[8][9]
Doki Doki Literature Club! was first released on September 22, 2017 on itch.io, and was later also released on Steam.[10] The game is available as freeware with an optional pay what you want model. Paying US$10 or more unlocks a bonus "Fan Pack" that includes desktop and mobile wallpapers, the game's official soundtrack, and a digital concept art booklet.[11]
Salvato cited his "love-hate relationship" with anime as inspiration for creating Doki Doki Literature Club!. Discussing the horror elements of the game, Salvato explained that he was inspired by "things that are scary because they make you uncomfortable, not because they shove scary-looking things in your face."[4]
Reception
Reception
Aggregate score
Aggregator
Score
Metacritic 78/100[12]
Review score
Publication
Score
RPGFan 90%[13]
After its release, Doki Doki Literature Club! quickly gained a cult following.[4][14]
Gita Jackson from Kotaku described Doki Doki Literature Club! as "a truly special game," adding "if you like horror games, especially ones that really get under your skin, please check out Doki Doki Literature Club."[15] GQ's Tom Philip called it "one of the scariest games I have ever played." He went on to praise the game's writing saying it contained "some of the most wickedly inventive narrative techniques I've ever seen," but commented that at times it felt like "a slog, clicking through endless amounts of inane, flirty conversation about poetry."[14]
In its first three months of release, Doki Doki Literature Club! was downloaded over one million times,[16] and exceeded two million downloads about a month later.[17]
At IGN's Best of 2017 Awards, the game won the People's Choice Award each for "Best PC Game",[18] "Best Adventure Game" (for which it was also a runner-up),[19] "Best Story",[20] and "Most Innovative".[21] EGMNow ranked the game 16th in their list of the 25 Best Games of 2017.[22] It won the "Matthew Crump Cultural Innovation Award" and was nominated for "Trending Game of the Year" at the 2018 SXSW Gaming Awards.[23][24]
References
Jump up ^ "Doki Doki Literature Club!". ddlc.moe. Retrieved October 24, 2017.
^ Jump up to: a b Rose, Victoria (October 22, 2017). "Doki Doki Literature Club is an uncontrollably horrific visual novel". Polygon. Retrieved February 6, 2017.
Jump up ^ Josuweit, Amy (October 31, 2017). "Doki Doki Literature Club is a hidden horror game for the internet age". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved October 31, 2017.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e Jackson, Gita (October 20, 2017). "Doki Doki Literature Club's Horror Was Born From A Love-Hate Relationship With Anime". Kotaku. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
Jump up ^ Wright, Steven (October 26, 2017). "Doki Doki Literature Club! hides a gruesome horror game under its cute surface". PC Gamer. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
Jump up ^ Couture, Joel (October 13, 2017). "Get to Know Your Fellow Lovers Of Writing With Doki Doki Literature Club!". Silicon Era. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
Jump up ^ Good, Owen (September 13, 2015). "Powerful mod adds replay feature to Super Smash Bros. Melee". Polygon. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
Jump up ^ Blain, Louise (October 9, 2015). "P is for Pain is the new contender for Mario Maker's hardest level". Games radar. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
Jump up ^ "Eversion-Inspired Super Mario Maker Level Uses Doors In An Ingenious Way". Silliconera. September 21, 2017. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
Jump up ^ "Doki Doki Literature Club! on Steam". Valve Corporation. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
Jump up ^ "Doki Doki Literature Club Fan Pack on Steam". Valve Corporation. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
Jump up ^ "Doki Doki Literature Club! for PC Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
Jump up ^ Fenner, Robert (December 24, 2017). "RPGFan Review - Doki Doki Literature Club". RPGFan. Retrieved February 5, 2018.
^ Jump up to: a b Philip, Tom (October 19, 2017). "Doki Doki Literature Club Is the Most Messed Up Horror Game You'll Play This Year". GQ. Retrieved October 19, 2017.
Jump up ^ Jackson, Gita (October 11, 2017). "Doki Doki Literature Club Scared Me Shitless". Kotaku. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
Jump up ^ Barnett, Brian (December 11, 2017). "Doki Doki Literature Club Hits 1 Million Downloads". IGN. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
Jump up ^ Jones, Ali (January 15, 2018). "Doki Doki Literature Club! surpasses two million downloads". PCGamesN. Retrieved January 15, 2018.
Jump up ^ "Best of 2017 Awards: Best PC Game". IGN. December 20, 2017. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
Jump up ^ "Best of 2017 Awards: Best Adventure Game". IGN. December 20, 2017. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
Jump up ^ "Best of 2017 Awards: Best Story". IGN. December 20, 2017. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
Jump up ^ "Best of 2017 Awards: Most Innovative". IGN. December 20, 2017. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
Jump up ^ EGM staff (December 28, 2017). "EGM's Best of 2017: Part Two: #20 ~ #16". EGMNow. Retrieved January 14, 2018.
Jump up ^ McNeill, Andrew (January 31, 2018). "Here Are Your 2018 SXSW Gaming Awards Finalists!". SXSW. Retrieved February 2, 2018.
Jump up ^ IGN Studios (March 17, 2018). "2018 SXSW Gaming Awards Winners Revealed". IGN. Retrieved March 18, 2018.
External links
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"Doki Doki Literature Club!". The Visual Novel Database.
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