Posts

Showing posts from November, 2016

Of Pharisees and Sadducees

In recent weeks the Revised Common Lecionaary has featured texts that feature the two main factions of first-century Judaism- the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  With that in mind I thought I would take an opportunity to describe who these groups were and how they related to Jesus' ministry.  Additionally, looking at them offers an opportunity for a critique of our contemporary church. So who were these two groups?  The Pharisees are mentioned dozens of times in the New Testament and are a frequent foil in Jesus' ministry.  Because they are so freqently depicted as opponents of Jesus' ministry, they have have gotten a "bad rap" historically.  In reality they  were about the best of Judaism.  They realized that the world in which they lived was corrupt and evil, and their agenda was to try live righteous lives in that corrupt world without being stained by it.  Other Jewish groups- the Essenes and the Zealots shared that basic world-view but came to different concl