Hypocrites or Pious Scholars? The Image of the Pharisees in Second Temple Period Texts and Rabbinic Literature

This article focuses upon Josephus’ portrayal of the Pharisees during the reign of Queen Alexandra, relating it to their depiction in other contemporary sources (the New Testament, Qumran documents) as well as rabbinic literature. The numerous hostile descriptions of the Pharisees in both War and Antiquities are examined based upon a philological, textual and source-critical analysis. Explanations are then offered for the puzzling negative description of the Pharisees in rabbinic literature (bSotah 22b), who are considered the predecessors of the sages. The hypocrisy charge against the Pharisees in Matthew 23 is analyzed from a religious-political perspective and allegorical references to the Pharisees as “Seekers of Smooth Things” in Pesher Nahum are also connected to the hypocrisy motif. This investigation leads to the conclusion that an anti-Pharisee bias is not unique to the New Testament but is also found in Jewish sources from the Second Temple period. It most probably reflects the rivalry among the various competing religious/political groups and their struggle for dominance. Who were the Pharisees – a small religious sect, an influential political party, or a mass movement? Attempts to define and describe the phenomenon of the Pharisees have aroused considerable scholarly debate for decades.1 This article will focus upon Josephus’ portrayal of the Pharisees during the reign of Queen Alexandra in The Judaean War and Judaean Antiquities and attempt to understand how it can shed light upon their depiction in other Second Temple period texts – the New Testament (Matthew) and Qumran documents (Pesher Nahum), as well as in rabbinic literature (bSotah). * The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, Israel. Email: etka.liebowitz@mail.huji.ac.il. This article is based on a chapter from my Ph.D. dissertation, which has been significantly revised and expanded. I wish to thank Rivkah Fishman-Duker for reading this article and for her helpful comments and suggestions. I also express my appreciation to Shamma Friedman for his assistance with bibliographic references. 1 A comprehensive examination of the Pharisees is beyond the scope of this article. Following is a sampling of studies on Josephus and the Pharisees: Albert Baumgarten, “The Name of the Pharisees,” Journal of Biblical Literature 102 (1983): 411-428; Shaye Cohen, “Parallel Traditions in Josephus and Rabbinic Literature,” Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1986), 7-14; David Goodblatt, “The Place of the Pharisees in First Century Judaism: The State of the Debate,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 20:1 (1989): 1230; Martin Goodman, “A Note on Josephus, the Pharisees and Ancestral Tradition,” Journal of Jewish Studies 50 (1999): 17-20; Martin Hengel and Roland Deines, “E.P. Sanders’ ‘Common Judaism,’ Jesus, and the Pharisees,” Journal of Theological Studies 46, no. 1 (April 1995); Gustav Hölscher, s.v. “Josephus,” in Paulys Realencyclopädie der klassischen Alertumswissenschaft 9 (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler 1916), cols. 1934-2000; Gustav Hölscher, Die Quellen des Josephus (Leipzig: Teubner, 1904); Jacob Neusner, From Politics to Piety (Providence: Prentice Hall, 1973); Jacob Neusner and Bruce Chilton, eds., In Quest of the Historical Pharisees (Waco, Texas: Baylor U. Press, 2007); Anthony Saldarini, “Pharisees,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 3 (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 289-303; Morton Smith, “Palestinian Judaism in the First Century” in Israel, Its Role in Civilization, ed. Davis, Moshe (New York: Israel Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1956), 67-81. For an in-depth treatment of the Pharisees and Josephus, see Steve Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees: A Composition-Critical Study (Leiden: Brill, 1991, 2001). MELILAH MANCHESTER JOURNAL OF JEWISH STUDIES 11 (2014) 54 Josephus first mentions the Pharisees in War in connection with the ascent to the throne of Queen Alexandra,2 the first (and only) Jewish woman who reigned as an independent queen in Judaea: But growing besides her as she achieved authority the Pharisees arose – a certain band [σύνταγμά τι] of Judaeans who have the reputation of being more pious than the others, and they accurately proclaim the (ancient ancestral) laws.3 (War 1:110) The vocabulary in this passage reveals a subtly disapproving attitude towards Pharisees. This is shown, for example, by the use of súntagma (σύνταγμά( band, which Steve Mason notes is usually used in a pejorative sense by Josephus.4 Likewise the verb dokhéo (δοχέω) suggests an unfavorable approach towards the Pharisees. According to Mason, the definition of the Pharisees in War 1:110 hinges on this verb.5 He interprets dokhéo as “having the reputation of being” for “it was the Pharisees reputation for piety that won them the support of Alexandra Salome.”6 Yet Mason posits that dokhéo means that the Pharisees only appeared to be pious while, on the other hand, Alexandra was genuinely pious. The Pharisees subsequent actions – “killing whomever they wished on false charges” – demonstrated that they were, actually, “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”7 As we shall see, Josephus’ extremely critical attitude towards the Pharisees continues throughout the narrative on Queen Alexandra in War. Interestingly, many scholars have used War 1:110 to bolster their hypothesis of the Pharisees being a mass movement with popular support, ignoring (or unaware of) its negative overtones. For example, Martin Goodman asserts that the Pharisees’ “endorsement of ancestral tradition gave them great popularity.”8 Martin Hengel and Roland Deines claim this passage demonstrates that the Pharisees had great authority: “... the Pharisees’ claim to be the carriers and continuers of this tradition worked in combination with their α̉κρίβεια [accuracy] in scriptural interpretation and their strict manner of life to strengthen their authority in the eyes of the people.”9 On the other hand, Jacob Neusner views the Pharisees as only one of many political parties during the Hasmonean era (a party of “philosophical politicians”), whose political life ended with Herod’s rule. 10 In contrast, Daniel Schwartz believes that Josephus’ description of the Pharisees is actually a protective device inasmuch as “BJ reflects 2 The Pharisees are mentioned only briefly in Josephus’ works – six other times in War (1:112, 1:571, 2:119, 2:162, 2:166, 2:411) as well as thirty-five times in Antiquities and Life. Steve Mason notes that “[a]ny interpretation of Josephus’s Pharisees must reckon with a basic fact, all too often overlooked. Namely, the group figures only incidentally in his thirty volumes.” See Steve Mason, “Josephus’s Pharisees” in Neusner and Chilton, Historical Pharisees, 4. 3 This and all subsequent translations of War and Antiquities are my own, unless otherwise noted. 4 Steve Mason, “War 1:107-114: The Pharisees and Alexandra Salome, I,” in Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees, 8485. A more neutral word for σύνταγμά is used by both H. St. J. Thackeray – “body” and Ullmann – “group” ( תצובק םידוהי). See H. St. J. Thackeray, Josephus, The Jewish War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1927), 53 and Lisa Ullmann, Yosef Ben Matityahu [Titus] Flavius Josephus, History of the Jewish War Against the Romans [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Carmel 2009), 107. 5 Mason, “Pharisees and Alexandra,” 106.