Jesus Was a Pharisee? Yes and No...

Jesus Was a Pharisee!!

Well, Technically, Maybe Not.

Jesus dressed as a Pharisee

Picking Out the Pharisee

How do you tell if a guy is a Pharisee? The best answer to that would be to ask him about his beliefs, and how he thinks a person should run their life. But Pharisees pop up throughout the Gospels and even into the first part of Acts, as if they were instantly recognizable. If that was so, it had to be something about how they dressed, or what they did with their hair and beards.

The Pharisees tried to stay true to Scripture, so we can rebuild some of how they looked from the specific instructions in the book of Leviticus. Here is an idea for the reconstruction of a first-century Pharisee. Movie-makers started from here and became more imaginative.

The Dress of a Pharisee

Picking Out the Sadducee

In both the Gospels and Acts, Pharisees and Sadducees sometimes appear together, and it seems that they Sadducees are instantly recognizable as well. Here we have no guidance from Scripture, and no clue to any differences between how the two groups interpreted the dress requirements.

One difference between the two groups is that not many Pharisees were priests, while a great many of the Sadducees were priests. Here is a reconstruction of how priests would have dressed. The person in the center and at right is dressed as the High Priest.

The Dress of Priests

The Social Setting of Pharisees

The Pharisees were middle-class to a great extent, and supported themselves with trades such as tent-makers, market operators, or--like Jesus--even carpenters. They were highly respected "laymen" (rather than priests), whose sphere of greatest influence was in the synagogue. Some of them were wealthy, and Nicodemus, who owned farmland in Galilee, developed a reputation of being the richest man in Jerusalem.

To become a Pharisee required a year of apprenticeship in which the student would learn how to handle the written and oral law, and how to dress and act. This left poor tenant farmers out; there were not many of them that  could take a "gap year" in subsistence farming just to  go to school. It also excluded women, who were never accepted into the rabbinical schools, nor enlisted as disciples to noted Pharisees.
(Jesus was the exception: he had female disciples.)

There were Pharisees in the Sanhedrin (high council and supreme court of the Jews), but the positions of power there were held by Sadducees during the time of Jesus. By no means was there universality of opinions about social and legal issues, and the Sanhedrin held many viewpoints. For instance, around AD 30 capital punishment became prohibited for the act of adultery. Such a change could not have been made without the involvement of the Sanhedrin.

Jesus, Pharisees, and the Crowd

The Social Setting of Sadducees

The Pharisees were upper-class to a great extent, and many of them were highly respected priests, whose sphere of greatest influence was in the temple. Many of them were wealthy, a result of being in power for generations. Their priority was the temple cult, with its sacrificial offerings and access to the priests. The Romans kept the Sadducees in power as the easiest group to negotiate with: the priest's needs for the temple were honored, while the pernicious idea of a conquering "messiah" was suppressed.

In the picture below, one person is wearing an "ephod" with twelve precious stones signifying the twelve tribes of Israel. Only the high priest (or his designate) was permitted to wear the ephod, a symbol of power. The Romans kept the high priestly ephod locked up in the Roman military barracks, and only issued it out to be worn on special occasions, such as the Day of Atonement.

Sadducees  and the High Priest

Richly Dressed

Since Sadducees were known to be wealthy, here is an imaginative drawing of them richly dressed.

Sadducees Richly Dressed

Love of Clothing

And since some Pharisees loved to dress up in impressive clothes, here is an imaginative depiction of that. This depiction fails to include the extra-long tassels that Jesus complained about.

Pharisees Imaginatively Dressed

Belief Systems

Sadducees

The Sadducees only accepted the five books of Moses as authoritative: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  Other questions--conveniently-- could be decided by the Sanhedrin, in their opinion. They excluded the books of the Prophets, and the "Writings," which consisted of Psalms, Proverbs, etc. Even the book of Daniel, a more recent work, was considered to be just a "Writing," although Jesus accepted Daniel as a prophet, as did the Pharisees. The first five books had little to say about the Holy Spirit, the Messiah, or eternal life, so the Sadducees disavowed these.

Pharisees

Care for the poor was an important value for the Pharisees. They accepted the prophetic books, but also the "Oral Law" of Moses, supposedly handed down by word of mouth over many generations. The Oral Law largely "placed a fence around" the written law, to prevent accidental transgressions. Jesus said this placed "heavy burdens" on the populace, which they refused to alleviate.

Jesus

Jesus told his followers to pay attention to the Pharisees and the scribes--professional teachers of the Law. He said, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you--but not what they do. For they preach, but they do not practice (Matthew 23:2-3). Jesus' pet peeve was their hypocrisy: they professed to follow the letter of the Law without having sought out its spirit.

Mixed Pharisees and Sadducees

So if Jesus dressed like a Pharisee and confirmed their teachings, why was he not then a Pharisee?

Simple: He lacked the diploma. The Pharisees complained that Jesus was uneducated--that he had not attended a recognized Pharisaic school nor had he been a disciple of a Pharisaic teacher.

Not only had Jesus been taught by a godly teacher--his adoptive father Joseph--but also Jesus was guided by the Holy Spirit and by the will of his Heavenly Father sought out in earnest prayer.

Jesus rebuking the Pharisees

Jesus Had Many Women Followers--Who Knew?

At First there were The Twelve -- Plus Three!

Late Spring, AD 28

Or Was It Four?

When we think of Jesus on the move through Galilee, what comes to mind is the Master followed by the Twelve men he appointed to "be with him" -- the Twelve Apostles. But Luke's gospel highlights at least three more who were "with him" as he travelled -- and these were women!  (Luke 8:1-3). Being "with Jesus" immediately connotes discipleship, especially as Luke speaks of these three women in the same breath as he mentions The Twelve.

These three had been cured by Jesus of evil spirits and/or infirmities. First to be mentioned is Mary of Magdala, called the Magdalene. She was freed by Jesus from the clutches of seven evil spirits and became prominent in the story of Jesus. Her name is mentioned in each of the four Gospels, for a total of twelve mentions. In Christian imagination she is portrayed as a beautiful woman whom Jesus had saved from an immoral life. But although she had been delivered from a dreadful circumstance, there is nothing whatever in the sources to indicate any previous moral failing. She was apparently drawn close to Jesus just as John, the alleged youngest disciple, drew close to him.

Next to be mentioned is Joanna. She is married to Chuza, the "steward" of Herod Antipas--either custodian of Herod's properties or holder of a government position. This would have given Joanna stature in the community but not necessarily approval, for Herod was the local representative of Rome's domination over the Jewish people. "Chuza" is a Syrian name, neither a Jewish nor a Greek name. This gives a likelihood that Joanna is a Jewish bride of a non-Jewish husband, another factor that might estrange her from Jewish society.

Third to be mentioned is Susanna. The normal introduction of a woman into a story would bring her in by reference to her husband, or if young and unmarried, by reference to her father. The absence of this reference by Luke implies that Mary and Susanna are single women. Women held an inferior place in first-century society: the rabbis refused to teach them, while Jesus brought them into the fold of his teaching ministry alongside the men.

The presence of women--especially single women--as a typical feature of Jesus' band would have been seen as shameless, if not hinting at being illicitly sexual. Yet here they are, at the same status as the Twelve, except for the designation as apostles (emissaries). It would have been impossible to send them out two by two as emissaries, for even in pairs women would have been subject to the possibility of robbery or abuse.

There is a fourth woman hovering in the background of all these stories who gets mentioned only peripherally and never named: to wit, the wife of Simon Peter. We know of her because her mother -- Peter's mother-in-law -- is healed by Jesus. This happened while Jesus and some of his disciples were living at Peter's house, or perhaps the house belonging to his mother-in-law. (We can speculate to this, for Peter was living in Capernaum, even though he was raised in Bethsaida.) It is not hard to speculate that Peter's wife may have accompanied him while he was on the road with Jesus, and it's even more likely that she would accompany him when they travelled to Jerusalem for the Jewish holy days.

More than Four -- Many Women!

Luke gives us the names of three women, but these are just prominent exemplars of Jesus' followers, for many others were following Jesus, and these women were providing for Jesus and his disciples out of their own resources (Luke 8:3).

The Gospels of Matthew and Mark also tell us that many other women were following Jesus out of Galilee (Matthew 27:55, Mark 15:41). These Gospels along with the other two give names for some of the women who were present at the crucifixion and the tomb, which included:

Mary Magdalene, who was first at the tomb (John 20:1);

Mary the Mother of Apostle James the Less and his brother Joses. She may have also been the stepmother of Matthew Levi, who was another son of Alpheus along with James and Joses;

Salome, who is not otherwise identified in Mark's Gospel, but is probably the same as the mother of Apostles James and John, the Sons of Zebedee, as found in Matthew's Gospel;

Joanna, named as one of the other women who were trying to convince the apostles that amazing things had happened at the tomb (Luke 24:10).

None of these women were excluded from fellowship with Jesus merely because of their gender. The names of the "many" have been lost to antiquity, not because of their inferiority in Jesus' eyes but because of the customs of the age in which the Gospel writers produced their testaments. Yet all four Gospel writers bring the exceptional women to the forefront in recognition of their part in the ministry of Jesus --

O so long ago.

Did Jesus Ever Call Himself the Son of God?

Jesus vs. the Son of God

It may seem surprising, but Jesus never literally called himself the Son of God. We will explore that in depth, but first a quick look at a similar question.

Son of God by Marina Petry using charcoal pencils

Did Jesus ever call himself Messiah or Christ?

The answer is the same: no, not directly. But in two instances in the life of Jesus he came very close to just that indeed.

First, there is the incident with the Samaritan  woman. Here Jesus is almost alone at a well outside of a Samaritan town, but probably accompanied by John son of Zebedee, the youngest and most loved of his disciples. The rest of the disciples of Jesus had gone into town to buy food, but the traditional role of the "least" disciple was to remain with and attend to the personal needs of the Teacher.

This left John as eyewitness to an event that he later reported in his Gospel: Jesus engaged in a spirited verbal exchange with a woman who came to the well to fetch water, ending with her statement, "I know that Messiah is coming [the one called Christ]. He will explain to us everything."  (The interpolation of "the one called Christ" is John's translation of the Aramaic 'Messiah' for the benefit of his Greek readers. The woman probably did not say these words.)

Jesus answered her, with an emphasis on the personal pronoun: "I am, the one speaking to you"  (John 4:26). Both the NIV and the NASB render this as "I who speak to you am he," adding the pronoun 'he,' as implied by the gender of the participle 'speaking.' Their conclusion agrees with the KJV. In Episode One of my JOHN! book series, I render this as "I am the Messiah."

It is of note that Jesus did not say this to Jews, only to a Samaritan, a foreigner. It is also of note that this is one of the key times that Jesus uses the words 'I AM' to refer to himself. 'I AM' is one of the personal names of God, found at Exodus 3:14.

The second instance involves Daniel 7:13-14, one of the central texts of this prophet's book. Here "one like the son of man" is presented before the "Ancient of Days" and is given everlasting dominion, glory, and kingship. Christianity and Judaism recognize in this passage the coming of the Messiah, the anointed one of God who will come to redeem and lead his people.

In private, Jesus teaches this verse to his disciples (Matthew 24:30, Mark 13:26). But the critical moment comes at his trial before the high priest. The high priest says to Jesus, "I adjure you by the living God, tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God" (Mt 26:63).

Using the term Jesus always used to refer to himself (the Son of Man), Jesus replies with a quote from Daniel 7:13 saying, "You have [already] said it. Nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven" (Matthew 26:64, Mark 14:62).

Jesus was most certainly using Aramaic when he said "Son of Man," for the high priest instantly recognized the quotation from the Aramaic words used in the Book of Daniel. And if Jesus' answer replies to the full challenge of the high priest, he has admitted to being not only the Christ but also the Son of God.

Is Jesus the Son of God?

All four of the Gospels agree in teaching that Jesus is the Son of God -- the inheritor of the kingdom who will sit at the right hand of God. But seldom if ever does this teaching come from the lips of Jesus.

No less than seven Bible characters in the Gospels say directly that Jesus is the Son of God: Mark the Evangelist (Mk 1:1), John the Evangelist (Jn 20:31), the angel Gabriel (Lk 1:35), John the Baptist (Jn 1:34), Nathanael the disciple (Jn 3:18), Martha (Jn 11:27), and a Roman centurion (Mt 27:54, Mk 15:39).

In addition Satan challenges him to prove he is the Son of God (Mt 4:3 & 6, Lk 4:3 & 9), and the unclean spirits identify Jesus directly as the Son of God (Mt 8:29, Mk 3:11, Lk 4:41).

Now to the words of Jesus: There are three teaching events where Jesus deals with the subject. Twice he is teaching his disciples, saying that "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God" (Jn 5:25), and that Lazarus died "so that the Son of God may be glorified by it" (Jn 11:4). In the latter case Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead and does receive glory because of it.

The third teaching event is when Jesus is disputing with Jews from the temple, and cites Psalm 82:6, where God says of Israel's judges, "I said, you are gods." Then he actually says the words, "I am the Son of God." However, these words are placed in a hypothetical construct, effectively saying, "If I  were to say 'I am the Son of God,' would you accuse me of blasphemy in light of this psalm?"

And here is the final thing Jesus had to say on the subject. You may have noticed (above) that the high priest not only challenged Jesus if he were the Messiah but also whether he was the Son of God (Mt 26:63). Luke expands on this exchange, showing that the group with the high priest said, "Are you the Son of God, then?" (Lk 22:70a).

As shown in the Greek, Jesus replies "You say that 'I AM'" (Lk 22:70b). Interestingly, the NIV translates this as "You are right in saying that I am", while the NASB translates it simply as "Yes, I am."  Some scholars have thought that these particular words of Jesus must be an idiomatic phrase used by rabbinical scholars to indicate assent, while others have vigorously opposed this idea.

In any case, the high priest and the crowd around him took these words as an admission that he claimed to be the Son of God. Could it be because he used the "I AM" name of God? Or was it because they had given Jesus a chance to declare he was not the Son of God and he declined to take them up on the offer?

How are we to take these incidents? Why is Jesus reluctant to identify himself directly? Earlier in his ministry, he may have refrained from doing so because he had not completed his ministry on earth. But here before the high priest he is coming to the end of his earthly ministry and no longer has that reason to refrain.

I will offer two reasons for his reluctance to claim glory for himself. The first is directly from the teachings of Jesus, and the other, less certain, is a societal setting to avoid shame.

The first reason is legal: in Jesus' time the testimony of a person about himself is not considered valid unless backed up by two or three witnesses. Jesus says, "If I [alone] testify about myself, my testimony is not true" (Jn 5:31). He then lines up three who testify to the truth of Jesus' claims: John the Baptist, the very "works" that Jesus does, and the testimony of "the Father who sent me" in the form of the words of Scripture.

The second is conjecture, but it would fit the honor-vs-shame tribal society in which Jesus is moving. Namely, it may have been considered shameful for a person to "toot his own horn" and glorify himself. We may have seen that in the Pharisees that Jesus describes who send men ahead of them blowing trumpets to show how righteous and important they were.

One thing is not in doubt: Jesus was and is the Son of God. With that title he expresses the divinity that he shares with his Father in heaven, and lays the foundation for our Trinitarian understanding of the nature of God.

Three Influential Friends of Jesus

Did Jesus Gain Powerful Friends in Capernaum?

Ad 27 and 28

Capernaum and Vicinity

Here's a typical "New Testament map" of the vicinity of Capernaum. Like many Bible maps, it shows the obscure, out-of-the-way Jewish places mentioned in the New Testament, while leaving out the major Greek population centers forgotten by history.

Just to the north of this map is Caesarea Philippi, the capital city of Herod Philip's domain, whose western border was the northern reach of the Jordan River. Very near to the fishing village of Bethsaida was the Greek-speaking city of Julias, built by Herod Philip to curry favor with the Roman emperor.

To the south of Magdala was the city of Tiberias, built by Herod Antipas on the shore of the lake, also to curry favor with the Roman emperor. He ruled Galilee, whose north-eastern border was alongside the domain of his brother Philip. And not far from the small towns of Cana and Nazareth lay the thriving Greek-speaking city of Sepphoris.

One Concept of Capernaum's Harbor

The "Royal" on a Horse

Capernaum and Cana figure large in the first tale of a man helped by Jesus. This story found in John's gospel calls him a "royal" (basilikos) whose son lay dying in Capernaum (John 4:46-54). He makes a desperate dash to Cana, where he has heard of a man named Jesus who had the power to heal. There is little doubt that he would have used a horse or chariot, for the distance was well over 20 miles by road.

The historian Josephus used the word basilikos to refer to anyone related to or employed by a king or kingly official. Many Bible translations call this man a "royal official" while the King James Version uses the word "Nobleman." One Bible commentator calls him one of "Herod's flunkies."

While the term could refer to a relative or official of the Roman emperor, the context more or less demands that the man must be related in some way to the Herods. (If he were a Roman Royal, what would he be doing in the Roman backwater of Capernaum? Serving out a period of exile?)

I'm going with the more accepted view that he was a royal official. He was likely a Herodian relative provided with a position of importance in Capernaum, perhaps the equivalent of the town mayor. During the summer months, his relative Herod Antipas would be living just ten miles down the beach in Tiberias.

Another Concept of Capernaum's Harbor

This royal official sought out Jesus in Cana and implored him to come down to Capernaum and heal his son. Jesus replied, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you just won't believe."

He responded, "Lord, come down before my child dies!" Jesus said to him, "Go, your son lives." When the man got back to Capernaum, he found that his son recovered at the very moment that Jesus spoke.

This happened in the summer of AD 27, during the first year of Jesus' ministry. Would not this man remember this moment for the rest of his life? Surely, if he had any power at all in Capernaum, he would have been protective of Jesus, who had become one of the newest residents of the town.

The Ruins of Capernaum

The Roman Centurion in Capernaum

The second tale takes place around late spring of AD 28. A Roman with the military rank of Centurion (=leader of a hundred) had a valued servant who had fallen and was in great pain. His request of Jesus for healing of his servant was backed up by Jewish elders, who told Jesus that the man loved the Jewish people and had paid for the synagogue to be constructed  (Matt 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10).

The man said there was no need for Jesus to come to his house, only to say the word and his servant would be healed. Perhaps he had heard of Jesus' power from the royal official in the same town. Jesus marveled at his faith and said to him, "Go, it shall be done for you as you have believed."

Surely this Centurion was a well-established resident of Capernaum, in view of his relationship with the Jewish elders and the synagogue. This must mean that there was a Roman Garrison posted in Capernaum, perhaps not a full hundred men, but at least enough to guard the district's borders in peacetime. And if Jesus needed protection from a band of assassins, I suspect this centurion would be ready to serve.

Below is an aerial photo of the synagogue this centurion sponsored, in the midst of the ruins of central Capernaum. So much Biblical action takes place while Jesus is in transit in Capernaum, that the ruins we see here could hardly have contained it. This must be just the downtown area, with more space beyond it for finer homes and longer streets. And, somewhere, a Roman Garrison.

The Synagogue in Capernaum

Jairus, Ruler of the Synagogue

The third tale tells of a ruler of the synagogue in Capernaum, whose 12-year-old daughter had just died and the mourners had already begun the death rituals. The story is in all three synoptic gospels, interrupted mid-tale with the healing of a woman who had been ill for twelve years (Matthew 9:18-19, 23-26; Mark 5:22-24, 35-43; Luke 8:41-42, 49-56). 

Jesus had just returned by boat from the other side of the lake, where he had cast out a legion of demons from a wild man in a cemetery. Jairus threw himself at Jesus' feet and implored him to come to his house and lay hands on his daughter so that she would live. Jesus went with him and dismissed the wailing mourners outside.

He allowed no one inside with him except the parents, plus Peter, James, and John. He took the child by the hand and said, "Little girl, I say to you, get up!" She got up and began to walk, and Jesus told them to give her something to eat.

Synagogue Interior

This took place in the fall of AD 28. Already in the spring of that year, the chief priests and Pharisees in Jerusalem had begun conspiring to find a way to destroy Jesus. They began sending Pharisees into Capernaum to challenge Jesus and try to catch him in his words, for the chief priests had no power to arrest him outside of the environs of Jerusalem.

My suspicion is that they got no cooperation in their conspiracy from the elders in Capernaum nor from the rulers of the synagogue there. Jesus had at least three friends in this town whose influence was substantial and whose instincts would be to protect him.

Downtown Capernaum