Within the four Gospels in the Bible, we find Jesus referring to people known as the “scribes and Pharisees” repeatedly. This phrase actually doesn’t exist as many times as it seems; but in every case, it is used in a negative manner. Mostly, we see Jesus rebuking them, saying “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,” followed by something that they were doing wrong. These weren’t little mistakes they were making either; He was calling them out on the big stuff.
This small group of powerful men set themselves up as adversaries to Jesus, becoming directly involved in trying to trap Him in blasphemy, so that they could get rid of Him. They were amongst the Jewish leaders who called for Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. While the priests took the more obvious role, half of the Great Sanhedrin were Pharisees, so they were clearly involved.
But just who were these people and why did they take a stand against Jesus?
Many people take these two terms as being synonymous, as Jesus often said them together. But they were not. The scribes fulfilled an office in the Jewish religion which goes all the way back into the Old Testament. We find them mentioned a few times in the books of history that are contained within the Old Testament. The Pharisees, on the other hand, only appear in the Gospels and the book of Acts, in the New Testament. Although there is no official position of the Pharisee in God’s Law, they were an important force in the Jewish belief at the time of Christ.
There’s another group who must be mentioned as part of this conversation; the Sadducees. Like the Pharisees, they are mentioned only in the Gospels and the book of Acts. In many ways, the two groups were juxtaposed against each other, with Jesus calling them both out for their errors. Like the Pharisees, they were an important part of the Jewish community in the time of Christ, occupying the other half of the seats in the Great Sanhedrin.
This may make it seem like the Jewish spiritual leadership was somewhat divided in the time of Jesus. That’s a reasonable assumption to make and looking at church history, there’s no reason why we should be surprised that the Jews had problems with division, just as we have had. Moses received the Law from God around 1445 BC, so it’s not surprising that there would come up some theological differences in 14 centuries. We’ve only had 5 centuries since the Reformation and there are more than 45,000 Christian denominations in the world.
What was the Sanhedrin?
Before talking about the Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees, let me mention the Sanhedrin, actually the Great Sanhedrin. This was the Jewish religious/civil court. It grew out of the Jewish council of elders, of which traditionally had 70 members. Why 70? Because the number 70 is 10 x 7. Seven is the perfect number, representing the seventh day of creation, when God rested. It is often used to represent “fullness” or “completeness. In a similar way, the number 10 also means completeness, as well as “union,” “collection,” and “holiness. Taking the idea of completion, we have completion times completion, which equals perfectly complete.
This tradition goes all the way back to the Exodus, when Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, went to visit Moses in the wilderness, in Exodus, chapter 18, after they had crossed the Red Sea; but, interestingly enough, before Moses received the Ten Commandments from God. Jethro had seen Moses sit before the people all day, hearing their problems and seeking God on their behalf. Jethro was not pleased with what he saw, realizing that it would wear Moses out, and the people as well. He advised Moses:
…Stand before God for the people, so that you may being the difficulties to God. 20 And you shall teach them the statutes and the laws, and show them the way in which they must walk and the work they must do. 21 Moreover you shall select from all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. 22 And let them judge the people at all times. Then it will be that every great matter they shall bring to you, but every small matter they themselves shall judge… – Exodus 18:19b – 22a
While this passage doesn’t mention the number of elders there were, God Himself confirmed that number later. We find that He told Moses to bring 70 elders before Him in Exodus, chapter 24 and later in Numbers, chapter 11. In this second passage, God made the number of the elders to officially be 70. This tradition carried down through the ages.
So the Lord said to Moses: “Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; bring them to the Tabernacle of Meeting, that they may stand there with you. 17 Then I will come down and talk with you there. I will take of the Spirit that is upon you and will put the same upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you may not bear it yourself alone.” – Numbers 11:16-17
The Sanhedrin we see spoken about in the Gospels is the Great Sanhedrin, in Jerusalem. But that was not the only Sanhedrin in Judea. Each city had its own Sanhedrin, with the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem serving as their “supreme court.”
Religious or Spiritual Court?
This idea of a Jewish supreme court can be a bit confusing to us today, especially when we consider that Judah had been conquered and was under Roman rule. How could they have any part of their own government in place, when they were subject to Roman law and they had a Roman governor appointed over them?
The first thing we must realize is that the Sanhedrin was a religious court, rather than a civil one. Yes, the Jews were subject to Roman civil law, but they also held themselves subject to the Law of Moses, as written in the Bible. The cases that the Sanhedrin heard were more about breaking Biblical Law, then they were about breaking civil law, although there was a considerable amount of overlap.
We must understand that all western law, as we know it, is based on Biblical Law, especially the Ten Commandments. Murder, which is a capital crime, is also a spiritual one. In fact, pretty much every area of life is touched upon by Biblical Law. We don’t normally see this, because we here in the western world have separated the spiritual and civil parts of our lives; but the Jews haven’t. For that matter, neither have the Muslims. Both of these religious groups accept their scriptures and the Law contained within them, as the ultimate legal authority over their lives, both spiritual and secular.
The Sadducees
Now that we have that established, let’s talk about the various groups of people who were associated with the Sanhedrin, starting with the Sadducees. We need to understand who they were and what happened to them, in order to understand where the Pharisees came from.
We find the root for the name Sadducee from the name Zadok, who was the High Priest in the time of David and Solomon. The Sadducees trace their lineage back to him, claiming that he was the founding of their order. However, as with most things, the order of the Sadducees changed through the more than 1,000 years of their existence.
During the time of Jesus, the party of the Sadducees included much more than just the High Priests. It included everyone associated with the High Priest, his family and the priesthood in general. Sadly, they had degenerated to the point where they had taken on an attitude of being something of a priestly royalty. It was a clear aristocracy, even with its religious overtones. This was largely due to the influence of the Hellenists (Greeks) during the years we refer to as the “silent years” between the Old and New Testament. At the time of Jesus, they were largely worldly-minded epicureans (lovers of fine food, adapted to indulgence).
This played right into the Romans’ hands, who had taken it upon themselves to appoint the High Priest, changing them every year. Rather than being a religious appointee, selected by God, the High Priest had become a political appointee, who received his posting based on his relationship with the Roman rulers over Judea.
All of this obviously impacted Sadducees theology in a negative way. They somehow decided that there was no resurrection from the dead (Matthew 22:23), either in heaven or on earth, as well as extending the problem of something being made unclean not only to direct contact with something that is unclean (such as a dead body), but indirect contact as well. When it came to judging people for crimes they committed, they took a literal interpretation of “and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (Exodus 21:24).
All of these theological failings fail in comparison to their abdication of their duty to the people of God. I don’t know when or where it started, but the Sadducees insisted that the work of the priesthood and the offerings given to God by the High Priest were for him alone and not on behalf of the people. This essentially left the people out in the cold, as far as their relationship with God was concerned.
Even so, I have to say that God takes care of His own problems. When the temple was destroyed in 70AD, there was no longer a need for the party of the Sadducees and they disappeared from history.
The Scribes
The very first mention of scribes in the Bible was in the time of King David. The same verse which mentions Zadok as the priest, Seriah was mentioned as a scribe (2 Samuel 8:17). Even so, those scribes weren’t the same as the scribes mentioned in the Gospels. The scribes in the Old Testament books of history were government officials, who were charged with keeping records of the king’s lives and rule. They also served as general secretaries for the kings, preparing documents and decrees, then making sure they were distributed to the right people and places.
By the time of Jesus, the position of the scribe had changed. Actually, there was no connection whatsoever between the scribes who served the kings and the scribes we find in the New Testament. The first order of scribes ended with the fall of Jerusalem, as there were no more kings to serve. This new order of scribes rose up in about the fifth century BC. Ezra, the author of the book by that name, was the most famous of the scribes, and is often considered to be the first of the scribes.
We know of Ezra because of the book which bears his name; but the work that he performed in that book is not the greatest work of his life. But the greatest work of Ezra’s life was the establishment of the Old Testament canon; determining which books would be included in the Old Testament. There were many other writings that might have been included in the Jewish Tanakh, which later became our Old Testament, but were not. It was Ezra, working along with other scribes, who determined which ones should be.
Taking a step to the side for a moment, there are a number of books which were written after Ezra completed the canon of the Old Testament, but aren’t New Testament books. They were written during what are known as the “silent years” between Malachi and Matthew. These 14 books are contained within the Catholic Bible, but not the various translations that are used by other denominations. For these other denominations, they are considered the Apocrypha. While referred to as “extra-biblical writings” and given the stature of those books which are contained within our Bible, they are useful from a historic context.
While determining the canon of the Old Testament was the biggest job of the Scribes in the time of Ezra, that was actually only part of a bigger job; that of preserving scripture. They had to decide which of the many ancient scrolls, which we refer to as books of the Bible, would be worth putting their effort into preserving.
This job of preserving the scriptures consisted primarily of hand-copying them. The Scribes were well-trained in this work, to the point where every ancient copy of the Old Testament is exactly the same, to the point where the letters show up in the same place on the page, no matter which copy you are looking at. Their dedication to copying the scripture exactly was so extreme, that they would throw away any page which got a smudge or ink spot on it.
Spending so much time with the scriptures, specifically the Law and the Prophets, caused the Scribes to become experts in the Old Testament Law. Because of that knowledge, by the time of Jesus, these Scribes had taken on an additional responsibility, that of being lawyers in canonical law. They would appear before the Sanhedrin, either on behalf of someone who was accused or on behalf of the accuser, much as our lawyers go before the court today. For this reason, we find the word “scribe” translated as “lawyer” in some translations of the New Testament.
The Pharisees
Now we can get on to talking about just who the Pharisees were, as an understanding of both the Sadducees and the Scribes are necessary to understanding how the religious/political party known as the Pharisees came to be. Their name literally means “one who separates himself,” which is a good description of who they were and what they did. Their personal focus was to keep themselves away from anything that was considered to be impure.
The Pharisees were actually an outgrowth of the Scribes, caused by some failings in the Sadducees (priesthood). There were a few key doctrinal points at which they opposed the priesthood, but that was not the main reason for their existence. Rather, they rose up in opposition to the idea amongst the Sadducees that they ministered to the Lord only on their own behalf and not for the people. The Pharisees held that the purpose of the priesthood was to minister before God on behalf of the people. They eventually won this battle, after a long fight, but not to the full degree that they would have liked to. Rather, they ended up ministering to the people themselves, to make up for the faults of the priesthood.
As time went on, the Pharisees’ concern for the spiritual condition of the people increased, leading them to take the Torah (the Law) to the people, rather than keeping it in the Temple. They saw the Law as a force for good, especially when the people knew it and were able to apply it to their lives. It was they, and not the priesthood, which established the Synagogues, as a place for teaching God’s Law to His people. This was their greatest triumph, as they worked God’s Law into the everyday lives of common people, something they firmly believed was a part of God’s original intent.
Not only did they take the Word of God into the Synagogues, but into the home as well. The celebration of the Biblical festivals was no longer limited to the Temple and not moved into the Synagogues, but moved into the home. This allowed all the people to participate, regardless of where they lived. To the Pharisees, the Sabbath was to be a delight, a day of spiritual and social joy. Although Temple worship was solemn, they made the celebration of the Sabbath and the festivals into times of joy. Following this, the only Jewish festival that is still a solemn day is Yom Kippur, which is a day of fasting and prayer.
The Pharisees firmly believed in personal holiness and held themselves to as high a personal standard as the priesthood. Even so, their interpretation of the law wasn’t as rigid as that of the Sadducees. Rather than a literal interpretation of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” they allowed a monetary recompense to be paid, which was more beneficial to those who had suffered.
It is from the Pharisees that we get the idea of Jewish legalism. It was customary for them to practice many rituals as part of their daily lives. They taught the same to the people, as it was their manner of serving God. At the same time, they put several protections in place for the benefit of the people.
The Pharisees had one major flaw, which Jesus called them out on. That was, they created “fences around the law” so as to keep people from accidentally breaking the law. While done to honor God, this gradually replaced the teaching of the law with the teaching of these “rules written by man,” preventing the people from learning the deeper lessons that the Law could impart. In this, they lost their main goal of the teaching of the law being to help mankind fully realize their responsibility towards God. This is ironic for a group who saw hypocrisy as the most loathsome of practices.
Doctrinally speaking, the most central teaching to the Pharisee was their hope in the coming Messiah, something that the Sadducees didn’t agree with. Yet when the Messiah did come, in the person of Jesus Christ, they didn’t recognize Him, but rather opposed Him. The only exception to this was Nicodemos, who went to see Jesus at night, for fear of being ostracized by the other Pharisees (John 3:1-15).