Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FROM THE GOSPELS TO JESUS §9.3
the Pharisees' very name, generally agreed to signify 'separated ones', 57 and thus
indicating a wider perception of the Pharisees as a group who defined themselves
by their concern to keep themselves apart — a primarily purity concern. 58
A third, closely related issue concerns the political and social influence of
the Pharisees. Sanders focuses his polemic against the idea that the Pharisees
'ran Judaism', 59 but otherwise recognizes that they did exercise at least some political
influence at the time of Jesus. 60 More weight, however, needs to be given
sequences salvation and damnation' {Early Judaism 18). Similarly Hengel and Deines: 'On the
inside . . . there were sometimes bitter fights, precisely over the concrete halakhah' ('Sanders'
Judaism' 8; also 45-47). See also below n. 138. T. Holmen, Jesus and Jewish Covenant
Thinking (Leiden: Brill, 2001) likewise notes that a shared concern (among different groups) to
keep the covenant resulted in particular issues and topics becoming definitive of covenant keeping
and indicative of covenant loyalty (48-49), not least circumcision and Sabbath (70-79).
57. P'rushim, from parash, 'to separate'; see Schürer, History 2.396-97; Cohen,
Maccabees 162; Saldarini, Pharisees 220-25. Meier, Marginal Jew 3.366-67 doubts whether
such firm inferences can be drawn.
58. See further Saldarini, Pharisees 212-16, 233-34, 285-87, 290-91; Stemberger, Jewish
Contemporaries 75-82; Hengel and Deines, 'Sanders' Judaism' 41-51; H. K. Harrington,
'Did the Pharisees Eat Ordinary Food in a State of Ritual Purity?', JSJ 26 (1995) 42-54;
J. Schaper, 'Pharisees', in W. Horbury, et al., eds., Judaism. Vol. 3: The Early Roman Period
(Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1999) 402-27 (here 420-21). The old view that the Pharisees
sought to extend the holiness of the Temple throughout the land of Israel on the basis of
Exod. 19.5-6 is probably still warranted (Schürer, History 2.396-400; A. F. Segal, Rebecca's
Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World [Cambridge: Harvard University,
1986] 124-28; others in Sanders, Jewish Law 152). J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB 3, 2 vols.; New
York: Doubleday, 1991) makes an important contribution to the debate between Neusner and
Sanders when he observes that 'the priestly laws of impurity (Leviticus 11—15) rest on the postulate
that impurity incurred anywhere is potentially dangerous to the sanctuary', and that 'the
priestly legislators are very much concerned with the need to eliminate, or, at least, control the
occurrence of impurity anywhere in the land — whether in the home, on the table, or in the bed'
(1.1007). T. Kazen, Jesus and Purity Halakhah: Was Jesus Indifferent to Impurity? (ConBNT
38; Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 2002) argues that Pharisees represented an 'expansionist
purity practice in Second Temple Judaism' (72-87, and index 'expansionism'). See also below
§14.4c-d.
59. Judaism 395-412; see further below §9.7b.
60. Sanders's review of the evidence concludes that following their loss of the political
power which they enjoyed during the reign of Salome Alexandra (76-67 BCE), the Pharisees did
not entirely withdraw from the political arena but were active as far as they could be, a 'moderate
but usually ineffective opposition', and some of them were certainly involved in the disturbances
prior to the death of Herod the Great, in the uprising of Judas the Galilean in 6 BCE, and
in the outbreak of revolt of 66 CE (Judaism 380-95; similarly Saldarini, Pharisees 98-106, 132-
33; Stemberger, Jewish Contemporaries 117-22; more combatively Hengel and Deines,
'Sanders' Judaism' 55-67; Schaper, 'Pharisees' 419 [note also 412]). Mason justifiably warns
against inferring too much from Josephus's silence regarding the Pharisees in the very thin coverage
Josephus provides for the period 6-66 CE ('Revisiting' 47-48).
268