Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§9.3 The Historical Context
to the probability that the Pharisees exercised substantial influence on the people.
61 Josephus reports that they handed down various traditions 'to the people'
(Ant. 13.297), which suggests that their degree of exclusivism was motivated by
a concern for the holiness (purity) of the whole people. 62 Their influence is borne
out by the widespread concern for purity, reflecting characteristic Pharisaic concerns,
attested by archaeological discoveries of miqwaoth and stone vessels
widespread throughout the land. 63 As also by the popularity of the heroic story of
Judith, which in its concern for purity could be described as 'early or proto-
Pharisaic'. 64
A quite different and influential line has been argued by Anthony
Saldarini: that Pharisees belonged to the 'retainer' class in Jewish society, who
served the needs of the ruler and governing class, and were therefore in some degree
dependent on the rich and powerful. 65 The thesis is based on Gerhard
Lenski's analysis of agrarian empires in terms of class structure and, as with
Crossan's similar use of Lenski, 66 runs the risk of imposing another 'grand narrative'
on the particularities and peculiarities of Second Temple Judaism. In particular,
the portrayal of Pharisees as a class working for the wealthy aristocracy and
representing the interests of the Temple authorities does not fit well with
Josephus' portrayal of the esteem in which they were held by the people, and
with their own attested concerns. At the same time we should certainly not fall
into the trap of thinking of quite distinct groups (sects, classes), or of groups always
acting either in isolation or in unison, and many Pharisees no doubt did
serve as a scribal bureaucracy.
Where the Pharisees stood out most clearly among their contemporaries,
however, was in their concern to keep the law with scrupulous accuracy and exactness
(akribeia), 61 and in their development of a distinctive halakhic interpre-
61. This is the main burden of Hengel's and Deines' critique of Sanders.
62. Hengel and Deines, 'Sanders' Judaism' 30-31, 46-47, in contrast to the high degree
of exclusivism shown by the Qumran people. See also Meier, Marginal Jew 3.405-406.
63. Hengel and Deines, 'Sanders' Judaism' 34-35. See further below §9.6a, particularly
at n. 176.
64. Hengel and Deines, 'Sanders' Judaism' 48-49.
65. Saldarini, Pharisees particularly 39-48, 295-97; the thesis has proved attractive particularly
to Horsley, Jesus 17, 63 ('among the "retainers" through whom society was governed'),
70 ('representatives of the Temple-government in dealing with local affairs'); also Galilee:
History, Politics, People (Valley Forge: Trinity, 1995) 150 and n. 37; also Archaeology 152
and n. 59; similarly with Borg, Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship 101-103.
66. Crossan, Birth ch. 11. See below chapter 12 nn. 405 and 411.
67. Josephus, War 1.110; 2.162; Ant. 17.41; Life 191; Acts 22.3; 26.5; see particularly
A. I. Baumgarten, 'The Name of the Pharisee', JBL 102 (1983) 411-28 (here 413-17). Sanders
does not dispute this point (Jesus and Judaism 275).
269