Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Faculty Publications 2019 Jesus’ Enemies?: Why Didn’t the Pharisees Reject Their Friend Jesus? Trevan Hatch Brigham Young University - Provo,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub Part of the Biblical Studies Commons, and the Christianity Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Hatch, Trevan, "Jesus’ Enemies?: Why Didn’t the Pharisees Reject Their Friend Jesus?" (2019). Faculty Publications. 3964. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/3964 This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact
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[email protected]. Chapter Seven Jesus’ Enemies? Why Didn’t the Pharisees Reject Their Friend Jesus? In this chapter we turn our attention to the Pharisees. In doing so, we hope to gain broad insight into how Jesus fit within the Jewish social hi- erarchy in first-century Galilee and Judea, at least according to the Gospels. Any conclusions we draw must be understood within a broad framework, not a nuanced, highly historical framework. We are not assuming that literally every Pharisee fit this description. Pharisees are central figures in the Christian demonization of Jews from late antiquity to the present. The Gospels portray Pharisees as self-righteous, hypocritical, spiritually hollow, overly ritualistic, and even demonic. Some of the Gospels portray Pharisees as the chief opponents of Jesus, the people largely responsible for his death. But is this portrayal fair? In this chapter, we explore the primary charac- teristics of Pharisees according to both Josephus and the authors of the Gospels to answer this question, as well as to understand better the nature of Jesus’ relationship with the Pharisees, who were Israel’s leaders at the time of Jesus.