Power central to tension between Jesus and Pharisees

Misreading the tension between Jesus and the Pharisees historically fostered antisemitism and contributed to the Holocaust, New Testament scholar Scot McKnight told a gathering at East Texas Baptist University.

“I believe we have misunderstood the Pharisees—misinterpreted the Pharisees—to significant and substantive damage in culture and society, and the Holocaust is connected to this,” McKnight said.

Delivering the Frank and Pauline Patterson Lectures at the Spring Colloquy of ETBU’s B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary, McKnight encouraged Christians to adopt an “empathy for people of the past” as they seek to understand the truth about the Pharisees.

“Truth is found by those who risk it all in its pursuit, and I contend it cannot happen without empathy,” he said.

Consider a ‘constellation’ of issues

Rather than focusing on a single issue, such as sabbath observance, the tension between Jesus and scribes, Pharisees and temple officials may be understood best as a “constellation” of issues.

“The conflict between Jesus and the leaders at Galilee, including the Pharisees, was multilayered, complicated, religious, social, political and economic,” McKnight said. “In other words, it was about power.”

Those who held power viewed with suspicion and distrust the kingdom of God vision of Jesus as outlined in Luke 4, he noted.

“To understand Jesus, one has to begin where he himself staked his claims—with a vision of radical social and economic justice, with Jubilee, with his vision to turn the nation into an agent of economic generosity and justice,” McKnight said.

The temple authorities were the incumbent elites who held power, while the “kingdom network” of Jesus was an insurgent movement of the common people, he observed.

“We ought to emancipate the Pharisees from the relentless Christian stereotype of hypocrisy and rediscover them as but one actor in a complicated network of power, negotiation, beliefs, practices and social stability,” he said.

Different perspective on Pharisees

Looking at nonbiblical sources from the first century, McKnight painted a different picture of a Pharisee than the stereotype of a legalistic hypocrite.

“When you think of a Pharisee, think of a spiritually formed person. Think of an idealistic person who is passionate about God and the Bible,” he urged.

“Think of ordinary folks whose lives embodied holiness and justice. And think of those who had the capacities of influencing society.”

Christians have tended to view the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees as focused on theology and the doctrine of salvation, he observed. Instead, he suggested, the differences centered more on how faith is lived.

Judaism—particularly the law as understood by the Pharisees—should not be viewed as a systematic theology but as a way of life and system of practices, McKnight said.

‘Woe unto you …’

Many of the Christian stereotypes surrounding Pharisees—and Jews in general—have grown out of a misreading of Matthew 23, he asserted.

Too often, Christians’ stereotypes of Jews as legalists and hypocrites have given rise to antisemitic rhetoric and violent actions, ultimately leading to the Holocaust, he insisted.

“Matthew 23 is not an oracle of doom but an emotion-laden lament. It is the heart cry of a prophet who had delivered the message of God to an unresponsive people of God,” McKnight said.

“Jesus really did disagree deeply and dramatically with the scribes and Pharisees, but he was not spewing hatred. He was weeping over the culture the scribes and Pharisees had formed.”

Law book or life book?

Jesus actually agreed with the Pharisees that the law had to be interpreted, expanded and amplified, McKnight observed. But Jesus disagreed deeply with the way in which the Pharisees did it, without compassion and pastoral care.

“Jesus lamented that the expansions of the Torah by the Pharisees were burdensome to ordinary people,” McKnight said.

“The interpreters of the law were doing damage to walking in the true way of the law.”

The scribes, Pharisees and temple authorities viewed the Torah as “both a life book and the law book,” he said.

Jesus agreed the law needed to be applied to everyday life, but he gave greater weight to its principles of justice, compassion and faithfulness.

“The foundational difference between the Pharisees and Jesus was communal,” McKnight said.

It was a conflict between the temple community who possessed power and Jesus’ “kingdom network,” he said.

As McKnight emphasized at several points, “Power is always at the heart of social conflicts.”