Who Were the Pharisees? (Part 2): Josephus
Our Best Source
This is the second entry in my Bite-Sized Bible Dictionary series. This is an attempt to provide a quick and critical overview of a topic related to the background of the New Testament. Today, we’re continuing our understanding of the Pharisees through Josephus.
If you recall, about half a century ago, there was a shift in the approach to studying the Pharisees, emphasizing a stricter reliance on sources that explicitly mention them by name. This shift focused on the following sources: Josephus, the New Testament, and later rabbinic literature.
Flavius Josephus
Our best source about the Second Temple period1 - encompassing the time leading up to, during, and just after Jesus - and indeed about the Pharisees, is Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian who wrote on behalf of Rome after the Jewish War (66-70 A.D.). He gives us information about the Pharisees in both of his most well-known works, Antiquities of the Jews (Ant.) and the Jewish War (JW). Autobiographically, Josephus tells us that when he was 19 years old, he started conducting himself “according to the rules of the sect of the Pharisees.”2 This gives him important insider knowledge of the sect.
He gives us knowledge about the Pharisees as well as the Sadducees and Essenes, two other popular Jewish sects of the time. According to him, the Pharisees come into prominent power under John Hyrcanus’s (135-105 B.C.) rule of the Hasmonean dynasty. Josephus discusses the Pharisees from three different perspectives: the political classes of the Jews and Romans, the Greco-Roman philosophical schools, and the Jews themselves.3
Politically, Josephus gives us some mixed messages about the Pharisees’ explicit involvement. It’s thought that the Pharisees were responsible for destroying a golden eagle that sat upon a temple gate as a political gesture against Herod the Great, whom they thought was dying. However, Josephus doesn’t explicitly name the Pharisees but describes the group responsible as revolutionary sages. It’s unclear among scholars whether these sages are identical to the Pharisees although Josephus may consider them to be synonymous in his political assessment.4 Josephus also tells us that the Pharisees were their own prominent political and religious party under the Hasmonean Queen Alexandra Solome circa 76-67 B.C.5 Particularly, the Pharisees had some influence within the Sanhedrin, the supreme council in charge of Jewish affairs in Roman Palestine. At one point, there were 6,000 Pharisees, according to Josephus.6
Philosophically, Josephus says much about the Jewish philosophical schools of his time, among them were the Pharisees. He considers them along with the Essenes and Sadducees to be disciples of the Fourth Philosophy founded by the rebellious anti-Roman Jewish leader Judas the Galilean. He contrasts them, much like the New Testament and later rabbinic literature, with the Sadducees especially. New Testament scholar Lynn Cohick says “Josephus does not say that the Sadducees ran the temple, but that it was the Pharisees’ ideas that must be followed by the priests because the masses were persuaded by the Pharisees.”7 In other words, the Pharisees had considerable influence over the temple, contrary to previous scholarship.
In general, Josephus tells us they believed in God’s providence, final judgment, and the immortality of the soul.8 Specifically, Pharisees believed in both free will and divine fatalism.9 Moreover, Josephus ascribes some of their popularity and influence to their teaching on the resurrection of the dead.10 They also taught about rewards and punishments after death, and that a new and sanctified body is given to the righteous at the eschaton. In Josephus’ view, this suggests that they believed in bodily resurrection. Regarding the authority of the Jewish Scriptures, the Pharisees seemed more relaxed about the meaning and application of the Torah when compared to the Sadducees, focusing primarily on ancestral customs and the teachings in the narratives of the patriarchs.11 In other words, although the Pharisees are popularly understood to be very strict adherents of the Torah, Josephus considered the Sadducees to be even stricter in their adherence.
Summary
Half a century ago, a stricter approach to studying the Pharisees emerged, relying on sources like Josephus, the New Testament, and rabbinic literature. Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian who wrote for Rome after the Jewish War (66-70 A.D.), provides valuable insights into the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. He describes the Pharisees' rise to power under John Hyrcanus (135-105 B.C.) and their political and religious influence, notably during Queen Alexandra Salome's reign (76-67 B.C.), when they impacted the Sanhedrin and temple practices. Josephus portrays the Pharisees as influential due to their teachings on providence, final judgment, and bodily resurrection, contrasting them with the Sadducees, and noting their focus on ancestral customs and less strict adherence to Torah.
Bibliography
Cohick, L. “Pharisees.” In Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Second Edition, edited by Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, and Nicholas Perrin. Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: IVP Academic; IVP, 2013.
Johnson, Bradley T. “Pharisees.” In The Lexham Bible Dictionary, edited by John D. Barry, David Bomar, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, Douglas Mangum, Carrie Sinclair Wolcott, Lazarus Wentz, Elliot Ritzema, and Wendy Widder. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016.
Josephus, Flavius, and William Whiston. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987.
If you want to know more about this period, click and read my post History of the Jews, Part 1: Antiochus Epiphanes to Pompey (175-63 B.C.).
The Life of Flavius Josephus, 2.12.
L. Cohick, “Pharisees,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Second Edition, ed. Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, and Nicholas Perrin (Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: IVP Academic; IVP, 2013), 676.
Jewish Wars 1.648-655; 2.117-118; Antiquities 17.149-166; 18.4.
Ant. 13.401-410; JW 1.110-112.
Ant. 17.42.
Cohick, “Pharisees,” 677; Ant. 18.15.
JW 2.162-66.
JW 2.162-165; Ant. 13.171-173.
Ant. 18.14.
Ant. 13.294, 296-298, 408; 17.41; 20.199.