Two Pictures of the Pharisees: Philosophical Circle or Eating Club

The debate on the Pharisees embodies the Christian critique of Judaism, and the Jews' apologetic for their religion. Eating together was a less ritualized occasion, even though the Pharisees had rituals in connection with the meal. Clearly, the invective of the Gospels against the Pharisees bespeaks competition and strife between the communities for whom the Gospels speak and this other, quite separate, community of Israelites. By contrast, Josephus sees the Pharisees as a quite different thing entirely. The picture Josephus presents is of a party of philosophical politicians. The traits of Pharisaism emphasized by Josephus, their principal beliefs and practices, nowhere occur in the rabbinic traditions of the Pharisees. Equally obvious, the stress of the Pharisees on the minutia of cultic law, observed even outside of the cult, expresses a profound yearning for sanctification by participation in the holy and eternal life of the Temple.