If you’ve read the gospels, you know that Jesus had a fair number of run-ins with a group called “the Pharisees.” It’s easy to see them as the “bad guys” of the Jesus story. The Pharisees are variously portrayed as “hypocrites,” or “lovers of money,” or worse. But there are several problems with such a one-dimensional portrait of the Pharisees: Now would be a good time to talk about the various political parties within Judaism during the lifetime of Jesus. This is important because these parties changed radically within a few decades after Jesus died—and before most of the New …
Jesus and Politics
Jesus and “The Jews”
The gospel of John tells a lot of stories about Jesus and his run-ins with a group of people that are usually translated into English as “the Jews.” Who were these people, “the Jews?” And what was their beef with Jesus? This is a tough question, and a number of answers have been suggested by biblical scholars. The Greek term is Ioudaioi, a plural word. The singular version is Ioudaios. So what does this word mean? That depends on the context. The word was used by different authors in various ways, so it has quite a wide range of meanings. …