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Post by StellaMaris on Oct 16, 2022 11:11:15 GMT
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Post by theguvnor on Oct 16, 2022 12:20:27 GMT
I think it unwise to utilize the Bible in that manner.
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Post by jimg on Oct 16, 2022 20:02:45 GMT
Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a follower of Jesus. Gamaliel was a Pharisee who advised his followers not to oppose Christians but to wait and see what God made of them.
I can think of only three Jewish factions existing at the time of Jesus--Pharisees, Saducees, and Zealots. Jesus was certainly not a Saducee or a Zealot. At one point he tells his follwers to follow the Pharisee's religious instruction because they sit on the seat of Moses, but not to imitate their actions because they are hypocrites.
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Post by tisbearself on Oct 16, 2022 23:49:29 GMT
I'm primarily concerned with my own sins at this point, not the sins of people who died 2000 years ago, and don't pay much attention to what apologists do or don't address unless I'm seeking to have a specific question answered.
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Post by StellaMaris on Oct 17, 2022 0:08:42 GMT
I agree that we need to qualify our language when referring to the Gospel Pharisees. They were obviously a small group in Jesus sphere that he was referencing strictly for their attitudes/behaviours.
But it's a stark reality that those attitudes/behaviours are such appalling sins that they deserve damnation and that is straight from Jesus mouth. Yet those sins aren't focused on with concomitant attention.
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Post by homeschooldad on Oct 17, 2022 0:25:45 GMT
The TLM Gospel readings have been pretty rough on the Pharisees the past couple of weeks, and so has our diocesan TLM priest in his sermons.
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Post by tisbearself on Oct 17, 2022 0:26:05 GMT
I will say some extra prayers for them this week.
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Post by StellaMaris on Oct 17, 2022 2:12:28 GMT
The TLM Gospel readings have been pretty rough on the Pharisees the past couple of weeks, and so has our diocesan TLM priest in his sermons. The question is in how the lessons are related to our present experience of faith today. Do they address the 7 woes? The woes are mentioned twice in the narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. In Matthew they are mentioned after Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, where he teaches in the Temple, while in Luke they are mentioned after the Lord's prayer is given and the disciples are first sent out over the land. Before introducing the woes themselves, Matthew states that Jesus criticized them for taking the place of honor at banquets, for wearing ostentatious clothing, for encouraging people to call them rabbi.
The woes are all woes of hypocrisy and illustrate the differences between inner and outer moral states. Jesus portrays the Pharisees as impatient with outward, ritual observance of minutiae which made them look acceptable and virtuous outwardly but left the inner person unreformed. See also Letter and spirit of the law.
They taught about God, but did not love God – they did not enter the kingdom of heaven themselves, nor did they let others enter.
They preached God, but converted people to dead religion.
They taught that an oath sworn by the temple or altar was not binding, but that if sworn by the gold ornamentation of the temple, or by a sacrificial gift on the altar, it was binding. The gold and gifts, however, were not sacred in themselves as the temple and altar were, but derived a measure of lesser sacredness by being connected to the temple or altar. The teachers and Pharisees worshiped at the temple and offered sacrifices at the altar because they knew that the temple and altar were sacred. How then could they deny oath-binding value to what was truly sacred and accord it to objects of trivial and derived sacredness?
They taught the law, but did not practice some of the most important parts of the law – justice, mercy, faithfulness to God. They obeyed the minutiae of the law such as tithing spices, but not the weightier matters of the law.
They presented an appearance of being 'clean' (self-restrained, not involved in carnal matters), but they were dirty inside: they seethed with hidden worldly desires, carnality. They were full of greed and self-indulgence.
They exhibited themselves as righteous on account of being scrupulous keepers of the law but were, in fact, not righteous: their mask of righteousness hid a secret inner world of ungodly thoughts and feelings. They were full of wickedness. They were like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside, but full of dead men's bones.
They professed a high regard for the dead prophets of old and claimed that they would never have persecuted and murdered prophets when, in fact, they were cut from the same cloth as the persecutors and murderers: they too had murderous blood in their veins. |
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Post by theguvnor on Oct 17, 2022 9:08:01 GMT
They probably wouldn't haven't liked Vatican II as well...
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Post by theguvnor on Oct 17, 2022 15:20:59 GMT
I will say some extra prayers for them this week. Seems a reasonable course of action, those dreadful conservatives need them. As do we naughty tree-huggers. And everyone in between. |
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Post by davebj on Nov 7, 2022 1:30:17 GMT
I can think of only three Jewish factions existing at the time of Jesus--Pharisees, Saducees, and Zealots. Add: Essenes. There are those who believe that John the Baptist and maybe even Jesus Himself were with the Essenes for a while. I have no opinion on that, one way or the other. Dxx |
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bluekumul
Full Member
Christian humanist, democratic socialist, world citizen
Posts: 197
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Post by bluekumul on May 30, 2023 12:33:03 GMT
What do others think about this void of sins of the Pharisees that modern conservative apologists can't/won't address? I'd say that culture warriors on both Left and Right sides are modern Pharisees. Both groups condemn people outside their bubble, while being extremely reluctant to criticize themselves. |
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Post by theguvnor on May 30, 2023 15:40:11 GMT
I'd broadly agree with that. They do indeed create ideological bubbles. We can see this (and I'm loath to mention it but it is the most obvious example) in the endless verbal war between Democrats and Republicans in the US. Much of which is driven by the media who love the drama and silliness of the whole thing.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2023 21:53:06 GMT
Modern Pharisees are to be found in the Church on both the liberal / progressive and conservative / traditionalist sides.
For example, in my mind, those who wish to eradicate the ancient Roman Rite, and equally those who claim that the Missale Romanum as promulgated by Pope Saint Paul VI in 1970 is in some fundamental way ecclesiologically deficient are engaging in pharisaical behaviour. The Pharisees as a movement or definable class of persons died with the end of priestly Judaism in around 70 A. D. Nonetheless, in the modern world, and indeed in the body of the Church, there are those and have always been those whose behaviour is in many respects emulative of the Pharisees of old.
The Holy Apostle, in his First Epistle to the Church at Corinth, re-iterated the warnings against pharisaical behaviour which Our Lord gave to us during his ministry on Earth, saying: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away....And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."
A man who purely emphasises morality, logic, reason isolated from actual application, hard application of norms without respect to the actual consequences of such application, etc., could be said to be engaging in pharisaical behaviour. Modern Pharisees exist in all spheres of life, in all religions, and in our Church. It is important to remember that it is the manner these people apply their beliefs which unites them, not the actual beliefs themselves.
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Post by tisbearself on May 30, 2023 23:26:58 GMT
I generally read Dom Henry Wansbrough's Scripture commentary as it comes with the Universalis app that I usually use to access the daily readings. Dom Henry has a few themes upon which he likes to dwell. One of them, interestingly, is that the Pharisees actually weren't so bad. According to Dom Henry, the Sadducees were actually the larger and more dominant group who controlled the Sanhedrin and were responsible for getting Jesus crucified, largely because they did not believe in life after death (or in the existence of spiritual beings such as angels). The Pharisees were a smaller and less powerful group who did believe in life after death and in angels. They often argued with the Sadducees and we just had the reading where St Paul cleverly sets the two groups arguing against each other over eternal life, with the Pharisees standing up for Paul, thus saving him from condemnation.
The Pharisees may have been a bit too rule-oriented, because they had been taught up to the time of Jesus' appearance on the scene that you honored God by following rules without question; in other words, through obedience to the Law. They thought that was what God wanted. Jesus frequently explained that God actually wanted something else. But according to Dom Henry, the Pharisees were kind of on the right track, and the Sadducees were the ones out to get Jesus. Of course, Dom Henry is not the ultimate authority on this, and I am sure a roomful of Scripture scholars and Bible history nerds could debate this all day, but just putting it out there.
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