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The Pharisees in Recent Catholic Writing
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
Abstract
The negative image of the Pharisees in the Christian tradition since the time of the Gospels is stark, to say the least. Ninety percent of the references to them in elementary Catholic textbooks and seventy-eight percent in secondary Catholic school texts are negative. Because this image is historically unwarranted and because the Pharisees are the forefathers of present-day rabbinic Judaism, correcting that distorted image both in Christian scholarship and popular education is essential to further Jewish-Christian dialogue. With Vatican II there was “turning around” in the official Catholic Church on the image of the Pharisees, and since that time numerous official Catholic documents have called for a balancing of the distorted image of the Pharisees. Some Catholic scholars, mostly in the United States, and to some extent in Germany, have begun that scholarly and popular education process. John Pawlikowski, Eugene Fisher, Clemens Thoma, and Franz Mussner stand out in this work. But much remains to be done to bring that new scholarship into the classroom, books, and liturgy.
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References
1 These and other citations are found in the Oxford English Dictionary under “Pharisaic,” etc.
2 McKenzie, John L., Dictionary of the Bible (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1965).Google Scholar
3 Léon-Dufour, Xavier, Dictionary of Biblical Theology (New York: Seabury, 1973).Google Scholar
4 The English language materials are reported on in Pawlikowski, John, Catechetics and Prejudice (New York: Paulist, 1973)Google Scholar, and the French, Italian and Spanish materials are reported on in Bishop, Claire Huchet, How Catholics Look at Jews (New York: Paulist, 1974).Google Scholar
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11 Telephone conversation with Eugene Fisher, November 15, 1981.
12 The official Latin prayer read “pro perfidis Judaeis.” “Perfides” is probably best translated as “faithless,” and appeared thus in some modern English language missals, like Saint Andrew Daily Missal, ed. Lefebvre, Gasper (St. Paul, MN: Lohman, 1949).Google Scholar However, in others, like The New Marian Missal, ed. Juergens, Sylvester P. (New York: Regina, 1950)Google Scholar, it was translated as. “perfidious.”
13 Vatican Council II, “Nostra aetate,” No. 4.
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21 Ibid., pp. 32-33.
22 This information can be found in a number of recent books and articles, including Meyer, Rudolf, “Pharisaios,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Kittel, Gerhard and Friedrich, Gerhard (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974), 9:11ff.;Google Scholar and Bowker, John, Jesus and the Pharisees (London: Cambridge University Press, 1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The most revolutionary explanation, which is both the most clarifying and persuasive, is that of Rivkin, Ellis, A Hidden Revolution (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1978).Google Scholar Rivkin argues that whenever Perushim is used in rabbinic literature with the Sadducees it refers to the Pharisees. Otherwise it is simply a common noun used pejoratively of individual or groups of extremists or sectarians, not at all referring to the Pharisees above or in Josephus and the New Testament. Rivkin also argues against the standard assumption that the Pharisees were a brotherhood (Havurah), or that there was a “female Pharisee.” Before Rivkin's major book there was a broad variety in the description of the Pharisees even among Jewish scholars. This variance is masterfully described and analyzed by Cook, Michael J., “Jesus and the Pharisees—the Problem as It Stands Today,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies (Summer, 1978), 441–60.Google Scholar One of the fundamental reasons for the ambiguity of the definition of the Pharisees, according to Cook, was the lack of sufficient critical tools to differentiate among the various meanings in the word perushim and related terms, like haverim, in rabbinic literature. Before Rivkin's work on this problem, published only partially in articles (e.g., “Defining the Pharisees: The Tannaitic Sources,” Hebrew Union College Annual 40–41 [1969–1970], 214–15Google Scholar) before his book came out, all uses of the word perushim were indiscriminately assumed to refer to the Pharisees. Jacob Neusner takes an approach which is different, and somewhat antithetic, to Rivkin's: Neusner views the Pharisees as a sect preoccupied with table fellowship. As Rivkin, remarks of Neusner in A Hidden Revolution, p. 330Google Scholar: “his The Tabbinic Traditions of the Pharisees Before 70 (Leiden: 1971) III: 320–68Google Scholar, will give the reader a good notion of Neusner's assessment of the literature from a view fundamentally at odds with that espoused in A Hidden Revolution.” Methodologically and textually Rivkin's view appears much more the most persuasive.
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44 Ibid.
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48 Ibid., p. 272.
49 Ibid., pp. 255-56.