Pharisees: Purging the Term

To call someone today a “Pharisee” is to accuse someone of hypocrisy or legalism or picayunishness or petty. “Pharisee” is an insult in our world, but importing our usage to the New Testament uses leads to common misreadings of the Gospels.

Such misreadings at times lead to anti-Semitism.

If you want to read up on the Pharisees, read EP Sanders’ Judaism: …