What was the purpose of the pharisees?

Answer 1

'Pharisee' was not a job. The Pharisees were a sect of Judaism, just as Catholic, Presbyterianism and Mormonism are denominations of modern Christianity. However, some Pharisees did become priests or Temple scribes.

The Pharisees differed from the other main sect of the time, the Sadducees, in that they believed in angels, life after death, resurrection and other then modern concepts. They were seen as supporters of the common man, while the Sadducees were associated with the elite.

Answer 2

The Pharisees believed that HaShem gave the Jews both a written and an oral Torah, both of which were equally binding and both of which were open to interpretation by rabbis. Pharisees were devoted to the study of Torah and the education of all people, regardless of status in society. They were also in charge of the Sanhedrin (religious court).

The Pharisees detested hypocrisy and actively sought it out and criticized it whenever they encountered it. Examples of this hatred of hypocrisy can be found in the Gemara in Sotah 22B with several caricatures. They strongly denounce the pious man who cared more for his own purity than for human life; for the young woman who's overly zealous in her devotions; the widow who showed of her religious observance; and to the self-appointed Torah decisors who lacked the knowledge and qualifications to do the job.

The Pharisees were the only movement to survive the destruction of the Second Temple and were the ancestors of modern Judaism.

Answer 3

The Pharisees were the Jewish group that concentrated on the study, teaching and application of the Torah in every century from Abraham down to today.

The word "Pharisees," which is based on a Greek misspelling used by Josephus, doesn't convey the meaning which it should. It actually refers to the Sages of the Talmud. (The Hebrew word "p'rushim," to which he referred, means people of temperance; the opposite of epicurean.)

Josephus talks of three groups among the Jews in late Second-Temple times: Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. This may convey the mistaken impression that the Pharisees were just one "sect" among others, when in fact Josephus himself admits that the Pharisees (Torah-sages) with their disciples constituted the large majority of the Jewish people.

Although the Christian Testament portrays them poorly, in fact the Pharisees were very egalitarian. They believed that all men were created in God's image and that all had the same rights, and the same right to an education, etc. They were devoted to the practicing of kindness, the fulfillment of mitzvot, the study and teaching of Torah and the education of all people, regardless of status in society. They detested hypocrisy and actively sought it out and criticized it whenever they encountered it. The Pharisees were the only movement to survive the destruction of the Second Temple and were the ancestors of modern Judaism.

Our traditional Jewish beliefs today, including the afterlife and the resurrection, are traditions continuing from the Prophets and the Sages of the Talmud ("Pharisees").

The Sadducees were men of politics and secular life. They had abandoned various parts of Judaism; and they claimed no earlier source (tradition) for their attitudes. They harassed the Torah-sages; and, like the miniscule breakaway group called the Essenes (see Related Link), disappeared at the time of the Second Destruction, just as the earlier Jewish idolaters had disappeared at the time of the First Destruction.

Note that there is a common conception that the Sadducees, like the later (and now largely defunct) Karaites, made a deliberate decision to reject the Oral Law and reinterpret the Scriptures.

However, a careful perusal of the Talmud reveals that the Sadducees were actually opportunists who had nothing much at all to do with religion in any fashion. They were lax in Judaism; they were men of politics who weren't interested in Torah-matters.

The group that did (on rare occasions) argue with the Torah-Sages concerning subjects of religious observance, were a tiny sect called the Baitusim (Boethusians), who quickly died out.

Answer 4

The Perushim (a Hebrew/Aramaic word, anglicized as Pharisees) were a sect of Judaism or, equally, a social movement among Jews of the first centurys BCE and CE. The name comes from the root P-R-Sh meaning to separate, because they opposed helenization. Pharisees emphasized personal piety, study of the Biblical texts, law and ethics. Within the Phariseeic sect or party, there was a wide range of attitudes, from the strict legalism of Rabbi Shamai, to the Humanism of Rabbi Hillel.