(1) Debates with the Pharisees

"If you would enter life, keep the commandments."
     - Matthew 19:17b, (Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20)

"Those who heard him speak these words knew Jesus referred to the entire Torah of Moses, both written and oral, as he instructed all Jews to abide by all that was taught to them by the 'sages and the Pharisees who sit upon the seat of Moses'."
     - Miryam Nathan

"In Q material both Matthew and Luke have many references to Pharisees, but the references do not occur in the same places. Usually only one version of the Q saying - most often Matthew's - refers to the Pharisees, and the version without the reference seems nearer the original...Since Matthew and Luke added references to the Pharisees in rewriting Mark, and introduced such references in their own material; it is presumable that most of these unparalleled references come from them, not from the source(s) of Q. All are hostile."
     - Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? (1978) p. 203

"The lawteachers and the Pharisees sit in Moses' chair. This means you're supposed to observe and follow everything they tell you. But don't do what they do; after all, they're all talk and no action."
     - Matthew 23:2

"By Moses' chair, Jesus meant the Sanhedrin, the Maccabee-instituted Council of Seventy that he believed had been established by Moses (Numbers 11:16). While a minority of Pharisees sat in the Sanhedrin, including the high-priestly families who were ex officio members, the body as a whole was dominated by Jesus' real enemies, the Sadducees."
     - William Harwood, Mythologies Last Gods: Yahweh and Jesus

"...The Synoptic Jesus engages in debate with the Sadducees only once, namely, in the dispute over belief in the resurrection of the dead on the last day (Mark 12:18-27 parr.)."
Jesus "goes out of his way to attack the Sadducees personally: 'Is not the reason why you are in error, namely, that you are ignorant both of the Scripture and of the power of God?' This is a remarkably pointed barb aimed at the priestly guardians of divine power, supposedly centered in the Jerusalem temple.
"With the Pharisees [the pious laity], the scribes [the lay scholars/lawyers/theologians], and the rulers of the synagogues, Jesus engages in regular debate, and sometimes relations can even be friendly."
     - John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 1.

"...The Pharisees were probably not at the time (c. 30 C.E.) in charge of synagogues and probably did not form a religious sect. Rather, they were individuals who practiced stricter forms of piety within society, during the period when the temple cult was in decline and other groups, such as the Essenes, withdrew from society in order to maintain their group identity."
     - Robert W. Funk and The Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus: What Did Jesus Really Do? (1998) p. 241

"...For Matthew the Old Testament remains authoritative: it is neither to be discarded nor is it to be interpreted narrowly along the line used by Matthew's Pharisaic and scribal opponents. The teaching of Jesus provides the correct criterion for interpretation of the Law."
     - Graham N. Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, The Oxford Bible Series (1989), paperback, p. 74

(2) Pharisees in Galilee

"It is not certain how much Jesus knew about the Pharisees during his lifetime. The teachings of the rabbis in Jesus' day were all circulated by word of mouth; it was not until the third century C.E. that rabbinic traditions took written form in the Mishnah. Further, Jesus lived in Galilee to the north, while the geographical base of the Pharisees was far to the south in Judea. How far their influence extended is not clear from the evidence. What Jesus knew of the Pharisees came from personal contact, and that may have been limited."
     - Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels

"...There is no reason at all to doubt the presence of groups of Pharisees there [in Galilee] in the Jewish towns and villages, and probably even in the Jewish minority communities living in the Hellenistic cites. And there is every reason to believe that Jesus of Nazareth entered into debate with them."
     - Birger A. Pearson "The Gospel According to the Jesus Seminar"

Morton Smith disagrees:

"The Herod Jesus knew was in Galilee, and there is strong evidence that there were practically no Pharisees in Galilee during Jesus' lifetime. A generation later, when the great Pharisee Yohanan ben Zakkai lived there for eighteen years, only two cases were brought to him for decision; he reportedly cursed the country for hating the Law - it was destined to servitude. Y. Shabbat XVL.8 (15d. end). The story may be a legend - the curse looks like a prophesy ex eventu of the results of the later revolt - but at least the legend shows that the Pharisees remembers Galilee before 70 as a land where they had few followers."
     - Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? (1978) p. 208

"Accordingly, they resolved to send men of distinction as to their families [to Galilee], and of distinction as to their learning also. Two of these were of the populace, Jonathan and Ananias, by sect Pharisees; while the third, Jozar, was of the stock of the priests, and a Pharisee also; and Simon, the last of them, was of the youngest of the high priests."
     - Josephus, Vita 39

"More important is the evidence of Josephus; it is clear from his War II. 569-646, and even more from his Vita (28-406 and especially 197f.), that as late as 66 Pharisees might be respected in Galilee for their legal knowledge (through Josephus' suggestion of this is suspect as part of his pro-Pharisaic propaganda), but there were certainly rare: the only ones Josephus encountered were sent from Jerusalem, and had been chosen to impress the Galileans by their rarity....John at least avoided this [anachronism]; his Pharisees all appear in Jerusalem, and Jesus goes to Galilee to get out of their reach (4.1ff.)"
     - Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God? (1978) p. 208

"Hillel's last disciple Yochanan b. Zakkai claimed to have spent years in Galilee before returning to Jerusalem long before the Jewish war, only after which did he become a 'leader.' The Galilean hasid, Haninah b. Dosa, whose legendary exploits bear a remarkable resemblance to the type of miracle stories told about Jesu, was his reputed disciple (1st generation of tannaim).
"In the second generation of tannaim (70-90 CE), Yose ha Gelili was a Galilean whose opinions on sacrifice and other temple rituals were respected enough to be cited often against such prominent Judean rabbis as Aqiva, Tarfon and El'azar b. Azariah in halakah from Javneh. So clearly there were some Pharisees in Galilee even during the period when the leadership of the party was based in Judea."
     - Mahon Smith (CrossTalk - 30 Nov 1998)

"We thus cannot return to the overly simple essentialist categories of 'Jesus and Judaism' much less the opposition 'Jesus versus Judaism'...The regional differences between Galilee and Jerusalem (and Judea) were rooted in many centuries of separate historical development prior to the Hasmonean takeover. Galilee was then under Jerusalem rule, presumably with exposure to the Torah of 'laws of the Judeans' and some sort of relations with the Temple, for only one hundred years before the death of Herod and the birth of Jesus. There is no literary or material evidence and little historical likelihood - given the political crises raging in Jerusalem, Palestine and the Roman empire during the first two thirds of the first century BCE - that over such a short period of time traditional Israelite culture and local customs in Galilee had become conformed to what may have been standard in Jerusalem or Judea. It is highly unlikely that the high priesthood or its scribal 'retainers' (including the Pharisees) would have been able to mount a program by which the Galileans could have been effectively 'resocialized' into habitual loyalty to the Temple and the Torah (or the 'laws of the Judeans.)"
     - Richard Horsley, Archaeology, History and Society in Galilee: The Social Context of Jesus and the Rabbis (1998) p. 182

"He now thinks that the traditions presupposed by Jesus and his followers were not those of Judean scripture but rather the oral residue of ancient Israelite culture in Galilee, which had developed in isolation from events in Judea for more than six centuries, before the Deuteronomic reforms in Jerusalem and the reformation of Judaism after the Babylonian exile. The the literary evidence seems to indicate that in Jesus' day Pharisees promoting the Judean Torah had just begun to make their presence felt in Galilee but their influence was largely confined to the cities which were newly established by the Herods. The Jesus movement was a product of the villages, which had their own traditions of local heroes, like Elijah. Horsley suggests that (like Elijah) Jesus was a folk prophet, bent on renewing Israel."
"...One cannot assume that what was considered normative in Judea would have been regarded as normative or even legitimate in Galilee. Seen from this perspective Christianity is not derived directly from a pre-formed 'Judaism,' but rather both the Jesus and rabbinic movements develop from separate strands of Israelite tradition competing with missionary fervor in a region that had been recently subjected to a massive urbanization campaign and neo-pagan Hellenic revival sponsored by Herodians."
     - Mahlon Smith (CrossTalk)

In the century following Jesus' death, schools based on the pharisaic tradition were established in Galilee.

"The first rabbis recalled to have founded schools in Galilean towns were Jochanan b. Nuri (at Beit Shearim, about 25 km. west of Nazareth on the road from Carmel to the valley of Jezreel) and R. Meir's father-in-law, Hananiah b. Teradion (at Siknin). But it was the next generation of Aqiva's pupils (135-160) who were primarily responsible for making Galilee the center of rabbinic tradition: R. Meir (at Tiberias), Yose b. Halafta (at Sepphoris) and especially Rabban Shim'on II b. Gamaliel II, the father of Yehuda ha Nasi, who transferred the academy from Javneh to Usha (25 km NW of Nazareth and 15 km SE of Akko/Ptolemais on the Mediterranean).
     - Mahon Smith (CrossTalk - 30 Nov 1998)

During this same time period, religious leaders and their families were moved from Jerusalem to Nazareth. (Click here for details.)

(3) Pharisaic Parallels with Jesus' Teaching

"In numerous writings he [Jewish scholar J. Neusner] has shown that two thirds of the rabbinic traditions about the Pharisees before AD 70 deal with dietary laws: rules concerning ritual purity for meals and agricultural rules governing the fitness of food for consumption. At the time of Jesus the Pharisees were attempting to replicate the Temple cult in everyday life in the home. The purity laws kept by priests in the Temple were to be observed at the table of the ordinary Jew; thus, quite literally, Israel would be turned into a 'kingdom of priests and a holy nation'."
"These concerns should not be understood (as they often have been by Christians) as pettifogging legalism. The Pharisees were concerned with application of the will of God to the whole of life. Unlike the Essenes and (to a lesser extent) the Sadducees, they did not cut themselves off from society. Like Jesus, they were seeking the renewal of the whole of Israel...Not all the traditions in the gospels are hostile to the Pharisees. Luke mentions that on two occasions Jesus was invited to dine with a Pharisee (7:36; 14:1) and that some Pharisees warned Jesus that Herod wanted to kill him (13:31; cf. also Acts 5:34)."
     - Graham N. Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, The Oxford Bible Series (1989), paperback, p. 241

"Most of his [Jesus'] teachings, most of the words ascribed to him, conform to the tenets of Pharisaic thinking. Indeed, some of his most famous pronouncements are paraphrases, even on occasion almost direct quotations, from Hillel."
     - Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, The Messianic Legacy

"Do not do to your compatriot that which is hateful to yourself. That is the entire Torah. All else is mere commentary."
     - Rabbi Hillel in the Talmud, SHABAT 31a

Hillel's negative formulation of Jesus' Golden Rule is sometimes referred to as the "Silver Rule". It, in turn, is derived from earlier Jewish tradition:

"Do to no-one what you would not want done to you."
     - Tobit 4:15 (5th C. B.C.E.)

Jesus' exhortation to "Love thy neighbor" is also an echo of earlier scripture.

"You must love your neighbor as yourself."
     - Leviticus 19:18

The same sentiments are reflected in the writings of Paul.

"The commandments, 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not covet,' and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' "
     - Romans 13:9

"Jesus's supposedly original formulations are taken lock, stock, and barrel from Pharisaic thinking. A prime example: 'The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.' Another: 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' Another: 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your strength; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these depend all the law and the prophets'."
     - Tad Davis

"The more problematic sayings of Jesus seem to be borrowed from his contemporaries. 'Enter by the narrow gate' (Matthew 7:14, implying the vast majority of people are going to hell) is taken straight from 4 Ezra, a Jewish book from the time supposed to be Ezra's visions. 'Adultery in your heart... pluck out your eye' (Matthew 5: 28-9; only the second half has parallels) are from the contemporary rabbis; sayings about sex by Jesus are otherwise conspicuous by their absence."
     - Ed Friedlander, M.D., "Jesus of Nazareth"

"Mark allows only disciples to address Jesus as 'rabbi' (9:5; 11:21; 14:45); both disciples and 'outsiders' call him 'teacher' [Greek]. There is a very different pattern in Matthew and in Luke, where disciples are not allowed to call Jesus 'teacher', although other people do so (six times in Matthew, twelve in Luke). Matthew reserves 'rabbi' for Judas (26;25, 49) and in several passages has disciples call Jesus 'Lord' (e.g. 8:25, 17:4, 15). Luke avoids the Aramaic word 'rabbi'; in six places Jesus is addressed as 'master', a word found only in Luke. These variations seem to reflect concern to underline the special relationship between Jesus and the disciples. In John's gospel, on the other hand, there is no distinction between 'rabbi' and 'teacher'."
Rabbi "has been found written on two ossuaries (small boxes in which the bones of the deceased were placed) which come from the Jerusalem area before AD 70....In all probability rabbi (or an earlier form rab) originated shortly before the time of Jesus as a general term of respect for various leading figures, including teachers....In the second century rabbi came to be used as a formal title for an ordained scribe."
     - Graham N. Stanton, The Gospels and Jesus, The Oxford Bible Series (1989), paperback, p. 184-185

Charismatic leaders in rabbinic tradition also reportedly performed healings, exorcisms, and other miracles. (Click here for details.)