| <pb n="7" /><head>II.<hi rend="italic">The Sources for Research on the Pharisees</hi></head><p>Where is the critic to begin in his or her quest to understand the Pharisees by reconstructing their past? A basic task is the delimitation of admissible evidence. Differences on this score will necessarily promote diverse conclusions.</p><p>A large group of scholars, for example, has considered the apocalyptic literature indicative of Pharisaic ideas; yet many others deny the association.<note id="p1_c1_n27" place="foot">See n. 6 above.</note>Some interpreters use the DSS for (indirect) information about the Pharisees:<note id="p1_c1_n28" place="foot">Cf. D. Flusser, "Pharisäer, Sadduzäer und Essener im Pescher Nahum", in<hi rend="italic">Qumran</hi>, edd. K. E. Krozinger<hi rend="italic">et al</hi>. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981), 121-166, and A. I. Baumgarten, "Name", 421 and n. 42.</note>it is in a Qumran document that H. Burgmann grounds his theory that Simon the Hasmonean founded the Pharisees<note id="p1_c1_n29" place="foot">See n. 2 above.</note>and W. Grundmann draws his portrait of the Pharisees largely on the basis of the Scrolls.<note id="p1_c1_n30" place="foot">J. Leipoldt and W. Grundmann,<hi rend="italic">Umwelt des Urchristentums</hi>(2 vols.; Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1965-66), I, 269-278.</note>Others find the Pharisees alluded to already in the Hebrew Bible—in Ezra, Nehemiah,<note id="p1_c1_n31" place="foot">Geiger,<hi rend="italic">Geschichte</hi>, 87ff.;<hi rend="italic">Urschrift</hi>, 103.</note>or Malachi.<note id="p1_c1_n32" place="foot">Holtzmann, "Malachi".</note>Finally, 1 and 2 Maccabees, with their references to the<hi rend="italic">hasidim</hi>, have frequently been pressed into service on the question of Pharisaic origins.<note id="p1_c1_n33" place="foot">Wellhausen,<hi rend="italic">Pharisäer</hi>, 79ff.; Foerster, "Ursprung", 35ff.; and Beilner, "Ursprung", 245f.</note></p><p>None of these sources, however, mentions the Pharisees by name. How, then, can their purported allusions to the Pharisees be identified? Clearly, the criteria for this judgement must issue from some previously acquired knowledge of the Pharisees. It is precisely on this point of prior knowledge that vagueness envelops the research: few scholars take the trouble to demonstrate the high quality of prior knowledge that is an indispensable condition of such attributions. As Neusner insists: "Secure attribution of a work can only be made when an absolutely peculiar characteristic of the possible author [in our case, a Pharisee] can be shown to be an essential element in the structure of the whole work."<note id="p1_c1_n34" place="foot">Neusner,<hi rend="italic">Politics</hi>, 4.</note></p><p>When the grounds for the attribution of some works to the Pharisees are disclosed, they are often dubious. For example, G. B. Gray (in the Charles volumes) identifies<hi rend="italic">Psalms of Solomon</hi>as Pharisaic on the basis of: (a) its opponents, whom he judges to be the Hasmoneans; (b) the beliefs reflected in it, such as a messianic hope, political quietism, and the combination<pb n="8" />of fate and free will; and (c) its date (mid-first century BC).<note id="p1_c1_n35" place="foot">Charles,<hi rend="italic">Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha</hi>, II, 628ff.</note>The<hi rend="italic">Psalms</hi>have often been considered Pharisaic, presumably on the basis of such evidence.<note id="p1_c1_n36" place="foot">Cf. Wellhausen,<hi rend="italic">Pharisäer</hi>, 111; E. Kautzch,<hi rend="italic">Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments</hi>(2 vols.; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1900), II, 128; Moore,<hi rend="italic">Judaism</hi>, I, 182; Black, "Pharisees",<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible">IDB</span></hi>, 777, 781; D.S. Russell,<hi rend="italic">The Jews from Alexander to Herod</hi>(Oxford: Clarendon, 1967), 164; Grundmann,<hi rend="italic">Umwelt</hi>, I, 278; A. Finkel,<hi rend="italic">The Pharisees and the Teacher of Nazareth</hi>(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964), 7f.</note>Yet the assumptions involved are clearly debatable: (a) presupposes that the Pharisees (i) were indeed opposed to the Hasmoneans and (ii) were the only ones so opposed; (b) assumes that the messianic hope was peculiar to the Pharisees, that they were political quietists, and that Josephus was correct in his claim that the combination of fate and free will was a Pharisaic distinctive. Every one of these tacit assumptions is now vigorously contested in the scholarly literature,<note id="p1_c1_n37" place="foot">See nn. 6-8 above. It is a further question whether the exegesis of<hi rend="italic">Pss. Sol</hi>. has not itself been tailored to fit a presumed Pharisaic provenance. One wonders about this with respect to Gray's reading of a fate/free will combination in<hi rend="italic">Pss. Sol</hi>. 5:4; 9:6. Would anyone have found such a combination in<hi rend="italic">Pss. Sol</hi>. if Josephus had not claimed that the Pharisees combined fate and free will (<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>13:172; 18:13)?</note>yet such assumptions have been common. Wellhausen openly confessed his belief that the only significant<hi rend="italic">Gegensatz</hi>in first-century BC Palestine was that between Pharisees and Sadducees; hence, opposition to the Jerusalem authorities automatically identifies<hi rend="italic">Pss. Sol</hi>. as Pharisaic.<note id="p1_c1_n38" place="foot">Wellhausen,<hi rend="italic">Pharisäer</hi>, 111.</note></p><p>In view of the vaporous criteria used to establish Pharisaic authorship for<hi rend="italic">Pss. Sol</hi>., it can be startling to realize the amount of weight that is placed on this identification. M. Black writes:</p><p><q>Fortunately there is no doubt about the Pharisaic authorship of the Psalms of Solomon (ca. 60 B.C.),<hi rend="italic">doctrinally one of the most important of the Pharisaic and anti-Sadducean documents</hi>of this century, since it supplies our main evidence for the Pharisaic messianic hope.<note id="p1_c1_n39" place="foot">Black, "Pharisees",<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible">IDB</span></hi>, 777, emphasis added.</note></q></p><p>Unfortunately, there is doubt. K. Schubert, with a very different preunderstanding of Pharisaism, claims that<hi rend="italic">Pss. Sol</hi>. is anti-Pharisaic.<note id="p1_c1_n40" place="foot">Schubert, "Parties and Sects", 89.</note>This sort of dispute is legion with regard to literature that does not mention the Pharisees by name. So, Schürer thinks<hi rend="italic">Assumption of Moses</hi>to be Pharisaic;<note id="p1_c1_n41" place="foot">Schürer,<hi rend="italic">Geschichte</hi>, III, 375.</note>Grundmann calls it anti-Pharisaic.<note id="p1_c1_n42" place="foot">Grundmann,<hi rend="italic">Umwelt</hi>, I, 286.</note>Schürer believes,<hi rend="italic">ohne</hi><pb n="9" /><hi rend="italic">Zweifel</hi>, that<hi rend="italic">Jubilees</hi>is Pharisaic;<note id="p1_c1_n43" place="foot">Schürer,<hi rend="italic">Geschichte</hi>, III, 375.</note>H. D. Mantel considers it non-Pharisaic<note id="p1_c1_n44" place="foot">Mantel, "Sadducees and Pharisees", 99.</note>and A. Jellinek, anti-Pharisaic.<note id="p1_c1_n45" place="foot">Cited in Schürer,<hi rend="italic">Geschichte</hi>, III, 375.</note></p><p>A sobering example of the precariousness of attributing a source to the Pharisees without rigorous criteria presents itself in the Damascus Document (CD). J. Jeremias felt able to write in 1923 that:</p><p><q>es darf heute als erwiesen gelten, dass die Lehrer der Damaskussekte auf der älteren pharisäischen Halakha und Glaubenslehre beruht und dass wir in Gestalt der Damaskusgemeinde eine Jerusalemer pharisäische Gemeinschaft des ersten vorchristlichen Jahrhunderts kennen lernen.<note id="p1_c1_n46" place="foot">Jeremias,<hi rend="italic">Jerusalem</hi>, 131.</note></q></p><p>By the second edition of his book (1955), Jeremias was able to cite H. Gressman, L. Ginzberg, G. F. Moore, A. Schlatter, and G. Kittel in support of his claim that CD was a Pharisaic production.<note id="p1_c1_n47" place="foot">Ibid.</note>Since, however, fragments of the work were found in Cave 4 at Qumran, and since the document seems to correspond well to the Manual of Discipline (1QS),<note id="p1_c1_n48" place="foot">Cf. T.H. Gaster,<hi rend="italic">The Scriptures of the Dead Sea Sect</hi>(London: Seeker & Warburg, 1957), 43.</note>the theory of Pharisaic authorship is no longer tenable, unless one is willing to believe that the Qumran community as a whole was Pharisaic— a proposal that has not received wide support.<note id="p1_c1_n49" place="foot">M. Mansoor (<hi rend="italic">The Dead Sea Scrolls</hi>[Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1964], 145, 149) cites this as the view of "a few scholars" but confirms the virtual consensus that identifies the Qumraners with the Essenes.</note>The impressive array of scholars who were proven incorrect in their claim of Pharisaic authorship for CD stands as a reminder of the multiplicity of religious groups in ancient Palestine and of the consequent danger of prematurely assigning a given document to a particular group.</p><p>In the work of Neusner and Rivkin, only those sources that (a) unmistakably mention the Pharisees by name and (b) seem to have independent access to pre-70 realities are admitted as evidence. Rivkin insists:</p><p><q>Josephus, the New Testament, and the Tannaitic Literature are the only sources that can be legitimately drawn upon for the construction of an objective definition of the Pharisees. They are the only sources using the term<hi rend="italic">Pharisees</hi>that derive from a time when the Pharisees flourished.<hi rend="italic">No other sources qualify</hi>.<note id="p1_c1_n50" place="foot">Rivkin,<hi rend="italic">Revolution</hi>, 31.</note></q></p><p>Neusner is more cautious: "But for now, the only reliable information derives from Josephus, the Gospels, and rabbinical literature, beginning<pb n="10" />with the Mishnah."<note id="p1_c1_n51" place="foot">Neusner,<hi rend="italic">Politics</hi>, 4.</note>The qualification "for now" is important because a permanent exclusion of all other sources would be premature. Because sectarian, pseudonymous, and especially apocalyptic literature rarely mentions the actual names of its characters, preferring codes or ciphers, the absence of the Pharisees' name from these texts might be expected even if they were being referred to. Nevertheless, a decision on this point will presuppose a prior body of "control" information on the Pharisees, which can only be safely acquired by historical analysis of the three firstorder witnesses: Josephus, the tannaitic literature, and certain works in the NT corpus. If a control body of information can be securely established on the basis of these witnesses, then and only then shall we possess sure criteria for determining which, if any, other sources contain allusions to the Pharisees. For now, however, these three source collections can be the only admissible ones.</p> |
