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Chapter 1-The Pharisees  
     
1.
 The Pharisees are one of the most important religious revisionist movements of human history and the spiritual forefathers of Rabbinic Judaism- the basis of most Jewish practice today.
  
2.
 Like most people of the Jewish faith today, most Pharisees two thousand years ago were people dedicated to honest and pious behaviour and a life of clear avoidance of the practice of any evil or witchcraft.
  
3.
 The Pharisees were famous for the number of rules and orders they follow in their belief of God and thousands of years ago were second in complexity only to the strict rules of piety of Zoroastrianism from Persia (Babylon).
  
4.
 In fact the Pharisees claimed their heritage to the time as far back as what is known as the beginning of the “Second Temple” era (starting around 515 BCE). A temple which was financed and organized by the great Zoroastrian following King Darius I of Persia.
  
5.
 However, the actual strict practices and rules associated with Rabbinical Judaism we know today were only introduced during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah when they had coordinated the completion of the Babylonian Talmud around 450 to 430 BCE.
 
6.
 Today, Orthodox Jews who follow a more austere regime close to the original Pharisees share the greatest similarities with Orthodox Islam in adherence to strict rules guiding a life dedicated to God, free from evil.
  
7.
 The word Pharisees is believed to come from the Hebrew perushim, from parash, meaning "to separate", from a root related to the Aramaic wordas upharsin (and divided).
  
8.
 And while their name implies the Pharisees separate from a much older form of Judaic religious practice, the Pharisees and their descendents, the Rabbinical schools of Judaism, have maintained the claim of great antiquity compared to the Sadducees and the Essenes of the time of Jesus.
  
9.
 Given the demise of the Essenes and mysterious “disappearance” of the leading Sadduceean families after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the claim of greater antiquity concerning the Pharisees has rarely been questioned.
 
10.
 What is also of particular interest is that the Pharisees were, depending on the time, referred to as a political party, a social movement and a school of thought among Jews that flourished from the “Second Temple” period until the destruction in 70 CE.
  
11.
 Another significant historical anomaly concerning the Pharisees is the apparent antagonism of the Essenes, to Jesus and his disciples.
 
12.
 Why were the Pharisees so against the Essenes and against Jesus and his disciples?
  
13.
 This antagonism is difficult to clearly define across the various Pauline gospels, given Luke the disciple of Paul claims that Paul declared himself to be a Pharisee of Pharisee stock.
  
14.
 For Pharisees were not known to be positive towards the Romans. Nor were they positive towards the obsessive wealth of the Sadducees. So how then could Paul of Tarsus possibly have been a Pharisee if by all accounts his family were wealthy and full Roman citizens?
  

 
 
 

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