B. Key persons/groups/terms found in the Gospels (cont'd)

Messiah – Hebrew for “anointed one”. The Greek word for Messiah is “Christos” or Christ. Christ was not Jesus’ last name. It was a descriptor of who He was Jesus Christ = Jesus, the Anointed One. A messiah is one anointed by God to deliver His people from bondage, oppression. For example, in the Old Testament Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David, and Esther were regarded by the Jews as messiahs. The Prophetic Books prophesied of a descendant of David who would be a Messiah that would lead the Jewish people to greatness and take vengeance on all nations who oppressed Israel. During the Intertestamental Period, the Jews were ruled by oppressive foreign powers (Ptolemies, Seleucids, and Romans) which fanned the flames of Messianism among the Jews. They were expecting God to send someone to restore Israel and exact vengeance upon her enemies. During Jesus’ day, the Jews were constantly looking for a Messiah and in the process finding false messiahs. Many Jews thought John the Baptist to be the Messiah. Jesus’ message concerning the soon arrival of the kingdom of heaven on earth and the large following He had among the people made Him a potential candidate to be the Messiah. Jesus was the Messiah but not the messiah the people expected. Jesus was the Anointed One of God sent to free the people from bondage/oppression. Not from political bondage/oppression but spiritual bondage/oppression.

Pharisees – A Jewish religious and political group that maintained a strict observance of the Mosaic Law (the first five books of the Bible and more specifically Deuteronomy) as well as oral laws and traditions passed down by word of mouth over a period of centuries. The Pharisees asserted that the Scriptures were not complete and could therefore not be understood on their own terms. In other words, God was not specific enough when He gave the Law to Moses. The oral laws and traditions functioned to elaborate and explain what was written. Pharisees taught that these oral laws and traditions had the same authority as the Law/God’s Word. Example – the Law says that a person is to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy by not working. What qualifies as work? The Pharisees “added” to God’s word by defining what is work – spitting on the ground to make clay, brushing one’s hair, wearing a hairclip, starting or extinguishing a fire, carrying a mat, writing or erasing letters. Items normally used for work could not even be touched on the Sabbath. They were off-limits for fear of "accidental" use. Examples – touching a hammer or looking in a mirror. In all, the Pharisees developed 39 categories of work prohibited on the Sabbath. Within these 39 categories, well established by the time of Jesus, came the thousands of specific rules governing each situation and contingency to avoid desecrating the Sabbath. In addition to oral laws and tradition related to the Sabbath, there were thousands and thousands more to explain the Law God gave to Moses. Written all down, they would make the IRS code look like a children’s book. According to the Pharisees, a person who fails to abide by these man-made rules is a sinner despised by God a man.

The Pharisees were teachers of the Law and religious examples for the Jewish people.
They went out of their way to let everyone know how godly/holy they were in the way they dressed, worshipped (pray, tithe, fast), and related to others (avoided unclean people – sick, poor, Gentiles, tax collectors.) The Pharisees regarded themselves as the sole interpreters of the Law. The people were to listen to them if they wanted to know what it took to receive God’s love and blessings The Pharisees’ knowledge of the Law and extreme devotion to God earned them the respect of the people which enabled the Pharisees to greatly influence public opinion.

The Pharisees despised Jesus for the following reasons. He taught as one who had authority to interpret God’s Law/to speak on behalf of God but that authority did not come from the Pharisees. Also, Jesus regularly broke the oral laws and traditions espoused by the Pharisees – He “worked” on the Sabbath, touched sick people, fraternized with “sinners,” etc. Finally, Jesus’ growing popularity among the people undermined the Pharisees’ over the people. For Jesus’ opinion of the Pharisees read Matthew 23.

The Pharisees believed in angels, demons, the resurrection of the dead, Satan, Hell, immortality of the soul - eternal life and eternal damnation, and the coming of the Messiah. They despised Gentiles. The Pharisees opposed the adoption of Greek culture and Roman rule.