Talk:Pharisees

Karaite Judaism
The last section is pretty much copy and pasted from a sectarian Karaite website. It should either be deleted or opinions should be offered about how Rabbinic Jews see Karaites. Allow me to share some of these views: Karaites are anti-intellectual wannabee Sadducees who while incorporating older traditions are not Sadducees and were established long after said Sadducees were dead. The reasons for this are firstly because there Biblical canon is to my knowledge exactly the same as ours and we Rabbinic Jews find this odd because we would assume that they would use at least some of the Apocrypha in making there decisions even if they are not the direct word of G-d (a Karaite can correct this assumption if they like). Secondly if G-d had put all of the minutia of instructions regarding laws in Bible then we wouldn't have this problem but the Bible would be unwieldy he gave the minutia to humans to pass down and that is what he did. The Karaites do the same as it is impossible to interpret Deuteronomy 12:21 any other way (though they try to). In any case you could add these rebuttals to the bottom of the page, or get rid of the Karaite criticism section all together since this is not a forum that should be used for arguing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.202.217.173 (talk) 21:01, 2014 November 7 (UTC)

unclear as to first conflict
Intro:
 * Conflicts between Pharisees and Sadducees took place in the context of much broader and longstanding social and religious conflicts among Jews, made worse by the Roman conquest.
 * Another conflict was cultural, between those who favored Hellenization (the Sadducees) and those who resisted it (the Pharisees)
 * A third was juridico-religious, between those who emphasized the importance of the Second Temple with its rites and services, and those who emphasized the importance of other Mosaic Laws.

The 2nd bullet "another conflict" is phrased as if being the 2nd conflict mentioned.

But what is the first conflict mentioned?

The first bullet does not appear to discuss a particular conflict but rather presents and overview of the contexts in which multiple conflicts take place.

So it seems like "another conflict was cultural" should be rephrased something like "there were also cultural conflicts, one such being between ..." although I'm not sure I understand the specific differences between "cultural" and "social", are they not synonymous?

Given that "juridico-religious" seems like it could be viewed as at least a partial subset of "religious conflicts" it also seems like it would be an example of bullet one, rather than "a third (an) other". WakandaQT (talk) 15:43, 12 June 2021 (UTC)


 * See the section on this same talk page titled "Second Paragraph, Second Sentence."
 * It is my impression that the Sadducees were descended from those who revolted against the Seleucids and who OPPOSED Hellenization. Itinerantlife (talk) 03:19, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Second Paragraph, Second Sentence
As of December 15, 2022, the second sentence of the second paragraph claims that the Sadducees supported Hellenization. My understanding (which may be wrong) is that the Sadducees began as those who agreed with the Hasmoneans. The Hasmoneans came to power as a result of the revolt against the Selucids. This revolt began in opposition to Hellenization and to the policies of Antiochus IV.

My impression has always been that the Sadducees remained opposed to Hellenization as long as they existed as a group. Itinerantlife (talk) 03:06, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Sources: Second Paragraph; 1 and 2 Maccabees, two deuterocanonical books .....
To whoever wrote this section, many thanks for contributing your knowledge. In this paragraph, the reason for mentioning Maccabees and its theology is unclear. Is important to the narrative because the Pharisees derived some of their beliefs from these works? SkaryCarrot (talk) 03:50, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Comparison section
The comparison section is sourced to the Jewish Virtual Library and appears to be a rather direct copy/paste job. Furthermore, according to Perennial sources the JVL is generally considered unreliable. As such I'm going to cut this section. I'm gonna leave this comment over at Essenes and Sadducees too. IrishStephen (talk) 00:34, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Links between Rabbinic Judaism and Pharisees
The article takes the view that the Rabbis are the continuation of the Pharisees while this is not a fact and many academic authorities say the opposite (Prof Seth Schwartz or Martin Goodman). They and others explain that these were two different groups with different ideologies, the Rabbis being originally a fringe movement with no influence, while the Pharisees were a very popular movement. The Pharisees did not believe or as far as we know were even aware of the existence of a Oral Torah, which seems to have been the specific creed of the Rabbis. The Mishna itself refers to the Pharisees as a different group. The article needs to be edited to reflect at least the plurality of academic opinions. 2A02:ED0:538E:100:21ED:4828:D2A9:403E (talk) 17:43, 25 April 2024 (UTC)