The Pharisees hold a unique place in the Gospels as critics of Jesus and his teachings. Their name means “separation,” and they held themselves apart as models of perfection in the law. They were ...

For the past several weeks, Matthew’s Gospel has been unrelenting in his attacks on the Pharisees. They are presented as faithless husbandmen in a vineyard they try to seize for their own. They are ...

Pharisees were religious zealots who were very legalistic in nature. They would often expound the Scriptures in the synagogues and pray before people. They appeared very pious and in people’s eyes, it ...

Pope Francis is being urged by experts to take greater care when referring to “hypocritical” Pharisees, a stereotype that fueled centuries of bad blood between Catholics and Jews. Catholic-Jewish ...

The real mistake made by Jesus’ classic adversaries might surprise you. You’ve probably heard someone say at some point “Don’t be such a Pharisee.” Typically these words are uttered when someone is ...

Years ago, before I was Catholic, a friend didn’t like something I told her about her lifestyle and told me, “Oh that’s so pharisaical of you!” What happened was that she was pro-abortion and I was ...

Illustration of Jesus Christ telling a group of Pharisees that they should follow the spirit, not the letter of the law, according to the Gospel of Luke. Dorling Kindersley Getty Images Those of us ...

Giles Fraser and guests hear from Jonathan Aitken, notoriously labelled a hypocrite, to explore how the Pharisees became a byword for hypocrisy. Show more The word hypocrite gets used with such ...

(RNS) — It was the summer of 1989. I was a doctoral student at Princeton Theological Seminary. I was not only the only Jew in that program; I might have been the only Jew on campus. Every morning, the ...