In Mark 14, the scene is tense. Jesus stands before an assembly of the high priest, all the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes. False witnesses rise and tell tales meant to condemn Jesus, but ...

At Halloween, there was a knock on my door and it was someone from Congress saying, “Trick or treat!” I said, “What’s the ...

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 ...

We learn that “in front of” Jesus, there was a man suffering from dropsy (today called “edema”). We are not told if he is one ...

Every religion has its demonology. When Malcolm X made this observation to Alex Haley as they collaborated on what was to become his posthumous autobiography, his immediate target was the antisemitic ...

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 ...

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 ...

No one wants to be like the scribes and Pharisees. When Jesus talks about these people in the Gospels, it’s almost never in a positive light. In fact, they normally serve as a warning, as a teachable ...

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 ...