Pharisees
The Pharisees appear in the gospels as a defined party within Israel, paired at points with the scribes, the lawyers, and the Herodians, and identified by a particular concern for tradition, ceremonial cleanness, Sabbath observance, and the standing of those who follow them. Their dealings with Jesus run a wide range — they host him at meals, send delegations to question him, plot with the Herodians against him, and stand as the recurring foil to his teaching on hypocrisy, self-justification, and the love of God and neighbor. Nicodemus, named "a man of the Pharisees" (John 3:1), is the one Pharisee who comes to Jesus to inquire.
A Party Among the Sects
Luke names the Pharisees alongside the lawyers as those who "rejected for themselves the counsel of God, not being baptized" by John (Luke 7:30). The same gospel sets a Pharisee and a publican together at the temple to pray (Luke 18:10), holding the two postures up for comparison. In Mark the Pharisees take counsel "with the Herodians" against Jesus — first "right away" after the healing in the synagogue (Mark 3:6), and again when "they send to him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, that they might catch him in talk" (Mark 12:13). The party operates publicly, in coordination, and across the Galilean and Judean phases of the narrative.
The scribes appear repeatedly with them. "The scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this that speaks blasphemies?" (Luke 5:21). When the publicans and sinners draw near to Jesus, "both the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, This man receives sinners, and eats with them" (Luke 15:2). The lawyers stand in the same line: a "certain lawyer stood up and made trial of him, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 10:25), and Jesus answers "the lawyers and Pharisees" together on the question of healing on the Sabbath (Luke 14:3).
Tradition and the Commandment of God
The Pharisees' concern for handed-down practice is named directly. Mark records that "the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands diligently, don't eat, holding the tradition of the elders; and [when they come] from the marketplace, except they bathe themselves, they don't eat; and many other things there are, which they have received to hold, washings of cups, and pots, and bronze vessels, and beds" (Mark 7:3-4). When they ask Jesus, "Why don't your disciples walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with common hands?" (Mark 7:5), he answers by citing Isaiah on hypocrites whose lips honor God while their heart is far from him (Mark 7:6), and then: "You⁺ leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men" (Mark 7:8). He develops the charge with the example of Corban — "you⁺ say, If a man will say to his father or his mother, That with which you might have been profited by me is Corban, that is to say, Given [to God]; you⁺ no longer allow him to do anything for his father or his mother; making void the word of God by your⁺ tradition, which you⁺ have delivered" (Mark 7:11-13).
The wider New Testament echoes the same diagnosis from outside the Pharisees' own circle. Believers are warned to take heed lest anyone make spoil of them "after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ" (Col 2:8); to ignore "Jewish fables, and commandments of men who turn away from the truth" (Tit 1:14); and to remember that they were redeemed "from your⁺ useless manner of life handed down from your⁺ fathers" (1 Pet 1:18). Diognetus draws a contrasting line about the apostolic message: "Nor was this instruction of theirs found by any speculation or concern of curious men; nor do they maintain an ordinance of men, as some" (Gr 5:3). Sirach, by contrast, holds open a positive form of received teaching — "Do not despise what you hear among the gray-headed Which they have heard from their fathers. Because from this you will receive understanding To return an answer in the time you need it" (Sir 8:9) — which sharpens, by contrast, the gospels' specific charge: not against any handing-down, but against tradition that voids the commandment.
Sabbath, Ceremony, and the Outside of the Cup
The Sabbath is the most frequent flashpoint. "Certain of the Pharisees said, Why do you⁺ do that which is not lawful on the Sabbath day?" (Luke 6:2). After a Sabbath healing the ruler of the synagogue is "moved with indignation because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath" and tells the multitude there are "six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the day of the Sabbath" (Luke 13:14); Jesus answers, "You⁺ hypocrites, does not each of you⁺ on the Sabbath loose his ox or his donkey from the stall, and lead him away to watering?" (Luke 13:15). The Pharisees ask the same question in Mark when his disciples pluck grain (Mark 2:24). In John the cured man is told, "It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed" (John 5:10), and Jesus presses the point: "If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, that the law of Moses may not be broken; are you⁺ angry with me, because I made a man every bit whole on the Sabbath?" (John 7:23).
The cleanness concern reaches beyond the Sabbath. Inside a Pharisee's house Jesus says, "Now you⁺ the Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter; but your⁺ inward part is full of extortion and wickedness. You⁺ foolish ones, did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But clean those things which are inside" (Luke 11:39-41). And against the same group: "you⁺ tithe mint and dill and every herb, and pass over justice and the love of God: but these you⁺ ought to have done, and not to neglect the others" (Luke 11:42). The scribe in Mark 12 reaches the inverse conclusion that Jesus accepts — "to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love his fellow man as himself, is much more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices" (Mark 12:33).
Hypocrisy Reproved
Jesus' standing word to his disciples about the party is direct: "Take heed to yourselves [and stay away] from the leaven which is the hypocrisy of the Pharisees" (Luke 12:1). The same charge of hypocrisy is laid on the wider crowd that reads weather signs but not the hour: "You⁺ hypocrites, you⁺ know how to interpret the face of the earth and the heaven; but how is it that you⁺ don't know how to interpret this time?" (Luke 12:56).
The dinner that begins at Luke 11:37 turns into the gospel's longest concentrated reproof. After the Pharisee marvels that Jesus had not "first bathed himself before dinner," Jesus speaks the inside/outside saying above and a sequence of woes: "Woe to you⁺ Pharisees! For you⁺ love the chief seats in the synagogues, and the salutations in the marketplaces. Woe to you⁺! For you⁺ are as the tombs which do not appear, and the men who walk over [them] do not know it" (Luke 11:43-44). The lawyers, when one of them protests that the reproach lands on them too, get their own woes: "Woe to you⁺ lawyers also! For you⁺ load men with loads grievous to be borne, and you⁺ yourselves don't touch the loads with one of your⁺ fingers" (Luke 11:46); "Woe to you⁺! For you⁺ build the tombs of the prophets, and your⁺ fathers killed them" (Luke 11:47); "Woe to you⁺ lawyers! For you⁺ took away the key of knowledge: you⁺ didn't enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you⁺ hindered" (Luke 11:52). The narrative closes the scene: "when he came out from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press on [him] vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things; laying wait for him, to catch something out of his mouth" (Luke 11:53-54).
The chief-seats / salutations charge is doubled in the warning against the scribes that runs in parallel: "Beware of the scribes, who desire to walk in long robes, and [to have] salutations in the marketplaces" (Mark 12:38), and the fuller form, "Beware of the scribes, who desire to walk in long robes, and love salutations in the marketplaces, and chief seats in the synagogues, and chief places at feasts" (Luke 20:46).
Self-Justification and the Two Men in the Temple
Luke's parable of the temple frames the party's spiritual posture in compressed form. Jesus addresses it "to certain ones, who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and set all others at nothing" (Luke 18:9). "Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican" (Luke 18:10). The Pharisee "stood and prayed these things to himself, God, I thank you, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican" (Luke 18:11), citing his own observance: "I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get" (Luke 18:12). The publican "would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven, but struck his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me a sinner" (Luke 18:13). Jesus' verdict is that "this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled; but he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Luke 18:14).
Self-justification surfaces elsewhere on the same axis. The lawyer "desiring to justify himself" asks, "And who is my fellow man?" (Luke 10:29). And to those who heard the parable of the unjust steward Jesus says: "You⁺ are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men; but God knows your⁺ hearts: for that which is exalted among men is disgusting in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15). James, without naming the party, gives the parallel verdict on religion that does not reach the heart: "If any man thinks himself to be religious, while he doesn't bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this man's religion is useless" (Jas 1:26).
Receiving Sinners
The party's complaint at the start of Luke 15 is the foil to one of the longest stretches of parable in the gospels. "Now all the publicans and sinners were drawing near to him to hear him. And both the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, This man receives sinners, and eats with them" (Luke 15:1-2). What follows — the lost sheep, the lost drachma — is offered as Jesus' answer: "What man of you⁺, having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he finds it?" (Luke 15:4); "I say to you⁺, that even so there will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, [more] than over ninety and nine righteous persons, who need no repentance" (Luke 15:7).
At Table With Jesus
A counter-strand runs through Luke. Pharisees host Jesus at meals: "one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he entered into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat" (Luke 7:36); "a Pharisee asks him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat" (Luke 11:37); "when he went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees on a Sabbath to eat bread, that they were watching him" (Luke 14:1). Each setting both opens hospitality and stages the reproof or controversy that follows.
Rejection of John and of Christ
The party is shown rejecting both John and Jesus. "The Pharisees and the lawyers rejected for themselves the counsel of God, not being baptized of him" (Luke 7:30) is the stated outcome for John's ministry. For Christ, John records the rhetorical question of the Pharisees' own party as it weighs his claim: "Has any of the rulers believed on him, or of the Pharisees?" (John 7:48). Mark and Luke record their plotting with the Herodians (Mark 3:6; Mark 12:13), and Luke closes the dinner-woes scene with the Pharisees and scribes "laying wait for him, to catch something out of his mouth" (Luke 11:54).
Yet the same gospels carry exceptions. "Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews" (John 3:1) — the one Pharisee shown becoming a disciple of Jesus within UPDV's scope. Judas, by a different and unrelated charge, is described as one who "cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and having the bag took away what was put in it" (John 12:6) — a reminder that the line between false and true profession in this gospel is not drawn by party label alone.
Hypocrisy and False Profession in Wider View
Outside the gospels the same vocabulary is applied, without the party name, to the broader pattern the Pharisees concretize. Paul to the Colossians warns against tradition apart from Christ (Col 2:8); the Pastorals warn against "Jewish fables, and commandments of men who turn away from the truth" (Tit 1:14); Peter places the converted on the far side of the "useless manner of life handed down from your⁺ fathers" (1 Pet 1:18); James gives the working definition of useless religion (Jas 1:26). The party itself stands in the gospels as the historical case to which these later sayings answer.