The Hasmonean dynasty of priest-kings ruled Judea with the Pharisees, Saducees and Essenes as the principal social movements.

The social standing and beliefs of the Pharisees changed over time, such that the role, significance, and meaning of the Pharisees evolved as political and social conditions in Judea changed.

The Pharisees were but one sect and did not have the overwhelming influence in 1st century Judea traditionally attributed to them.

In revenge for the support of certain Pharisees for Demetrius III of Syria's invasion of Judea, Diogenes advised Alexander to crucify 800 Pharisee scholars and murder their families before their eyes.

The first surviving historical mention of the Pharisees is from the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus ( 37 – 100 CE ), in a description of the " four schools of thought ," or " four sects ," into which the Jews were divided in the 1st century CE ; the other schools were the Essenes, who were generally apolitical and who may have emerged as a sect of dissident priests who rejected either the Seleucid-appointed or the Hasmonean high priests as illegitimate ; the Sadducees, who were the main antagonists of the Pharisees ; and the " fourth philosophy " possibly associated with the anti-Roman revolutionary groups such as the Sicarii and the Zealots.

At this time serious theological differences emerged between the Sadducees and Pharisees.

Only Christianity and Phariseeism survived the destruction of the Temple, and the two competed for a short time until the Pharisees emerged as the dominant form of Judaism.

During this period serious theological differences emerged between the Sadducees and Pharisees.

They view Christians as much as Pharisees as being competing movements within Judaism that decisively broke only after the Bar Kokhba's revolt, when the successors of the Pharisees claimed hegemony over all Judaism, and – at least from the Jewish perspective – Christianity emerged as a new religion.

The Pharisees had its origins in this new group of authorities.

Whereas Sadducees favored a limited interpretation of the Torah, Pharisees debated new applications of the law and devised ways for all Jews to incorporate purity practices ( hitherto limited to the Jerusalem Temple, see also Ministry of Jesus # Ritual cleanliness ) in their everyday lives.

In another passage it is narrated that the Boethusians hired false witnesses in order to lead the Pharisees astray in their calculations of the new moon.

At the time and place the author of Matthew was writing the Pharisees were staunch opponents of the new Christian movement, and the author of Matthew thus had motive to direct criticisms towards them.

Gundry's theory is that the author of Matthew wanted to remove the woes for later use against the Pharisees in Matthew 23, however he wanted to keep the same eightfold structure and thus needed to create four new sayings.

Jesus travels to Jerusalem, and the opposition intensifies: he is tested by Pharisees immediately he begins to move towards the city, and when he arrives he is soon in conflict with the Temple and other religious leaders.

The Sadducees, politically powerful religious leaders, rejected the afterlife, angels, and demons as well as the Pharisees oral law.

Rather than an accurate account of Jesus ' relationship to Pharisees and other Jewish leaders, this view holds that the Gospels instead reflect the competition and conflict between early Christians and Pharisees for leadership of the Jews, or reflects Christian attempts to distance themselves from Jews in order to present themselves in a more sympathetic ( and benign ) light to Romans and other Gentiles — thus making them a biased source concerning the conduct of the Pharisees.

This is the last of three parables about loss and redemption, following the parable of the Lost Sheep and the parable of the Lost Coin, that Jesus tells after the Pharisees and religious leaders accuse him of welcoming and eating with " sinners.

Her next concern was to open negotiations with the leaders of the Pharisees, whose places of concealment she knew.

Rather they argued that Jesus only illustrated the true Law that had always existed, but had been badly understood by the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders.

He gained the adherence of the aristocratic class in Jerusalem and the leaders of the Pharisees.

When Jesus told Lazarus ’ sister, Martha, that Lazarus would rise again, she replied, " I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day ". 11: 24 Also, one of the two main branches of the Jewish religious establishment, the Pharisees, believed in and taught the future resurrection of the body. Acts 23: 1-8

The content of " M " suggests that this community was stricter than the others in its attitude to keeping the Jewish law, holding that they must exceed the scribes and the Pharisees in " righteousness " ( adherence to Jewish law ); and of the three only " M " refers to a " church " ( ecclesia ), an organised group with rules for keeping order.

Around the 1st century CE there were several small Jewish sects: the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes, and Christians.

In his earliest work, Neusner had argued that the most credible evidence showed that the Second Commonwealth Pharisees were a sectarian group centered on " table fellowship " and ritual food purity practices, and less interested in wider Jewish values or social issues.

He refers to the Sadducees, Jewish High Priests of the time, Pharisees and Essenes, the Herodian Temple, Quirinius ' census and the Zealots, and to such figures as Pontius Pilate, Herod the Great, Agrippa I and Agrippa II, John the Baptist, James the brother of Jesus, and a centuries-long disputed reference to Jesus ( for more see Josephus on Jesus ).

Most commentators consider that Jesus ' statements refer to the specific group of Pharisees he was addressing, or possibly the Pharisaic movement as a whole, but not to the Jewish people as a whole, which would have included Jesus and all his followers.

The Jewish king Alexander Jannaeus crucified 800 rebels, said to be Pharisees, in the middle of Jerusalem.

Pharisees claimed prophetic or Mosaic authority for their interpretation of Jewish laws, while the Sadducees represented the authority of the priestly privileges and prerogatives established since the days of Solomon, when Zadok, their ancestor ( disputed ; see Sadducees ), officiated as High Priest.

Outside of Jewish history and writings, the Pharisees have been made notable by references in the New Testament to conflicts between themselves and John the Baptist and with Jesus.

The major difference, however, was the continued adherence of the Pharisees to the laws and traditions of the Jewish people in the face of assimilation.

As Josephus noted, the Pharisees were considered the most expert and accurate expositors of Jewish law.

The Pharisees were one of at least four major schools of thought within the Jewish religion around the 1st century.

From the point of view of the Pharisees, the Sadducees wished to change the Jewish understanding of the Torah.

In their day, the influence of the Pharisees over the lives of the common people remained strong and their rulings on Jewish law were deemed authoritative by many.

Fundamentally, the Pharisees continued a form of Judaism that extended beyond the Temple, applying Jewish law to mundane activities in order to sanctify the every-day world.

In general, the Pharisees emphasized a commitment to social justice, belief in the brotherhood of mankind, and a faith in the redemption of the Jewish nation and, ultimately, humanity.

Regardless of the importance they gave to the Temple, and despite their support of Bar Koseba ’ s revolt, the Pharisees ’ vision of Jewish law as a means by which ordinary people could engage with the sacred in their daily lives provided them with a position from which to respond to all four challenges in a way meaningful to the vast majority of Jews.

Thus, as the Pharisees argued that all Israel should act as priests, the Rabbis argued that all Israel should act as rabbis: " The rabbis furthermore want to transform the entire Jewish community into an academy where the whole Torah is studied and kept .... redemption depends on the " rabbinization " of all Israel, that is, upon the attainment of all Jewry of a full and complete embodiment of revelation or Torah, thus achieving a perfect replica of heaven.

Outside of Jewish history and writings, the Pharisees have been made notable by references in the New Testament to conflicts between themselves and John the Baptist and with Jesus, and because Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, both members of the sect, buried Jesus ' body at great personal risk.

The gospel has been interpreted as reflecting the struggles and conflicts between the evangelist's community and the other Jews, particularly with its sharp criticism of the scribes and Pharisees.

Although the New Testament presents the Pharisees as obsessed with avoiding impurity, Rabbinic texts argue that the Pharisees were concerned merely with offering means for removing impurities, so that a person could again participate in the community.

Members of the community gather and join in his song, and throw garbage at the Pharisees.

Perhaps the greatest divisions since the time of the division between the Sadducees and Pharisees two millennia ago are the divisions within the Ashkenazic community that have arisen in the past two centuries, ever since the Enlightenment and the Renaissance influenced Jews from northern and eastern Europe.

The Pharisees, who had suffered intense misery under Alexander, now became not only a tolerated section of the community, but actually the ruling class.

The Jewish Encyclopedia thus suggests that the antipathy of Elisha was not directed against all forms of Jewish worship existing at that time, but only against Pharisaism, despite the fact the sages who redacted the Jerusalem Talmud were Pharisees and may have simply focused on the betrayal against their own community.