The Pharisees And Jesus

The Stone Lectures For 1915–16

Delivered at The Princeton Theological Seminary

BY

A. T. ROBERTSON

A.M., D.D., LL.D., D.LITT.

professor of interpretation of the new testament in the southern baptist theological seminary

author of a ‘grammar of the greek new testament in the light of historical research,’ ‘epochs in the life of jesus,’ etc.

New York

Charles Scribner’s Sons

1920

TO

The Faculty and Students of Princeton Theological Seminary

Preface

Portions of this volume were delivered as lectures on the L. P. Stone Foundation the last week in February 1916, before the Princeton Theological Seminary. The author recalls with pleasure the kindly interest of Faculty and Students during those days. The lectures have been revised and enlarged and adapted to the purpose of the present volume. It is a gratifying sign of the times that modern Jewish scholars exhibit a friendly spirit towards Jesus and Christianity. It is highly important that Jews and Christians understand each other. That is the best way to appreciate and to admire the good in each other. The treatment of Jesus by the Pharisees and of the Pharisees by Jesus is an inflammable subject for some minds, but it is one that has to be discussed and, indeed, has been discussed with great fidelity. Recent efforts to get a new conception of the Pharisees make it necessary to review the whole problem in the light of the new knowledge. If the story is a sad one, it must be remembered that the facts of history cannot be changed. We must learn the lesson of love and mutual forbearance from the strife of the past. The author does not pose as an absolutely impartial and indifferent student of the Tragedy of Jesus. He is a loyal and humble believer in Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah of promise, the Saviour from sin. And yet, and all the more, he claims that he is competent to weigh the evidence concerning the grave issues between the Pharisees and Jesus. The question is not one of mere academic interest, but vitally affects the historic origins of Christianity. Certainly the Pharisees form the immediate theological and historical background for the life and teaching of Jesus, and cannot be ignored by any one who wishes to understand the problems that confronted Christ in His effort to plant the true Kingdom of God in the hearts of men.

Fresh discussions continue to appear in spite, partly because, of the vast literature concerning both Jesus and the Pharisees. In The Expositor for June and July 1918, Canon Box has luminous articles on ‘Scribes and Sadducees in the New Testament.’ In The Expositor for January and February 1919, Professor Marmostein discusses ‘Jews and Judaism in the Earliest Christian Apologies.’ Jewish scholars often manifest genuine interest in Jesus. Abrahams (Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels, 1917, p. viii) accepts on the whole ‘the picture of Pharisaism drawn in Germany by Professor Schuerer and in England by Canon Charles.’ That is progress at any rate. ...