Monday, 8/25/14
Jesus criticized the Pharisees who did everything to be as
seen as good. Let’s go back over the chain of events that made them that way.
The first link in that chain takes us all the way back to 970 B.C. when King
David lie dying.
David had
promised the throne to Solomon, but another son, Adonijah, was already acting
as king, and he had a small army backing up his claim. When the dying David
heard of this, he called in the priest Zadoc, ordering him to take Solomon out
to the spring of Gihon where he was to solemnly consecrate him as king.
Zadoc was certain that Adonijah would kill him, but out of
obedience to David, he poured the oil of chrism on the head of Solomon,
anointing him king. Amazingly, the people arose as one, shouting, “Long live
King Solomon,” and that set Adonijah running for his life.
The people rewarded the courage of Zadoc, by making him
their high priest. And from that time on it became their tradition that no one
but a direct descendent of Zadoc could be given the office of High Priest.
The nation held to that tradition for eight hundred years,
then in 152 B.C. the only descendent of Zadoc available for the high office was
useless and illiterate. However, fifteen years before that, Judas Maccabeus had
saved the temple from destruction, and Jonathan, the younger brother of Judas,
was a highly qualified priest.
Two thirds of the people ushered Joanathan into be
consecrated High Priest, but the other third of the people said keeping to
tradition was all that mattered. Half of that numbr, one sixth of the
population, migrated over to caves over the Dead Sea. They were the Essenes who
left us the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Another sixth of the people, conservative adherents to
tradition, stayed on as the Separatists, who in their language were called
Pharisees. They set themselves up as examples to the rest of how real pious
Jews should live. They were good people, and they did give good examples to
those who were slack in following their religion. Many of the Pharisees were wonderful men, but some seem to
have become hypocrites. In the Rogers and Hart musical “Carousal” the women
sing,
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