Modern Misconceptions about ancient Jewish denominations
Because most modern people formally belong to one sect, church or denomination, most Christians think that Yeshua must have belonged to one of the 4 sects mentioned by Josephus: either an Essene, a Sadducee, a Pharisee or a Zealot. I’ve read various academic books (even from otherwise knowledgeable scholars), who try to force Yeshua into being either an Essene, a Zealot or a Pharisee – and each of them, out of necessity, has had to ignore certain things that Yeshua said in order to achieve their conclusion. Each one of them firmly believes that he MUST have fit into one of these sects.
Common Judaism
However, there is a small group of scholars who see things differently. They believe that there was another section of the Jewish populace which was essentially an informal grouping, with no official or organised membership, and that is Common Judaism. It is more a classification, rather than an official group, and that is why Josephus didn’t mention it – it had no formal membership.
People who practised Common Judaism basically identified as Jews, but didn’t officially adhere to any particular sectarian belief-system. Because everyone today professes allegiance to one group’s teaching or another, it is difficult for Christians today to imagine that it is possible to take a little bit from here, a little from there, and form your own opinion.
But that is how it was for most Jews in those days (even today, there is no formal process for switching denominations, you just go to a different synagogue and pay membership). It was perfectly normal for a Jew in those days to listen to a very broad range of teachers from various sects, and then decide for themselves what they wanted to believe. Of course, there was a core set of beliefs and practices that were common to all Jews, and were held without question – that God has no form, following Torah, rest on the Sabbath, circumcision, etc etc.
Most Jews had some form of schooling, even in small villages. I suspect that Yeshua’s village schoolteacher may have been a Hillelite Pharisee, he seems to have been quite knowledgeable in that regard. However, I don’t think that he actually attended an academy to study under Hillel – he was his mother’s only son, his father was dead, and he would not have abandoned his widowed mother to go and study (the people mentioned as his brothers and sisters were likely his cousins, the children of Joseph’s brother Clophas – there is no separate word in ancient Aramaic for cousin, and one’s cousins were always referred to as one’s brothers and sisters).
As an adult, Yeshua became a follower of Yochanan the Immerser – Yochanan’s disciples were called Nazorayyans. Yochanan had previously been an Essene, so that is why Yeshua was familiar with Essene and Nazorayyan teaching.
In summary, Yeshua was not formally a member of any particular group or sect – he was not an Essene or a Pharisee. He practised non-denominational, Common Judaism.
The hallmarks of a Pharisee
Some people say, ‘But people called him a Rabbi!’ These people are unaware that ‘rabbi’ was not solely used of Pharisees, but was an honorific title used at the time of any teacher of any Jewish sect. It only became the exclusive title of Pharisaic teachers in the late 1st – early 2nd century.
Pharisees banned contemporary prophets outright
The clincher for proving that Yeshua was not a Pharisee, was the fact that he understood himself to have been a prophet (eg Mt 13:57, 10:41, also 21:11). However, the Pharisees banned prophets – I cannot emphasise that enough: THE PHARISEES BANNED PROPHETS. According to their own teaching, the Pharisees had taken the authoritative place of the prophets, and after Malachi – according to them – there would never be another prophet EVER again. According to Pharisaic teaching (even from the Hillelites), anyone who claimed to be a prophet was a false prophet.
In other words, if Yeshua was a Pharisee, he would have had to tell himself to shut up, and brand himself a false prophet!
Yeshua also believed that Yochanan the Immerser was a prophet (Mt 21:31b-32), which he could not have done if he had been a Pharisee.
I understand there is a fundamentalist group in Israel called the Netsarim, who believe Yeshua was a Pharisaic rabbi, but they have had to reject any notion that he was a prophet. They are not Talmidis, but a sub-sect of Orthodox Jews.
Yeshua questioned the Oral Law
The ‘Oral Law’ is the collected and codified teaching of the Pharisees. For Pharisees, the Oral Law has greater authority than the Torah – if the Torah says one thing, and the Oral Law says the opposite (which it often does), then Pharisees and modern rabbinic Jews have to follow the Oral Law.
If Yeshua was a Pharisee, he would have had to accept the full authority of the Oral Law (what eventually became the Talmud). It is very true that Yeshua’s views were closer to those of the moderate Hillelites than to the stricter Shammaites. However, there are numerous instances of where he questioned even the Hillelite teaching eg on divorce. The Hillelites allowed divorce for any reason, and it was very easy to get a divorce from them. But Yeshua was against this. Yeshua’s ruling was not to forbid divorce, but to protect the rights of a woman (in rabbinic law, a man can divorce a woman, but a woman cannot divorce a man; this is different to biblical law, which allows a woman to initiate divorce).
Even the Hillelites fasted at least once a week, and Yeshua disagreed with this frequent fasting (Mk 2:18-20). Yeshua branded the Oral Law, ‘the traditions of men’ (Mk 7:8). Even the Hillelites had rules about what constituted a valid oath, but Yeshua rejected this (Mt 23:16-22, 5:34-37).
In my humble opinion, Yeshua was not a Pharisaic rabbi – he may have learned basic Judaism as a kid from a village schoolteacher who was a Pharisee, but that was it. Like most Jews of his day, I believe that he did not formally belong to any group or sect. Like most of his fellow Jews, he took a little bit of this and that from each teacher he liked, and molded it into something he was comfortable with. He did not belong to any specific Jewish sect, but practised Common Judaism.
At the end of the day, Yeshua did not need to acquire formal knowledge or education from anywhere, in order to have been who he was – no one needs to prove that he acquired great academic learning and scholarship from anywhere – because ultimately, as a prophet of God, his teaching and message came directly from Yahveh.