What Is Pharisee in the Bible?
Person
A group of Jews who were very careful to keep the Law of Moses and the traditions. Paul and Nicodemus were Pharisees.
A detail
- In the Gospels: Jesus argues with some Pharisees, above all when they care about the outside and forget the heart.
Where it appears in the Bible
Luke 18:10-11; Acts 23:6; John 3:1
What the Bible says
Luke 18:10-11
10Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. 11The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican.
Acts 23:6
And Paul knowing that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, cried out in the council: Men, brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of Pharisees: concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question.
John 3:1
And there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
Douay-Rheims Bible (Challoner revision), public domain.
Source: NAB note on Matthew 3:7; Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “Pharisees”