Pharisaic State: Prosaic Interpretation

I'm British. Here in Britain we have a long tradition of law. A thousand years or more of laws being made, implemented, changed and amended.

As we sit here now you could say such laws have become overcomplicated and overbearing. What started out, a long time ago, as a simple set of laws to protect people from things like theft and murder has now evolved and grown into countless pages. Concerning everything from littering to how sugary drinks are sold.

As a Brit living in this overregulated world I'd like to strip some of it back. Get back to a world where we can govern ourselves using our conscience, and not be constantly enthral to these silly state technicalities.

Anyhow, this is essentially what Jesus was urging in the New Testament. Not that I'm comparing myself to Jesus. (Though obviously I want to. Don't we all.) My messiah complex aside, I am making an important point though. One that often gets lost on people.

In the modern world we're so used to the separation of church and state that people tend to miss how political religious movements of the past were. In the days before this separation religious and state law were one and the same. Judges, priests, rabbis; they all combined the role of both politician and religious figure. Religion was politics and politics was religion. (We can see living examples of this when we look at modern theocratic states in the Middle East). This is what everywhere was once like.

So, in the New Testament, we have Jesus - a Jewish guy - living within a wider Jewish culture that had its own vast body of law. A body of law that, like Britain's, had spawned and evolved over the previous thousand years or more. A complex, highly technical set of rules that was intimately intertwined with Jewish culture and history. Alas, Jesus thought it had become too technical, and that the people (their leaders in particular) had lost touch with the basic moral and emotive judgement needed to underpin law.

Yes, they followed the rules, but their hearts were wicked.

They were making all these judgements, and telling people how to live their lives, but they were "hypocrites".

It's all very modern when you think in less religious terms. Little different to how someone like myself (or yourself) might call a politician a hypocrite today. The politicians make all these rules, they claim they're making the world a better place in doing so, but in reality they enjoy the money and power a little too much.

This brings us to the Pharisees in the New Testament. Things make a lot more sense if you just think of the word pharisee as another word for politician or lawgiver. People often fall into this idea of thinking that the pharisees represent the Jews. However, they were just a politician class in a wider Jewish culture. So, once again, it's similar to me being a British person criticising the British state or political class. It's not a racial thing, nor two different peoples coming into conflict, but a conflict internal to a particular people.

Understanding things in this prosaic way also helps in understanding things more broadly. For instance, the Talmud is a collection of judgements and opinions - similar to the body of law and opinion that has accrued in Britain over the centuries. It's not a holy book. It's a body of interpretation and precedent. Likewise, the Old Testament is in essence a history book. It's the history of the Jewish people (and of mankind in general going back to Noah and whatnot). It concerns God, and gives an account of creation, but it's better to think of it as a history of a people wrestling with the idea of God, rather than the actual word of God. Again, just as Britain has a body of written history, that blends into myth if you go back far enough.

What makes someone Jewish in a religious sense is sincerely believing in the one true God. That's it. Not believing in the myths, or subscribing to every aspect of technical law. (This is my opinion, of course, many will disagree.) Just as my being British isn't dependant upon me having a literal belief in King Arthur, or agreeing with every legal ruling that's ever been given on this island.

The story of Henry VIII is my history. Yet I don't have to agree that lopping the heads off young women is a good or moral idea for that to be the case. So all these texts are history, law, opinion, myth, commentary. It's only the label religion that makes us think otherwise.

Very religious people tend to overvalue - and over literalise - such words on a page because of this HOLY label. Atheists and less religious people tend to dismiss or undervalue the texts for a similar reason. The truth is somewhere in between, and much easier to understand once we remind ourselves that the societies of earlier times were just as political as the societies of today.

Just look at Britain today, where we worship the state.