Were the Pharisees a Conversionist Sect? Table
Fellowship
as a Strategy of Conversion
©Jonathan D. Brumberg-Kraus, 2002
Very few would dispute that early Christianity in its various streams was fundamentally a conversionist movement. The leaders of early Christianity were noted for their own conversion experiences (i.e., Paul), and measured the success of their mission by the number and ethnic diversity and geographical range of converts.[1] However, though early Christian literature represents the Pharisees as perhaps their greatest religious rival - in the conflict stories and other anti-Pharisee polemic in the Gospels, in Paul's dramatic disavowal of his former life as a Pharisee - most have dismissed Matthew's claim, that Pharisees "traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte" (Mt 23:15) as polemical hyperbole. Yet if the Pharisees did not try to make proselytes, why were early Christians so threatened by them as rivals?
It is because the Pharisees in fact actively sought "converts" to Pharisaism, though their primary target group was not Gentiles, as Matthew's use of the term "proselyte" implies. The terms "proselyte" and "proselytism" usually refer to a conversion from one ethnic community to another. That is, proselytes to Judaism have "converted" from being Gentiles to being members of the Jewish ethnic group. Likewise in Pauline Christianity, one "converts" from being a Gentile or a Jew into a new kind of community in which "there is neither Jew nor Gentile." The Pharisees however seemed to have confined their active efforts to win new followers to ethnic Jews. What distinguishes the Pharisees from their early Jewish Christian rivals was not only their "target group," but also the means by which they won followers. While early Christians preached publicly to provoke many internal psychological conversion experiences among their audiences, the Pharisees sought to win potential followers' commitment to their distinctive way of observing Jewish law - to performing distinctively "Pharisaic" actions and behaviors.
Table fellowship was the principle practice used by the Pharisees to win adherents to their religious movement in the first century C.E. The Pharisees' gathering together to eat properly tithed food in a state of ritual purity, and the procedures for acquiring food and maintaining households or other spaces fit for such gatherings, were strategies to influence non-Pharisees to conform to a Pharisaic way of life. According to Gerd Theissen, these practices were a programmatic "intensification of Jewish norms," which distinguished the Pharisees from other Jewish renewal movements in first century Palestine.[2] The Pharisees' characteristic behavior of eating tithed, ordinary food in a state of ritual purity had special, symbolic importance in the competition for followers among various Jewish renewal movements of the first century.[3] According to Marcus Borg's study, that is precisely how the earliest Christian traditions about Jesus and his followers understood the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a "holiness movement" actively competing against the "mercy movement" of Jesus.[4] Christian polemic against Pharisaic table fellowship, particularly in Luke's Gospel, suggested that the early Christian evangelists feared Pharisaic table fellowship practice as an attractive alternative to a Christian way of life. Thus they did whatever ever they could to ridicule or condemn it.[5] However, simply because early Christian traditions perceived the Pharisees as rivals for adherents, does not necessarily mean the Pharisees intentionally missionized others, or promoted the radical re-orientation of beliefs, social commitments, and practices conventionally understood by the term "conversion."
There are indications in the sources on the Pharisees that begin to address this point. Contemporaries of the first century Pharisees described them as a group that amassed a remarkable popular following among the Jews of Roman Palestine. Josephus, who himself claimed to be a follower of the way of the Pharisees, stressed how the Pharisees had "the support of the [Jewish] masses," e.g., Ant. 13:298.[6] While the popularity of the Pharisees does not prove conclusively that they conducted any sort of missionary campaign (Mt 23:15 is the only explicit contemporary reference to such a mission), one could reasonably hypothesize that their popularity was the result of active missionizing. Josephus does not provide us with a description of such efforts, so we must turn to the New Testament and rabbinic literature for more precise descriptions of the ways the Pharisees influenced the Jewish masses to follow their way. How the Pharisees got so popular is precisely the question an analysis of their "strategy of conversion" tries to answer.
Whether or not one calls this process a "strategy of conversion" depends ultimately on how "conversion" is defined. Two considerations are particularly pertinent. First, must conversion be from one ethnic group to another? Or could "conversion" refer to a shift from one religious movement to another within the same ethnic group? Secondly, is "conversion" viewed primarily as an internal, intensely personal psychological experience, or as a radical re-orientation of one's external patterns of behavior and social commitments?
The sources in the New Testament and Tannaitic literature stress the behavioral aspects of becoming a Pharisee. They indicate that the Pharisees sought to bring other Jews to conform to their distinctive practices concerning the preparation and conduct of table fellowship. Moreover, conformity to these distinctive practices were the prerequisites for different levels of membership in Pharisaic "associations" (havurot). Non-members were by definition Jews whose tithing and purity practices were unreliable (amme ha-aretz [lit. "the people of the land"]); Jews who tithed their food reliably made up the first tier of members (the ne'emanim [lit. "reliable" or "faithful ones"]; Jews who both tithed reliably and observed certain purity rules were full-fledged members (haverim [lit., "members," "fellows"]).[7] These traditions of course tell us little or nothing about the psychological state of mind, the internal conversion experience of the Jew who "takes upon himself" to become a ne'eman or a haver - a Pharisee. But they can begin to tell us how the whole complex of Pharisaic table fellowship practices managed to get non-Pharisee Jews to behave like Pharisees, and to reinforce their identity as and commitments to a distinct social religious group within first century Judaism. This is the point I shall emphasize in my analysis of selected early rabbinic texts from the Mishnah on table fellowship.
Finally, the firsthand testimony we have of people who claimed to have been Pharisees, or to have followed the way of the Pharisees, e.g., Paul and Josephus, respectively, represent "Pharisaism" as a religious-philosophical movement that one can convert from or to. Paul seems to have converted from being a "Pharisee as to the law" (Phil. 3:5).[8] This has led to speculation that perhaps there was some continuity between Paul's post-conversion Christian mission to the Gentiles, and his earlier zealous Jewish (Pharisaic?) mission against early converts to Christianity.[9] And if Paul himself had not been a proselytizing Pharisee before his conversion, at least his post-conversion opponents in Galatians (e.g., in Gal 2:12) could be "plausibly identified as Jewish missionaries who are of the Pharisaic persuasion.[10] Josephus claims that he chose to "govern his life according to the school of thought [hairesis] of the Pharisees, which has points of resemblance with that which the Greeks call the Stoic," after he has tried out four ways of life: the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and being a disciple of the wilderness ascetic, Bannus (Life 12). Regardless of whether Josephus' claim is factual or a conventional literary invention, or whether his choice of the Pharisees was not a true and complete "conversion experience," one thing is clear.[11] Josephus characterizes the Pharisees as one among several haireseon to which one could convert, even if he himself did not take that step.[12] Moreover, both Paul and Josephus' description of themselves as Pharisees stress that the designation applies to their outward behavior: Paul says he was "as to the law a Pharisee" (Phil. 3:5); and Josephus says he chose to "govern himself [politeusthai, lit., to conduct himself in public] according to the school of thought of the Pharisees" (Life 12).[13] Therefore, if one takes seriously the cumulative testimony of Josephus, Paul, the Synoptic Gospels and their prior Christian traditions, one would have to agree that the Pharisees' near contemporaries perceived them as a popular religious-philosophical movement in 1st century Judaism; whose "mission" seemed to consist of getting other Jews to participate in their distinctive practices of table fellowship, tithing, and ritual purity; and which was a community to (or from) which people could convert. And, to judge by the claims for its popularity among the Jewish people, and by the pains its Christian opponents took to refute it - the Pharisaic movement seemed to have achieved some measure of success in its mission.
Despite perceptions by both Jewish and Christian contemporaries that the Pharisees were a proselytizing group, most historians who address the question of Jewish missionary activity in the Second Temple period tend to dismiss them.[14] Four main reasons account for their doubts. First, scholars suppose that both the Gospels and Josephus reflect their own Tendenzen rather than the real "historical Pharisees." Thus, Matthew projects bad leadership qualities on the Pharisees in order to emphasize in contrast the leadership qualities that make a good Christian scribe.[15] Or Luke paints the Pharisees as both sympathetic and opposed to the first followers of the Way in order to emphasize on the one hand, the continuity of Christianity with Judaism, and on the other, the superiority of the Christian hairesis to the Pharisaism. Josephus depicts the Pharisees as a popular movement for his own political reasons: to convince his Roman patrons to recognize the Pharisees as the new leaders of Jewish Palestine.[16] But even if these writers had specific reasons for portraying the Pharisees as proselytizers or populists, their tendentious expositions may well be based on credible pictures. It is remarkable that texts with such divergent interests all agree that the first century Pharisees were a popular and influential rival for adherents.
Secondly, an emerging body of scholarship, exemplified particularly by Scott McKnight's book, A Light Among the Gentiles, suggests that the evidence for an active Jewish mission in the these centuries is at best inconclusive. Earlier scholarly assumptions about the extent of Jewish proselytizing activity in the first few centuries C.E. have been greatly exaggerated.[17] Though several Jewish sources, including rabbinic texts, indicate that Judaism was open to converts, "passive proselytism," rather than an active preaching mission, characterized the stance of many Jewish groups toward Gentiles. In other words, while Jewish groups had the mechanisms for making Gentiles into Jews, e.g., the early rabbinic traditions concerning the ger, the non-Jewish proselyte, nothing in those rules suggested they were part of an active mission to win massive numbers of converts.[18]
Third, many critics argue that we really do not have enough good data on the "historical Pharisees" to say much of anything about them, let alone pronounce judgement as to their proselytizing activities. Specifically, attempts to use rabbinic sources to corroborate the testimony of the Gospels, Josephus, and Paul are hampered by the currently fashionable scepticism about the historical reliability of talmudic and midrashic material.[19] Yet, according to Neusner's influential study, From Politics to Piety: The Emergence of Pharisaic Judaism,
the Gospels' picture conforms to the rabbinical traditions about the Pharisees, which center upon the laws of tithing and ritual purity, defining what and with whom one way eat, that is, table fellowship.[20]
And many scholars now follow Jacob Neusner's thesis that pre-70 rabbinic traditions of the Pharisees corroborates the Gospels' depiction.[21]
Those who accept this general picture quibble over the particular evidence upon which it is based. Thus, scholars tend to be quite reluctant to identify the Tannaitic literature's haverim and havurot with the Gospels' Pharisees.[22] While it seems clear that not all mentions of haverim and havurot in the Mishnah and Tosefta refer to groups that tithed meticulously and observed rituals of purity like Pharisees, some, particularly those preserved in M. and T.Demai, do.[23] It is therefore likely that some Pharisees were haverim or ne'emanim, but not all haverim and ne'emanim were Pharisees.[24] The distinguishing characteristics of the haverim and ne'emanim were their tithing, purity rituals, and their rules for table fellowship. The synoptic gospels depict these characteristics, too, as distinguishing the Pharisees from their own Christian groups.
Finally, the notion of "proselytizing Pharisees" contradicts particular theological constructions that appear in both Christian and Jewish writings. According to the synoptic gospels as well as some of their modern theological heirs, the Pharisees were proponents of the Law, and so a movement within Judaism intended to limit the access of divine salvation. Borg, for example, makes a good case that the gospels used the Pharisees' restrictive qualifications for table fellowship in particular as the foil to Jesus' open invitation to the tax collectors, sinners, women, and other people on the margins of Pharisaic Judaism to enter into the Kingdom.[25] A few quotations from the gospels demonstrate the evangelists' polemical characterizations:
And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he [Jesus] was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?'"(Mk 2:16 and par. Mt 9:11; Lk 5:30)
Now when the Pharisee who had invited him [Jesus] saw it [a woman anointing Jesus], he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner." (Lk 7:39)
Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in. (Mt 23:13-14 and par. Lk 11:52)[26]
He [Jesus] said also to the man who invited him ["a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees" (Lk 14:1, RSV)], "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you." (Lk 14:12-14)
Some contemporary studies, even those quite sensitive to theological anti-Judaism in the early Christian critique of the Pharisees, argue that early Christian openness to "strangers" (ultimately including Gentiles) was a marked moral improvement over the "tendencies toward exclusivism" which "Palestinian Judaism prior to 70 C.E. suffered."[27] Gerd Theissen argues that the Pharisees' laws restricting contact with gentiles and their property, and separatist table fellowship, are emblematic of more general ethnocentric tendencies in first century Judaism, although he observes they were not as extreme as the militant or isolationist position of resistance fighters and Essenes vis à vis gentiles.[28] This ethnocentrism was not some sort of perverse desire to restrict divine salvation to Jews alone. Rather, as Theissen points out, "Jewish xenophobia" was a natural response to Roman colonial occupation and the threat of assimilation in the dominant Hellenistic culture.[29] Still, this picture of a pervasive ethnocentrism of Jewish sects in the Second Temple period accentuates the "unique" inclusiveness of the one Jewish sect that actively sought to bring salvation to the gentiles: early Jewish Christianity.
Hence, other critics, especially Christians, cannot imagine a proselytizing campaign on the part of either Christians or Pharisees that targets only ethnic Jews. Or, ethnocentric restrictions of the gospel to Jews, Gentiles only grudgingly, in early Christian literature (e.g., Matt. 10:5b-6; 15:24) can only belong to the time period of Jesus.[30] However, both interpretations are patently motivated by theological concerns. The first vindicates the Christian interpretation of the Old Testament that YHWH never intended to reveal Himself only to one ethnic group, the Jews. The second interpretation is prompted by the theological concern for recovering the authentic, authoritative words and practices of the "historical Jesus." According to the methodological approach known as the "criterion of dissimilarity," Jesus traditions that restrict the earliest mission to Jews (e.g., Matt. 10:6; 15:24) must be authentic, since they are diametrically opposed to the early church's pre-occupation with Gentile evangelization. The criterion of dissimilarity is based on the theological premise that Jesus' religious message was absolutely unique. The application of this principle to Matt. 10:6; 15:24 is not only based on a logical contradiction,[31] but also reinforces the Christian theological construction that Jews are exclusive and ethnocentric.[32]
Conversely, some Jewish scholars tend to dismiss early Christian accounts of Jewish proselytizing on the a priori assumption that is somehow un-Jewish, or at least un-"ethical" to send missionaries out to make mass conversions.[33] Such "mass propaganda," according to W.G. Braude, was a "Christian invention."[34] Many Jewish historians, particularly those of the earlier generation of scholars, thereby retroject into their first century reconstructions later Jewish reactions to Christian evangelizing. Their view that Jews did not proselytize are prpbabley rooted in two aspects of modern Jewish experience. The first is resentment to being the object of Christian missionary propaganda. The second is the relic of earlier modern Jewish fears of appearing too aggressive. My own experience in interfaith dialogue has shown me that many Jews have the gut feeling that "Jews don't proselytize." Hence, many Jews, liberal as well as Orthodox, are uncomfortable with the Reform movement's contemporary call to seek to convert "unaffiliated Gentiles," the ba'al teshuvah movement (the dramatic "conversion" of secularized Jews to religious orthodoxy), and evangelical "Jews for Jesus": "It's not Jewish for Jews to evangelize!"
Ultimately, such prejudices prevent scholars from seriously considering the possibility that Pharisees proselytized. Since various ancient sources with different perspectives on the Pharisees agree that the group engaged in purity rituals, tithing, and table fellowship, and that they had a popular following, the question of their mission needs reconsideration.
In my view, the relationship between these practices and a conversionist agenda becomes clear when they are contextualized in terms of the early church's concerns. As I asked before, what did the composers of the Gospels have to fear from the Pharisees? That a programmatic policy of tithing, purity rituals, and table fellowship would steal away potential converts? How could these early Christians possibly have viewed the observance of tithing and purity rules, and restrictive table fellowship, as competition to their mission? The answer is that the particular behaviors of tithing, observance of purity laws, and table fellowship themselves functioned as means of proselytizing.
The majority of scholars have not yet turned their attention to the patterns of behavior that might have been used to "proselytize" other Jews to join Pharisees. This failure has in part been caused by limited notions of what constitutes proselytizing mechanisms. For example, relying on definitions of conversion that stress its psychological over social behavioral dimensions, McKnight dismisses "marriage, political and economic advantage," as "'methods'" of proselytizing "not worthy of consideration in a study on missionary activity."[35] However, as I argue below, marriage and economic advantage play a crucial part in the Pharisees' strategy for winning converts to their distinctive tithing, purity, and table fellowship practices.
The greater problem has been the tendency of modern historians to apply Protestant conceptions of conversion to Hellenistic Judaism. Most discussions of proselytism in Hellenistic Judaism depend on a definition of conversion biased by Christian religious experiences. Specifically, many contemporary sociological analyses of early Christian and Jewish groups use Bryan Wilson's model of conversionist sects from his typology of sectarian movements.[36] For Wilson, "conversion" in a conversionist sect is a radical, individual, personal psychological transformation. Wilson admits that this ideal type is drawn from modern Protestant Christianity, and would be inappropriate for other historical contexts.
Against Wilson's understanding of conversion, Wayne Meeks argues in a study of Pauline Christianity that conversion is not simply an internal emotional transformation of an individual, but the "radical re-socialization" of an individual from one group to another.[37] The convert thus internalizes the new social identity of the group being entered. Meeks claims that this construct makes the model of a conversionist group with sectarian tendencies applicable to the Greco-Roman intellectual cultural milieu in general, and to Pauline Christianity in particular.[38] Alan Segal, also in a study of Paul, arrives at a similar conclusion. He prefers a definition of conversion that stresses the believer's social commitment to be part of a new group and not just a radical, rapid, internal, psychological conversion experience. For Segal:
Commitment in the ancient world was formed in the same way it is formed in the modern world. There was an instrumental aspect, where a person develops a willingness to carry out requirements of the group. These instrumentalities can start out as symbolic or ritual actions in which commitment is cemented and developed, but end in moral or evaluative dimensions where a person continues to uphold the beliefs of the group outside the ritual context. Behind this is, in [Rosabeth] Kanter's words, a cost-benefit ratio in which the individual invests his or her psychological energy into the group. This seems to be the strategy of rabbinic conversion where the ritual qualifications yield a highly cohesive group and a strong commitment to continue acceptable moral behavior. The special laws and other rituals, rather than many conversion experiences, would have been the basic tool for enforcing the commitment.[39]
These definitions of conversion suggest that belonging to a group is measurable by one's commitment to practice the characteristic behaviors that distinguish it from other groups. In regard to the Pharisees, someone who previously did not tithe, separate terumah, and observe certain purity rules, as a result of contact with Pharisees, has undergone "radical re-socialization"; such an individual has been "converted" to be a Pharisee. The Pharisaic observances and rules governing the admission of participants to table fellowship with them are the "basic tool" for re-socializing non-Pharisees to their new, distinctive social identity.[40] Hence, people who chose to follow Pharisaic rules, to "be as to the law a Pharisee," could plausibly be viewed as converts to Pharisaism.
Separatist and Non-Separatist Tendencies
The main objection to a Pharisaic "mission"--their alleged "exclusivism"--has been inappropriately measured against the norms of Christian "inclusivism," whose underlying assumptions are rarely examined. Those Jewish havurot who prescribed that servants, Samaritans, or even amme ha-aretz (under certain conditions[41]) be invited into table fellowship groups that tithed and set aside priestly portions from their food,[42] are not considered inclusive because they explicitly excluded Gentiles.[43] In contrast, early Christian "inclusivism" is exemplified above all by the extension of its originally Jewish mission to Gentiles. This emphasis, combined with the overly psychologized definition of the conversion process discussed above, plays down the significance of the convert's external, social transfromation.[44] Since this combination of psychological transformation and the elimination of ethnic boundaries is the predominant message of the Gospels and Paul together, it is not surprising that the Christian paradigm of conversion shapes the discussion of the Hellenistic Jewish missionary activity: the "bad" exclusive Pharisees, who wanted only their own kind to swell their ranks, are contrasted with the "good" inclusive Christians, who regarded ethnic distinctions irrelevant but who also made the Gentiles the centerpiece of their mission . This exaggerated polarization of the Pharisees' exclusivism and the Christians' inclusivism obscures the phenomenon that exclusivist and inclusivist tendencies often co-exist in the same group, particularly in conversionist sects.[45] Thus, despite the separatism implied by their so-called "exclusivist" tithing, purity, and table fellowship practices, and even by their name itself ("Pharisee" comes from the Hebrew word "perushi" "one who is set apart"[46]), the Pharisees demonstrated markedly non-separatist tendencies. The table fellowship rules distinguished between members and non-members of the Pharisees' "club," but did not discourage non-members from joining the club. On the contrary, the rules were designed to entice non-members to join, as I shall show.
I am not alone to call attention to the non-separatist tendencies of the first century Pharisees. E.P. Sanders stresses that the Pharisees' tithing and purity rules did not isolate them from extensive contact with non-Pharisees.[47] Similarly, Gerd Theissen contrasts the characteristic engagement of the Pharisees with other Jews, to the isolationism of the Essenes, or to the radical anti-collaborationist tendencies of the Zealots, in their competition over determining who represented the most authentic and legitimate form of first century Palestinian Judaism.[48] Finally, Anthony Saldarini characterizes the Pharisees as a "reformist sect," to stress that they "engage[d] in political and social activities" with the broader society, as opposed to "introversionist sects" like the Essenes, who retreated from it.[49] Saldarini further distinguishes the reformists from "conversionist sects" like the early Christians. The conversionist sect seeks a change in the person, not the world, "seeks emotional transformation now, with salvation presumed to follow in the future after evil has been endured [emphasis mine]."[50] Conversionist sects form a new community because they are alienated from society.[51] But this definition of conversionist sects is ultimately unhelpful; it overlooks the ambiguous, and not completely alienated relationship conversionist sects have toward society at large - that is, their pool of potential converts! A revised understanding of the conversionist type may well be applicable to the Pharisees.[52]
Shaye Cohen articulates the basic problem underlying the applicability of various sectarian models to the Pharisees:
The crucial historical question is the relationship of the Pharisees to general Jewish society.
On the one hand, as these scholars have shown, the Pharisees did
not promote a radically "exclusivist ideology" like other sects.
But on the other hand, their name Pharisees ("separatists") and their
emphasis on the laws of purity and table fellowship...imply that the Pharisees were a distinctive group that abstained from normal social intercourse with other Jews.[53]
Cohen himself mentions the evidence for "the rabbinic association of haberim (if indeed this is a relic of Pharisaic times) [and] their relatively small numbers (six thousand in the days of Herod)" as other examples of the Pharisees' sectarian tendencies; he concludes that
[p]erhaps, then, they were pietists who, in order to attain a higher level of purity and religiosity, separated themselves to some extent from their co-religionists, but who saw themselves, and were seen by others, not as exclusive bearers of the truth but as virtuosi and elites.[54]
Why did the Pharisees demonstrate both non-exclusivist and separatist tendencies? Wayne Meeks, advancing Wilson's discussion of sectarian movements, suggests that a tension between separatist and missionary tendencies is an integral feature of conversionist sects.[55] This is especially relevant to an evaluation of Pharisaic behavior. Conversionist sects, as all sectarian movements in Wilson's theory, define themselves as a separate community over against the broader society and the religious establishment. On the other hand, as groups seeking the conversion--the "radical re-socialization" of non-members into their beliefs and practices--they cannot afford to isolate themselves too much from the broader society.[56] Missionaries who isolated themselves too much from their potential converts "would need to go out of the world," to find them. But such activity would deny the group the very missionary vocation that is also a part of its group identity. Pauline Christians could hardly have preached the Gospel "to the ends of the earth" had they isolated themselves in the Judaean desert like the Qumran Essenes. The Pharisees' apparently conflicting tendencies of separatism and popular appeal could likewise reflect the inherent tension of a conversionist sect both trying to win adherents and to maintain its distinctive boundaries and social identity.[57]
Conversionist tendencies in Rabbinic Traditions of the Pharisees
Our discussion to this point has been based primarily on an analysis of early Christian texts and Josephus concerning the Pharisees' conflicting separatist tendencies and populist results. The picture is underscored by the rabbinic texts on the table fellowship havurot of tithers and terumah-separaters. These documents also permit us to interpret these practices as the symbolic actions of a conversionist sect.
When the behavior-oriented model of conversionist sects is applied to rabbinic evidence for the Pharisees, a striking, almost paradoxical feature of Pharisaic behavior becomes clear. The very behaviors of tithing, purity laws, and table fellowship that separated a Pharisee from other Jews were the same behaviors that engaged other Jews in these behaviors. Tithing and the observance of purity rules not only "cemented in-group commitment in the ritual context" of table fellowship, that is, promoted the group's separatist consciousness. Members of the in-group also "upheld them outside the ritual context" in ways that necessarily engaged non-Pharisees to assume the same behaviors.[58] In other words, they were a means of "outreach."
From this perspective, excessive skepticism regarding the identification of the Gospels' "Pharisees" and rabbinic literature's haverim and ne'emanim is irrelevant. I focus on the patterns of behavior they have in common. Hence, in traditions of the Pharisees about haverim and ne'emanim, we have evidence of some aspects of the Pharisees' behavior that could have been reasonably construed by their near contemporaries Matthew, Luke, and Josephus as proselytizing.
Rabbinic evidence in the Mishnah especially shows that members of Pharisaic havurot maintained their distinctiveness from non-members by means of their tithing, purity, and table fellowship rules, as well as used these same rules to engage non-members actively in Pharisee-like behaviors.[59] These distinctive Pharisaic practices simultaneously perform two functions characteristic of conversionist sects.[60] First, they define the qualifications for two group "rituals of inclusion": Birkat ha-Zimmun (lit., "the blessing of invitation") and induction into the group as a haver or ne'eman.[61] Birkat Ha-Zimmun was a verbal invitation (in a call and response form) to those who had participated in a Pharisee meal of tithed food, to be included among the other participants in thanking God for the opportunity to share God's table. Initiation to the havurah consisted of sequence of induction ceremonies in which a member first took on the obligation before the group to tithe like a Pharisee (to be a ne'eman), and then took on the additional obligation to observe purity rules (to be a haver).[62] Second, specific Pharisaic practices are the group's forms of regulated interaction with the broader society. Pharisaic practices thus separate the group enough from the broader Jewish society so that there is something distinctive into which to convert. And, they are means to bring others: wives, amme ha-aretz, business associates, relatives, etc. to join them in their way of life.
These forms of interaction correspond to two of W. Meeks' five typical traits which conversionist sectarian movements have to demarcate their members' distinctive identities, their "group boundaries,": "membership sanctions," i.e., processes for including new members and "excluding non-conformists;" and "reports of specific kinds of interaction with the macrosociety."[63] Just as Meeks adapted the theoretical sociological typifications of sectarian movements to the particular characteristics of the Pauline Christians, so his categories can be adapted to the particular characteristics of the Pharisees. In particular, this discussion expands what Meeks calls "membership sanctions" to cover the processes of inclusion that our sources suggest the Pharisees had.
Membership rules: rituals of inclusion and exclusion
The Mishnah reports traditions of the Pharisees that prescribe at least two distinctive ritual contexts in which observance of tithing, purity, and table fellowship rules reinforce the separate group identity of participants. First, Saul Lieberman has argued that the Pharisaic havurah of the Mishnah and Tosefta had a formal initiation process analogous to that described in the community rules found at Qumran. The terms haver and ne'eman, as well as the descriptions in the rabbinic texts for "taking upon oneself to be a haver or ne'eman " (e.g., m.Demai 2:2-3) would then refer to stages in this process. First, a novice takes on the tithing obligations of a ne'eman; he then can "graduate" after a certain allotted time period to the status of a haver, by taking on additional requirements to observe purity rules.[64] These obligations are defined, in the language of the Mishnah at least, in terms of contact with non-members. For example, one who takes on the obligations to be a ne'eman, will not be a guest in the home of an am ha-aretz (m.Dem 2:2); and a haver sells neither wet nor dry produce to an am ha-aretz, does not buy wet produce from an am ha-aretz, is not a guest in an am ha-aretz 's home, and does not in his home host an am ha-aretz wearing his own clothes (m.Dem 2:3). If as Lieberman argues, the ne'eman and haver represent ranks in membership status, then the more rules one observes that restrict contact with non-members--e.g., purity rules in addition to tithing rules--the higher one's status in the group. Hence, the degrees of qualifications for induction to the Pharisaic havurah are separatist rules that cement one's identity as a member of the elite in-group.
The other Mishnaic notice of a ritual that specified one's commitment to tithing and separating terumah as a prerequisite for participation in it Birkat ha-Zimmun. Since "the Blessing of Invitation" is recited at the end of a shared meal, participation in it--like participation in the meal itself--required conformity to Pharisaic tithing regulations. Indeed, Joseph Heinemann has argued that the recitation of Birkat ha-Zimmun was the distinctive practice of the Havurot who ate tithed food in a state of ritual purity.[65] The language of the Mishnah makes Birkat ha-Zimmun an explicit ritual of inclusion. One member of the group literally "invites" the other members to join him in praising God for providing the meal. Thus, according to the M. Ber. 7:1, when three or more people (even a table server or a Samaritan) have eaten together
demai-produce, or First Tithe [ma'aser rishon] from which the Heave-offering [terumato] had been taken, or Second Tithe [ms'aser sheni] or dedicated produce [hekdesh] that had been redeemed,
one of them is required to "invite [le-zamen]" the others to recite Birkat ha-Zimmun. The blessing is also a ritual of exclusion, since the Mishnah explicitly excludes non-Jews, Jewish women, slaves, or minors from participation in it.[66]
Birkat ha-Zimmun further sacralizes the group identity of the table fellows by mentioning God as if present "Himself" as host of the meal.[67] Moreover, according to the same mishnah, m.Berakh 7:3, the greater the number of people who participated in the common meal, the more names of God they are invited to mention by their table-fellow.[68] The logic of increasing the number of God's attributes proportionally to the greater number of participants suggests that the more people at Pharisaic table fellowship, the "more" of God (the God of Israel who is the universal God of the heavens, too) is made manifest in the world.[69] This mythic correlation of large numbers of table fellows as the more extensive manifestation of God's presence in the world would suit a group with conversionist aspirations.[70]
Both Birkat ha-Zimmun and the rituals for inducting haverim and ne'emanim into table fellowship clubs employed tithing, purity, and table fellowship rules to distinguish and separate members from the amme ha-aretz and to cement their in-group identity. Moreover, Birkat ha-Zimmun explicitly sanctioned this special group status with divine authority by correlating God's presence with three or more tithers and terumah-separators assembled for a common meal.
Regulation of interaction with the broader society
The Pharisees regulated their interaction with non-Pharisees not only so as to provide themselves a distinctive identity grounded in concretely different behaviors, but also actively to engage others in adherence to their distinctive practices. The very nature of the Mishnah's tithing and purity rules for haverim and ne'emanim had to be applied in everyday economic and social interactions with non-Pharisees. Hence the distinctive behaviors that characterized Pharisees were reified not only for the members of the in-group, but also for and by the non-Pharisees with whom they did business, were married, or were otherwise related. Pharisees would have to buy and sell produce to non-Pharisees in order to have the occasion o be scrupulous about tithed produce and to discriminate between ne'emanim, haverim, and amme ha-aretz, according to the Mishnah (e.g., M.Dem.2:2-3).[71] McKnight does include the promise of economic advantage among his enumeration of "methods of proselytizing," though he plays down its importance.
However, the ne'eman or haver's observance of tithing and purity rules both differentiates himself from his non-Pharisaic associates, and implicitly invites non-Pharisees into sharing the categories that make a Pharisee a Pharisee. The Pharisee has to behave in the manner of the in-group even when outside its confines, such as when buying or selling food in an unfamiliar town or dividing one's inheritance with non-Pharisee relatives For example, when someone concerned about buying tithed produce enters a town where he knows no one, he is supposed to announce:
'Who here is a ne'eman? Who here tithes?' If someone says to him, 'I am,' he is not a ne'eman. If he said, 'Such and such a person is a ne'eman,' that one is a ne'eman. (M.Dem. 4:6)
This mishnaic tradition suggests that Pharisees travelling from town to town "invited" local residents to identify themselves as members of their group, and used their answers to distinguish between those faithful to Pharisaic tithing practices (ne'emanim), and those not. Furthermore, in the perspective of this mishnah, a Pharisaic ne'eman was not simply someone who himself "preached" that he was a Pharisee, but someone who had a reputation among others, Pharisees and non-Pharisees alike, of being a Pharisee.[72] Or in the case of dividing one's inheritance with non-Pharisaic relatives, the Mishnah requires the Pharisee make the division in a way that not only reinforces his distinctive identity as a haver, but also requires his am ha-aretz brother to acknowledge his criteria for the division. M.Dem. 6:9 reads:
a haver and an am ha-aretz, who inherited from their father who was an am ha-aretz could say to him, 'You take the wheat that's in such and such a place, and I'll take the wheat that's in such and such a place; you take the wine in such and such a place, I, the wine in such and such a place;' but he should not say, 'You take the wheat, and I the barley; you take the wet produce, and I the dry produce.'
Note that the haver is not supposed to say, 'You take the wet, I'll take the dry produce," but rather 'you take the wine here, and I'll take the wine there,' even though that would mean inheriting property more susceptible to impurity. This procedure would cause the haver substantial effort and aggravation and perhaps even financial loss.
The Mishnah refers to other occasions of ordinary interaction between Pharisees and non-Pharisees that not only reinforce the Pharisee's distinctive identity, but also engaged non-Pharisees into accepting Pharisaic categories. For example, Pharisees might use the promise of closer business relations to persuade non-Pharisees to tithe like a Pharisee. Thus, according to the Mishnah, one could accept an invitation to eat a Sabbath meal even from a potential client whose tithing was suspect(m.Dem.4:2):[73]
If one person requires his associate by a vow to eat at his home, but the latter does not trust him regarding tithes, he eats with him on the first Sabbath, even though he does not trust him regarding tithes, as long as the former said to him, 'These are tithed.' On the second Sabbath, even if the former vowed to derive no benefit from him, he should not eat until he has tithed
Or, when the wife of a non-Pharisee (eshet am ha-aretz) entered a haver's house, either to prepare food (m.Tohar.7:4), or to take care of the haver's children and livestock (m.Tohar.8:5), both the haver and his wife had to be aware that the non-Pharisaic status of the wife of the am ha-aretz could affect the purity of their home. It even appears that the wife of a haver (the eshet haver) was responsible for observing whether the wife of the am ha-aretz touched anything in their home so as to make it unclean, if she let non-Pharisee women use her household utensils in her own home.[74] Thus, even though it is not clear that women shared the level of Pharisaic group identity ritualized in table fellowship meals, wives of haverim reinforced their husbands' in-group identities; they probably also internalized some of that identity themselves. These women participated in the same kind of practices, that is, made the same kind of distinctions between Pharisee and non-Pharisee (haver and am ha-aretz), between clean and unclean (tahor and tame'), that gave their husbands a distinctive group identity. Thus the Pharisees, precisely by their interaction with non-Pharisees, engaged in the verbal and physical distinctions that reinforced their separate identity. But at the same time, the Pharisees' engagement with non-Pharisees was an implicit invitation to non-Pharisees to accept their categories, to make distinctions like a Pharisee - in effect, to act like a Pharisee.
My interpretation of the evidence in the Mishnah suggests further that there are grounds for distinguishing complete commitment to the Pharisees' sect from a more distanced attraction, from being merely a "follower of their hairesis" [te auton hairesei katakolouthon] as Josephus claimed. The Mishnah seems to uphold two tiers of participation in the Pharisees' program. One was gathering together for shared meals. Hosting such meals was properly the prerogative of the haveror the ne'eman (m.Demai 2:2-3). The other was insuring that the homes or buildings where the meals took place, and that the food itself was fit for such banquets. Not everyone who participated in the second tier of commercial and social relations that insured tithed pure food in pure buildings got to participate in the communitas, the rituals of social bonding in the Pharisaic meals themselves. In other words, those who were not "complete Pharisees" could nonetheless be distinctively associated with the Pharisees' program. The wives of Pharisees shared their husbands' status vis à vis ordinary Jews (i.e., an eshet haver was distinct from an eshet am ha-aretz), even if they did not participate in every aspect of the Pharisees' program (e.g., table fellowship). A ne’eman was not as scrupulous as a haver in regard to purity and tithes, but still participated actively in both tiers of the Pharisees' program.
The perception that the Pharisees proselytized (e.g., Matthew, Luke), or that they won many adherents among the Jewish masses (Josephus), may refer to this phenomenon. That is, people who participated in the lower tier of the Pharisaic program (e.g., wives of Pharisees who assured the purity of their homes; people who accepted the Pharisaic conditions regarding tithing, in order to do business with haverim and ne'emanim) might have been acknowedged by others or have considered themselves to be "Pharisees as to the law" (Phil. 3:4: kata nomon Pharisaios).[75] Thus, if Josephus' expression "following the Pharisaic hairesis" means something less than complete conviction,[76] or that Paul's expression "as to the law a Pharisee" has a similar thrust,[77] then such expressions appear to correspond to the lower tier of participation we have discerned from the Mishnah. Or using Arthur Darby Nock's distinction between "convert" and "adherent," someone who "took upon himself to be a haver [a "full member"] would be a convert, and an adherent would be someone who went along with Pharisaic practices of tithing and/or purity, for the business, marital, or other social reasons we just discussed.[78]
It is unlikely that outsiders, and possibly even the adherents themselves, made such fine distinctions. At best we have the Mishnah's idealized picture of members of the havurot ranked according to the degree of their conformity to tithing and purity rules, and a second tier of people associated with the first tier of members, who likewise manifest their connection by observing the same rules. Josephus and Paul refer to their Pharisaism also primarily in terms of the outward behavior, not internal conviction. Clearly then, one's commitment to Pharisaic behaviors, rather than dramatic psychological conversion experiences, are the true measure of one's belonging to the Pharisees' conversionist sect.
Conclusion: Pharisaic versus Christian Conversion
In conclusion, the correctives offered by W. Meeks and A. Segal to the individualistic, psychological model of conversionist sects provide a plausible explanation of the Pharisees' conflicting tendencies for separatism and engagement with the broader Jewish society. They also explain how the Pharisees used symbolic actions to proselytize non-Pharisees. But the categories Meeks and Segal employ are directed to conversionist sectarian tendencies of Pauline Christian communities. While the model is helpful for understanding the Pharisees as well, its application should not obscure the fundamental differences between the two.
First, the Pharisees and Pauline Christian communities defined the groups of people eligible to be "re-socialized" to their particular religious communities quite differently. The Pharisees restricted their active mission for potential "converts" to their "school" to those born as Jews.[79] Pauline Christianity made a point of trying to win over Gentiles as well as Jews. Secondly, Pauline Christianity and Pharisees used different strategies to win new adherents. We do not have much evidence for Pharisees preaching to win converts,[80] while Paul's letters and Acts' accounts of the early Christian mission suggest that public preaching (or public reading of apostles' letters) was a characteristic mode of Christian expression. This is not to be be explained simply by the historical accident that no Pharisaic speeches or writings were preserved. Rather, as I have suggested, to take their distinctive program to the people, the Pharisees probably relied more upon symbolic public actions or indirect invitations to "be a Pharisee." The Pharisees publicly conducted their distinctive group behaviors in order to win "converts" to their way of life. Public speeches, or written missionary tracts were more characteristic of the early Christian movements. Jesus told conversion-inducing parables, Paul preached a gospel of Christ, and wrote letters to be read publically in the house churches of Mediterranean coastal cities.[81] The Pharisees were more likely to try to attract followers by inviting them to participate in banquets of tithed food in a state of ritual purity, or to offer to do business with faithful tithers. The contemporary Jewish assessment of the difference between Judaism and Christianity though exaggerated, is apt: Jews do, Christians believe. In other words, "the special laws and other rituals, rather than many conversion experiences," were the means of a "strategy of conversion."[82] Though early Christians and Pharisees both wanted others to follow their ways, it seems that the Pharisees went about it less directly. Thus modern observers rightly called this "passive proselytism," at least compared to Christian strategies of conversion. Nonetheless, it seems that the Pharisees' friends and foes alike understood the symbolic import of their indirect overtures to join them.
The preceding analysis has argued that the Pharisees demonstrated some traits of a conversionist sect; the argument holds as long as one does not identify the ideal type of this sect with the early Christian missionary groups who preached to the gentiles. An investigation of Jewish proselytism in the Second Temple period should not decide the following questions beforehand: Who are the legitimate targets of "mission": Gentiles or other Jews? What are the characteristic means of mission: preaching or the symbolic actions of "passive proselytization?" And finally, what is the goal of the conversionist mission: internal psychological transformation or the public expression of solidarity with a new group? If one begins a study with these questions open, one does not prejudge "proselytism" according to the criteria of some particular Christian expressions of it. Thus, it was not the case that the early Christians proselytized and the Pharisees did not. Rather, the Pharisees and early Christians were Jewish sects with different "strategies of conversion."
APPENDIX: Language of Separation
Wayne Meeks' assertion that a special in-group "language of separation" characterizes sectarian movements points to a resolution of one particular problem in the critical study of the Pharisees - the conflicting terminology for the Pharisees in our sources.[83] The Pharisees, as other sectarian movements, seemed to have had a special language emphasizing their separateness from other groups. The Mishnaic sources suggest that they used the terms haver ("member," or "fellow") and ne'eman ("faithful one" or "trustworthy one") to distinguish themselves from those Jews who did not observe their distinctive tithing and purity rules, the amme ha-aretz ("people of the land"). Such self-designations are similar to those of other contemporary sectarian movements like the early Pauline Christians - who called one another adelphoi and adelphai ("brothers and sisters") or hoi pisteuontes ("the faithful" or "the believers"), as opposed to hoi exo ("those outside") or the apistoi ("non-believers").[84] The term "Pharisee" ("separatist") itself does not however seem to be the term the Pharisees themselves used primarily to call themselves. Rather, it seems to be the term that others used to distinguish their own identities from that of the Pharisees. Thus, in the Mishnaic traditions that use the term perushim ("Pharisees) to refer to the first century movement that we are talking about, it is put in the mouth of the Sadducees and other opponents of the Pharisees ("We hold it against you, O Pharisees...").[85] Similarly, Paul mentio