with it being easter i wish to compare the gop to the pharisees of old-is this offensive to Jewish
people????
In my church (fairly mainstream prot) the pharisees always had a bad rep-and i think
comparisons to the party of rmoney are valid--but i really do not wish
to offend anyone but republicans....
= new reply since forum marked as read
The greatest villains in Jewish literature are Jews. Jews save their greatest vilification for other Jews. Gentiles in the bible are generally walk-ons and neutral fodder, like the unknown red-shirt crewman on Star Trek, to actual heroes like the Samaritan guy.
I am not religious, but identify culturally as a Jew (we eat bagels and lox, and sing the blues.)
The characters portrayed in biblical fabliaux don't offend me (for one.) It just surprises me, as when I found out in school, that those Negro Spirituals are all about Jews too. Go figure. 
--imm 
and Christians have little or no understanding of Judaism, present or past. There's a very good reason for the hatred Christians assigned to Pharisees and the lies invented about them.
The Pharisees were the congregation of the majority of Jewish people, and were very popular with the people. The Pharisees believed in an oral law given at Sinai. They believed that religion permeated every aspect of life, not just life inside the Temple. They believed that studying religious law was important. They were more flexible within the religious law, however, they also resisted Judaism being changed altogether. That created a HUGE conflict with the Christians, who were busy trying to convert all Jews. That's how the lies about the Pharisees began, with Christians who were angry because the Jewish people refused to convert to a Christian way of thinking.
The Saducees (the mega-rich literalist Jews) hated the fact that the Pharisees were strong and represented the majority of Jews. They felt threatened by them. They also did not want to change Judaism, however, the Saducees remind me of the GOP and right wing Christian mega-rich nutjobs.
The Pharisees were a bit like the Democratic Party.
The Essenes were anti-establishment. Maybe a bit like Occupy, but a religious Occupy? 
There were other congregations. For ex., the Saducees were the congregation of the ruling and wealthy classes. They were right wing. The Saducees believed in literalism of the Torah and no oral law.
There were many other Jewish congregations back then.
HOWEVER, the Pharisees were the ancestors of current-day Judaism.
So basically, the negative attributes assigned to the Pharisees are lies and bullshit that came out of the propaganda and push to convert Jews to Christianity.
