As we have already seen in the previous posts on the “Door of the Sheep”, Jesus equated the religious leaders of Israel as bad shepherds, who did not truly care for the sheep. He equates them, in fact, with robbers and thieves. “All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.” (John 10:8, ESV).
So who were these religious leaders? We have three groups that were prominently discussed in the New Testament – the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the scribes. The Pharisees were the Jewish rabbinical sect viewed as the ruling religious party of Palestine in Jesus’ day. The Pharisees came onto the scene after the Maccabean revolt against Seleucid and Greek rule in 167 BC. The Zealots continued the battle against the Greek influences, oftentimes using violence. The Pharisees appear to have formed as an alternative to the Zealots around 100 BC, recognizing that the opposition of the Greeks (and the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persian before them) as God’s punishment for failing to keep the Law. continue reading…
