Pharisee

From RationalWiki

A Pharisee was a member of a sect of the Jewish religion in the time of Christ characterized by an encyclopedic knowledge of scripture and a fixation with the minutiae of said scripture. For example the scripture required tithing--giving 10% of income, or yearly increase--to the priesthood. Pharisees went to the trouble of counting the seeds and leaves of the plants in their garden and tithing on those amounts.

In Christian tradition, the Pharisees were early fanatics and were by no means popular with either the general populace or the fledgling Christian movement. They sought harsh penalties for the smallest of pedantic infractions, and, like all fanatics, considered themselves far more important than everyone else. As a result, the term "Pharisee" is generally an insult in Christian cultures, generally meaning a hypocritical, self-righteous nitpicker.

However, the Pharisees were also one of the most prominent sects of Judaism due to their emphasis on scriptural knowledge and interpretation, and were also the ones most directly responsible for the creation of the immense body of theological commentary known as the Talmud (as well as rabbinical Judaism as a whole) as a way to preserve Jewish identity after the destruction of the Second Temple and the last vestiges of the Judahite temple-state. The traditional Jewish emphasis on learning and study from medieval to modern times is therefore a direct positive legacy of Pharisaic influence.