\n \u201cYou see, the Pharisees, the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time, they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report,\u201d Hegseth said. \u201cBut their hearts were hardened. Even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn\u2019t matter. They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n He continued, \u201cI sat there in church and I thought, \u2018Our press are just like these Pharisees.\u2019 Not all of you, not all of you, but the legacy Trump-hating press. Your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:\u00a0 CNN\u2019s \u201cWord of the Week\u201d brings you the meaning behind the words in the news.\n<\/p>\n
\n Hegseth brought out the term<\/a> again to disparage claims about inadequate food on Navy vessels as \u201cFAKE NEWS from the Pharisee Press.\u201d \u201cPharisees\u201d also appeared last week in a social media post from Hegseth\u2019s Department of Defense (now calling itself the Department of War<\/a>).\n <\/p>\n \n Asked for comment about Hegseth\u2019s use of the word, a department spokesperson wrote, \u201cWe have nothing further to provide outside the Secretary\u2019s remarks.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The original Pharisees were a group of Jews around the first century who focused on religious ritual and practice. The Bible depicts them debating with and criticizing Jesus, and contemporary Christian preachers and Sunday school teachers invoke the \u201cPharisees\u201d as key opponents of Jesus, so that the word is frequently used as a pejorative for anyone seen as contradicting Christian teachings \u2014 one freighted with antagonism by Christians toward non-Christians, and especially toward Jews.\n <\/p>\n \n In an April 30 Senate hearing, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada challenged Hegseth for using \u201cPharisees,\u201d calling it \u201churtful\u201d and a \u201cproblematic and historically weaponized term.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n What is known historically about the Pharisees comes from references in the New Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, early rabbinic literature, and archaeology, says Amy-Jill Levine, distinguished professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at the Hartford International University for Religion and Peace.\n <\/p>\n \n The Pharisees were \u201cmembers of a voluntary association that sought to imbue daily life with sanctity,\u201d Levine wrote in an email. Like other Jews of the time, including the Sadducees, the Essenes and Jesus himself, the Pharisees were deeply interested in determining how best to fulfill divine will.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cPharisees,\u201d which entered English via Latin by way of Greek, derives from the Aramaic root \u201cpr\u0161,\u201d said Craig E. Morrison, a professor of the Bible at Catholic University of America. The meaning of the root is contested: It can mean \u201cto separate,\u201d though from what or whom is unclear, or \u201cto discern.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cChristian scholars have unfortunately taken that word \u2018to separate\u2019 as something negative, and then developed into them being separate and better and elitist,\u201d Morrison added. \u201cAnd that\u2019s simply not there in the etymology of the word.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Whatever scholars might assume from the etymology, Morrison said the word\u2019s origins reveal little about the Pharisees besides their existence as a distinct group.\n <\/p>\n \n Though the New Testament often depicts the Pharisees in conflict with Jesus, and as overly preoccupied with rules and ritual purity, Brian Kaylor, author of \u201cThe Bible According to Christian Nationalists: Exploiting Scripture for Political Power,\u201d said the group\u2019s disagreements with Jesus were akin to distinctions between Christian denominations \u2014 both sought to serve God, despite differing ideas on what that would look like.\n <\/p>\n \n In the New Testament, however, Kaylor said the Pharisees are largely \u201cundeveloped characters of opposition.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThey\u2019re not really around to speak for themselves,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I think the real issue here is that New Testament writers weren\u2019t concerned about us understanding the motives of the Pharisees. That wasn\u2019t the goal. The goal was to tell about Jesus.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Other sources offer more nuanced portraits of the Pharisees. Levine noted that the writings of first-century Jewish historian Josephus indicate that the group lived a simple life among the people and was highly respected. Archaeological evidence of bathing pools and chalk stone vessels from Judea and the Galilee, she said, show that the Pharisees\u2019 concern for ritual purity was shared by most Jews of the period. Their practices around handwashing, for example, were \u201clikely an egalitarian move\u201d \u2014 Levine wrote that in rabbinic literature, the Pharisees task all Jews, not just priests, with maintaining the sanctity of the Temple of Jerusalem.\n <\/p>\n \n The New Testament does contain positive depictions of Pharisees \u2014 Levine points to Nicodemus, who defended Jesus and helped bury him, and Gamaliel, who advocated for the apostles Peter and John. There are also references to Pharisees who became followers of Christ.\n <\/p>\n \n But the negative stereotypes persisted, which Levine attributes to selective readings of the New Testament and a lack of knowledge of first-century Jewish history. Critiques of the Pharisees came to stand in for critiques of Judaism writ large, in what Levine called \u201cpart of a larger Christian process of seeing Jewish practice as the negative foil to Christianity.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cReading select New Testament polemics against the Pharisees, Christians have classified them as legalistic, elitist, money-loving, xenophobic, misogynistic hypocrites,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThey come to represent whatever individual Christians do not like.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Hegseth follows a long tradition of Christians caricaturing the \u201cPharisees\u201d as pretentious, self-righteous hypocrites. Even progressive Christians have levied the insult: Pope Francis<\/a> used it to critique rigid leaders, while Pete Buttigieg<\/a> used it to denigrate Mike Pence.\n <\/p>\n \n Pope Francis and Buttigieg both backpedaled after Jewish leaders expressed concerns. But when Rosen pressed Hegseth on using it, he said he stood by his remarks. \u201cSenator, I feel like it\u2019s a pretty accurate term for folks who don\u2019t see the plank in their own eye and always want to see what\u2019s wrong with an operation,\u201d he said, \u201cas opposed to the historic success of preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Hegseth\u2019s use of \u201cPharisees\u201d offers insight into how he views Trump and the war in Iran, said Sam Perry, an associate professor of rhetoric at Baylor University. The defense secretary has previously invoked his religious identity to suggest that US military action is divinely sanctioned. He has ties to the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches<\/a>, an evangelical denomination whose founder has promoted the idea that the US should be a Christian theocracy and enforce a biblical interpretation of society. In his 2020 book \u201cAmerican Crusade<\/a>,\u201d Hegseth called for a \u201c360-degree holy war,\u201d pitting God-fearing American Christians against \u201cIslamists\u201d and \u201cleftists.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Taking all that into consideration, Perry said he sees Hegseth\u2019s characterization of Iran war critics as \u201cPharisees\u201d as more than mere metaphor. \u201cIf you\u2019re trying to figure out where Hegseth is placing Trump within that story,\u201d he said, \u201cthe only conclusion that you can really come to is that Hegseth is positioning him as a Christ figure.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n To Kaylor, the Christian fixation on the Pharisees is notable for another reason: Though the Roman state was responsible for crucifying Jesus, the Pharisees are often portrayed as his primary opponents. \u201cWhich of those two become the key villain in the story changes the moral of the story,\u201d he said. \u201cSo this focus on Pharisees has not only been a way of tarnishing Judaism, it\u2019s also been a way of ignoring the critique of empire and militarism so on and so on.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In Hegseth\u2019s telling, God is on the side of the Trump administration and the US military.\n <\/p>\n \n Kaylor has another interpretation.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe are to the world today what the Roman Empire was in Jesus\u2019s time,\u201d Kaylor said. \u201cAnd so we need a different opponent to Jesus, and there\u2019s not a whole lot of options in the New Testament stories of people who are debating with Jesus at all. And so the Pharisees become the more convenient scapegoat that allow us not to have to critique the American empire.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At an April news briefing on the Iran war, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth digressed from taking a dig…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[24404,18],"class_list":{"0":"post-60562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pete-hegseth","8":"tag-ctt","9":"tag-pete-hegseth"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116531921906205680","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gettyimages-2274649818.jpg\")
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