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The Pharisees and the Sadducees: An Examination of Internal Jeivish History, by Julius Wellhausen. Translated by Mark E. Biddle. Mercer Library of Biblical Studies 4. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2001. Pp. viii + 115. $30.00.
The Pharisees and the Sadducees is the first English translation from the German original Die Pharisäer und die Sadducäer: Eine Untersuchung zur inneren jüdischen Geschichte (1874; second German edition 1924), volume 4 in the new Mercer Library of Biblical Studies series. The translator, Mark E. Biddle, is professor of OT at the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. His two earlier publications (A Redaction History of Jeremiah 2:1-4:2 and Polyphony and Symphony in Prophetic Literature: Rereading Jeremiah 7-20 [Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996]), as well as three volumes of translated works (Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann, Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament, 1997; Hermann Gunkel, Genesis, 1997; Martin Hengel, The Septuagint and Christian Scripture: In Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon, 2001), sufficiently demonstrate his facility with ancient languages and critical issues.
Although the editors claim that Wellhausen's short work on Pharisees and Sadducees "provides a firm foundation for understanding Judaism's influential Pharisees and Sadducees and a keen analysis of their importance in the context of the beginnings of Christianity . . . a masterpiece of interpretation and representation," this reviewer could not disagree more. True, it is indisputable that "the influence of Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) as Orientalist and biblical historian and critic is legendary." In my opinion, however, this NT "essay" should not be classed "among the great works of theological investigation" but rather among the extant damning evidences of what has come to be known in post-Holocaust academic circles as "higher anti-Semitism."
The Pharisees and the Sadducees is a period piece that is deficient (see Louis
Finkelstein, The Pharisees: The Sociological Background of their Faith [2 vols.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1962]) or defective (see Louis H. Feldman, Josephus and Modern Scholarship [1937-1980] [New York: Garland, 1986], 547) in a variety of areas. It contains theories no longer accepted as true, perspectives corrected in post-Holocaust light, and opinions that have greater relevance to the early historiography of German anti-Semitic writings of higher criticism.
Furthermore, it also includes...