BSN: How the Pharisees Viewed Jesus

When the Pharisees persecuted Jesus and the apostles, they weren’t consciously rejecting God; on the contrary, they thought they were serving Him. The Pharisees could find what they considered damning parallels to Jesus in the Scriptures. For example, compare Matt 9:11 to Ps 50:16-18. Likewise, the Pharisees likely saw Ps 1 as an indictment of Jesus because they interpreted Jesus not walking with them was Jesus not walking with the righteous and therefore not walking with God. Regarding the sabbath, the Pharisees saw themselves as righteous like Nehemiah (Neh 13:15-22) in safeguarding the sabbath from sabbath-breakers (Jesus). They would also see His criminal conviction by both Jewish and Roman authorities as delegitimizing. And with that His shortened life as testimony that He couldn’t have been a righteous man since God did not let Him live long (Prov 10:27). Thus there were two narratives (perspectives, visions) in the time of Jesus: one in which he was a true prophet and another in which he was a false prophet. Thus both the friends and the enemies of Jesus looked to Scripture to justify their position. This is similar to how the North and South both looked to the same Bible to justify their positions in the American Civil War. And it is similar to how two narratives divide American’s today. (See also Habak 3:13)
Criticisms of Jesus