Pharisaism, Its Aim and Its Method

Pharisaism, Its Aim and Its Method is by R. Travers Herford. The text says that Ezra saved the life of the Jewish people, none the less that in later times there were Jews who cherished ideals which were far different from his. The text says that Judaism, as the religion of Torah, required that every Jew should be in a position to know what was contained in the Torah and what it meant.

The text says that of the enormous mass of Haggadah contained in the Rabbinical literature, only a small proportion is contemporary with the Gospels, and very little indeed contemporary with Jesus. The text names R. Joshua b. Levi as one of the most famous Haggadists, in the middle of the third century of our era, and asks whether, if we find that he teaches some doctrine, we are entitled to use his words as evidence that such doctrine was believed by Pharisees in the time of Jesus and the Apostles. The text answers that, with caution, the later literature may rightly be used as evidence of earlier beliefs and ideas.