The Pharisees get a bad rap. Do they deserve it? Up next with Jimmy Aiken.

Hello and welcome again to Catholic answers focus. I'm Cy Kellett, your host, and the villains of the peace in the New

Testament are often the Pharisees. So we welcome Jimmy Aiken, whose book, The Bible is

a Catholic book, covers some of what Jimmy knows about

New Testament times but not everything, it's not exhaustive, so we thought we'd ask Jimmy

about the Pharisees today. The Pharisees, Jimmy, it's so bad that if you call

someone a Pharisee, that's an insult. Yeah, it is today. So were they that bad? Well was Nicodemus bad? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure what you mean. Well, Nicodemus, the guy who came to Jesus in John 3 and referred to him as a teacher

and then helped with his body after he died and opposed the council's plans against

Jesus, was he bad?

Oh, no, no, he was not bad.

Yeah, how about Camaleel?

No, Camaleel was, hey, if this is from God, then.

Yeah, Camaleel, a famous Pharisee,

a sage who was the teacher of St Paul and is highly revered by Jews today and he said

don't don't mess with Christians let let him let him go and see what God does

with this movement okay so these are our good guys why do we encounter the

Pharisees generally speaking as I mean and even Jesus says negative things about you Pharisees?

Yep, well it's like any other group it has good people and bad people in it and some of the good ones get

complimented or otherwise noted for their goodness in the New Testament. Others, you know,

there were problems with the movement. there are problems with any movement and so

it's fair to call those points out as well one of the things that has happened in the

course of Christian history is the term Pharisee has become an insult. If you call someone a Pharisee

...