Philippians and Pharisees<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I'm not sure why it never struck me before, but I just recently\u00a0realized that Paul's mention in Philippians about his being or having been a Pharisee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/04\/philippians-and-pharisees.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Philippians and Pharisees\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I'm not sure why it never struck me before, but I just recently\u00a0realized that Paul's mention in Philippians about his being or having been a Pharisee\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/04\/philippians-and-pharisees.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-04-17T09:53:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ReligionProf\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/04\/philippians-and-pharisees.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/04\/philippians-and-pharisees.html\",\"name\":\"Philippians and Pharisees\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-17T09:53:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-04-17T09:53:10+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf\"},\"description\":\"I'm not sure why it never struck me before, but I just recently\u00a0realized that Paul's mention in Philippians about his being or having been a Pharisee\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/04\/philippians-and-pharisees.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/04\/philippians-and-pharisees.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/04\/philippians-and-pharisees.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Philippians and Pharisees\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/\",\"name\":\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\",\"description\":\"The Blog of Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, Indianapolis\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf\",\"name\":\"James F. McGrath\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"James F. McGrath\"},\"description\":\"Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. BD University of London, PhD Durham University. Author of John's Apologetic Christology, The Only True God, Theology and Science Fiction, and The Burial of Jesus, as well as (with Charles Haberl of Rutgers University) the two-volume Mandaean Book of John critical edition, translation, and commentary. Also author of numerous articles (and a few science fiction short stories) and the editor or co-editor of several volumes.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Ge8ul5\",\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/jamesfmcgrath\/\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jfmcgrat\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ReligionProf\",\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/religionprof\",\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/religionprof\",\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_F._McGrath\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/author\/james-f-mcgrath\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Philippians and Pharisees","description":"I'm not sure why it never struck me before, but I just recently\u00a0realized that Paul's mention in Philippians about his being or having been a Pharisee","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/04\/philippians-and-pharisees.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Philippians and Pharisees","og_description":"I'm not sure why it never struck me before, but I just recently\u00a0realized that Paul's mention in Philippians about his being or having been a Pharisee","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/04\/philippians-and-pharisees.html","og_site_name":"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath","article_author":"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/","article_published_time":"2016-04-17T09:53:10+00:00","author":"James F. McGrath","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ReligionProf","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"James F. McGrath","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/04\/philippians-and-pharisees.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/04\/philippians-and-pharisees.html","name":"Philippians and Pharisees","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-04-17T09:53:10+00:00","dateModified":"2016-04-17T09:53:10+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf"},"description":"I'm not sure why it never struck me before, but I just recently\u00a0realized that Paul's mention in Philippians about his being or having been a Pharisee","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/04\/philippians-and-pharisees.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/04\/philippians-and-pharisees.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/04\/philippians-and-pharisees.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Philippians and Pharisees"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/","name":"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath","description":"The Blog of Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, Indianapolis","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf","name":"James F. McGrath","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"James F. McGrath"},"description":"Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. BD University of London, PhD Durham University. Author of John's Apologetic Christology, The Only True God, Theology and Science Fiction, and The Burial of Jesus, as well as (with Charles Haberl of Rutgers University) the two-volume Mandaean Book of John critical edition, translation, and commentary. Also author of numerous articles (and a few science fiction short stories) and the editor or co-editor of several volumes.","sameAs":["https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Ge8ul5","http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/jamesfmcgrath\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jfmcgrat\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/ReligionProf","http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/religionprof","https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/religionprof","https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_F._McGrath"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/author\/james-f-mcgrath"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":34211,"date":"2016-04-17T05:53:10","date_gmt":"2016-04-17T09:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=34211"},"modified":"2016-04-17T05:53:10","modified_gmt":"2016-04-17T09:53:10","slug":"philippians-and-pharisees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2016\/04\/philippians-and-pharisees.html","title":{"rendered":"Philippians and Pharisees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019m not sure why it never struck me before, but I just recently\u00a0realized that Paul\u2019s mention in Philippians<\/a> about his being or having been a Pharisee ought to get more attention. Paul assumes that the Philippians know what a Pharisee is. Perhaps\u00a0we can assume that he told them on some previous occasion.\u00a0But it might also hint at\u00a0two other possibilities \u2013 that he assumed they knew stories about the Pharisees and Jesus such as\u00a0would appear later in the Gospels, or otherwise the Pharisees were much more widely known than we otherwise have evidence for in Jewish sources. Either would be significant!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"