The word Pharisees comes from the Hebrew perushim, from parash, meaning "to separate", from a root related to the Aramaic wordas upharsin (and divided) in the writing on the wall in Daniel 5:25. The Pharisees were, depending on the time, a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews that flourished during the Second Temple Era (536 BCE–70 CE).
以下有一段福音劇本的對話,節錄自http://www.murphywong.net/gospel3.htm
PHARISEES. We are descendants of Abraham and have never been anyone’s slaves. How can you say you’ll make us free?
JESUS. I say to you: whoever sins is the slave of sin. A slave has no standing in a house. The son has. If the son makes you free, then you really are free. I know you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you want to kill me because what I say has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with my Father. Your acts show who your father is.
PHARISEES. Abraham is our father.
JESUS. If you were Abraham’s children you would do Abraham’s works. Why, then, do you want to kill me, who has told you the truth he has heard from God? Is that Abraham’s example? You are doing your father’s work.