By Harmeet Kaur, CNN
(CNN) — At an April news briefing on the Iran war, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth digressed from taking a dig at Iranian leadership to take a dig at American news media.
The “relentlessly negative coverage” of the war, Hegseth said, evoked a sermon he’d heard in church about the “Pharisees.” Describing a passage from the book of Mark in the New Testament, he relayed a story about Jesus healing a man on the Sabbath. The “Pharisees,” in the biblical rendition, seemed more concerned that the act of healing had violated the customary day of rest.
“You see, the Pharisees, the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time, they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report,” Hegseth said. “But their hearts were hardened. Even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn’t matter. They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda.”
He continued, “I sat there in church and I thought, ‘Our press are just like these Pharisees.’ Not all of you, not all of you, but the legacy Trump-hating press. Your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors.”
Hegseth brought out the term again to disparage claims about inadequate food on Navy vessels as “FAKE NEWS from the Pharisee Press.” “Pharisees” also appeared last week in a social media post from Hegseth’s Department of Defense (now calling itself the Department of War).
Asked for comment about Hegseth’s use of the word, a department spokesperson wrote, “We have nothing further to provide outside the Secretary’s remarks.”
The original Pharisees were a group of Jews around the first century who focused on religious ritual and practice. The Bible depicts them debating with and criticizing Jesus, and contemporary Christian preachers and Sunday school teachers invoke the “Pharisees” as key opponents of Jesus, so that the word is frequently used as a pejorative for anyone seen as contradicting Christian teachings — one freighted with antagonism by Christians toward non-Christians, and especially toward Jews.
In an April 30 Senate hearing, Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada challenged Hegseth for using “Pharisees,” calling it “hurtful” and a “problematic and historically weaponized term.”
What is known historically about the Pharisees comes from references in the New Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, early rabbinic literature, and archaeology, says Amy-Jill Levine, distinguished professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at the Hartford International University for Religion and Peace.
The Pharisees were “members of a voluntary association that sought to imbue daily life with sanctity,” Levine wrote in an email. Like other Jews of the time, including the Sadducees, the Essenes and Jesus himself, the Pharisees were deeply interested in determining how best to fulfill divine will.
“Pharisees,” which entered English via Latin by way of Greek, derives from the Aramaic root “prš,” said Craig E. Morrison, a professor of the Bible at Catholic University of America. The meaning of the root is contested: It can mean “to separate,” though from what or whom is u