---
title: "Scribes and Pharisees: a Trade and a School"
category: "bible"
description: "γραμματεύς names a profession, held by men of the Pharisees' party and by the town clerk of Ephesus, while Pharisee and Sadducee name schools. Matthew pairs the two to name Israel's teachers of the Law, and Jesus trains and sends scribes of His own."
tags: ["scribes", "pharisees", "sadducees", "matthew", "discipleship", "method/word-study", "lang/greek", "lang/hebrew"]
draft: false
primary_passage: "Mark 2:16"
bible_references: ["Mark 2:16", "Luke 5:30", "Acts 23:6-9", "Acts 19:35", "1 Corinthians 1:20", "Ezra 7:6-11", "Acts 5:17", "Acts 15:5", "Acts 26:5", "Philippians 3:5", "Matthew 5:20", "Matthew 23:1-36", "Luke 11:42-52", "Mark 12:38", "Mark 1:22", "John 7:15", "Matthew 13:52", "Matthew 23:34", "Mark 7:3", "Nehemiah 8:8", "Luke 11:53", "Acts 22:3"]
date_created: 2026-10-01
date_modified: 2026-10-31
ai_provider_models:
  - anthropic/claude-opus-5.5
---

# Scribes and Pharisees: a trade and a school

Jesus is at dinner in Levi's house, reclining with tax collectors. Some men object, and Mark
names them: "the scribes of the Pharisees" (Mark 2:16, ESV). Most English
readers know the pair as one phrase, "scribes and Pharisees," and hear two parties standing side by
side against Jesus. Mark's phrase shows something else. Some scribes belonged to the Pharisees, so
a scribe could also belong somewhere else.

**In one sentence:** *Scribe* names a trade, the trained work of knowing and teaching a written
law, and *Pharisee* names a school of how to read and keep that Law; Matthew joins the two
to name the whole teaching establishment of Israel, and Jesus, who never trained under either,
makes scribes of His own disciples and sends them out.

## Key Takeaways

*(This section follows the [Key Takeaways](https://the-way.lewy.au/about/key-takeaways/) format — see that page for what each part is for.)*

### Lessons about Jesus

- **Jesus taught with His own authority.** He had no scribe's training, and the crowds saw the
  difference at once (Mark 1:22; John 7:15).
- **Jesus asks for more than the best-trained teachers had.** He named the most learned men and the
  strictest school in Israel as the standard His disciples must exceed (Matthew 5:20).
- **Jesus trains scribes.** A disciple taught by Him becomes "a scribe who has been trained for the
  kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 13:52, ESV).
- **Jesus sends them.** He speaks as the one who sends God's messengers, scribes among them
  (Matthew 23:34).

### Memory verses

> ✝️ Matthew 5:20 (ESV)
>
> 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will
> never enter the kingdom of heaven.

> ✝️ Matthew 13:52 (ESV)
>
> 52 And he said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is
> like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."

### Be Transformed

- **Think.** Knowing the Bible well is a skill God gives and uses, as He used Ezra (Ezra 7:6). Paul
  had the training and the strictest school, and counted both loss for "the righteousness from God
  that depends on faith" in Christ (Philippians 3:9, ESV). That righteousness is credited, and
  Jesus is its only source.
- **Attitude.** Sit under Jesus as a learner, whatever you already know. The scribes Jesus sends
  are the ones He has trained.
- **Do.** This week, take one passage you know well and do what Ezra did with the Law (Ezra 7:10):
  read it slowly with its context, obey one thing it asks of you, and teach what you learned to one
  other person.

### Prayer

Father, you gave your Law to Israel and raised up Ezra to study it, keep it and teach it. Thank
you for your Son Jesus, who teaches with your authority and fulfils everything you have spoken.
Train us as His disciples. Keep us from learning your word for our own standing, and give us a
righteousness that comes from Him. Send us out, as He sent His scribes, to bring out of your
treasure what is new and what is old. In Jesus' name. Amen.

## Study outline

- [Scribe names a trade](#scribe-names-a-trade). Mark, Luke and Acts all attach scribes to a
  party, and Ephesus had a pagan one.
- [What a scribe did](#what-a-scribe-did). Ezra's example, and Ben Sira's portrait of the scribe
  around 180 BC.
- [Pharisee and Sadducee name schools](#pharisee-and-sadducee-name-schools). The word Luke and
  Josephus use for them, what the names may mean, and the scribes who were not Pharisees.
- [Why Matthew pairs them](#why-matthew-pairs-them). Matthew 5:20 and 23, set beside Luke and Mark.
- [Jesus's own scribes](#jesuss-own-scribes). The teacher with no training, who trains and sends.

## Scribe names a trade

### The scribes of the Pharisees

"Scribes and Pharisees" runs together so often in the Gospels that the two can read as a matched
pair of parties. They are different kinds of word. **Pharisee** and **Sadducee** name schools;
**scribe** names a job, and men from the schools held it.

Mark says so directly. οἱ γραμματεῖς τῶν Φαρισαίων — "the scribes **of the Pharisees**"
(Mark 2:16, ESV). The Greek for scribe is γραμματεύς (*grammateus*, gram-mat-YOOCE, G1122), and
the Pharisee is Φαρισαῖος (*Pharisaios*, far-ih-SAI-oss, G5330). Luke says it with a word for a
faction: "some of the scribes of the Pharisees' **party**" (Acts 23:9, ESV), where "party" renders
μέρος (*meros*, G3313), literally a "part", the same word as "one part were Sadducees" three verses
earlier (Acts 23:6, ESV). A man could be a scribe of one party
or another, which is only possible if being a scribe is not itself a party.

Luke's own account of the dinner at Levi's house has "the Pharisees and their scribes" (Luke 5:30,
ESV), οἱ γραμματεῖς αὐτῶν, *their* scribes. A second writer, telling the same meal, attaches the
scribes to the Pharisees.

### A note on the text of Mark 2:16

Some manuscripts of Mark 2:16 read "the scribes and Pharisees", the reading of the Byzantine text
and the Textus Receptus, which the King James and New King James follow and the CSB footnotes. The SBL Greek New Testament, the Nestle-Aland 28th edition and
the unfoldingWord Greek New Testament all print τῶν Φαρισαίων, "of the Pharisees", as the ESV,
NASB, CSB, NIV and LSB translate it. Luke 5:30 and Acts 23:9 make the same
point in different words.

### The town clerk of Ephesus

The trade also existed outside Judaism entirely, and Luke uses the same noun for it. When the riot
at Ephesus is quieted, the man who does it is ὁ γραμματεύς — the city's chief administrative
officer, a pagan Greek official of Artemis's temple-keeping city (Acts 19:35). The ESV renders him
"the town clerk."

The same word carries both men, and a published scholarly dataset tells them apart. **MACULA
Greek** is an open-licensed linguistic annotation of the SBL Greek New Testament: its editors tag
every word with its grammar and with a *semantic domain* from Louw and Nida's *Greek-English
Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains*, which sorts New Testament vocabulary into 93 fields of meaning.
Each tag is an editor's judgement about what a word means in that verse. The annotation gives the
Ephesian clerk domain 37.94, civil officials, and gives the Jewish scribes 53.94, experts in the
religious Law.

### Sixty-three occurrences, three senses

γραμματεύς occurs **63 times** in MACULA's annotation of the Greek New Testament. One of them is
John 8:3, in the account of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53-8:11), which the earliest
manuscripts do not contain. Of the other 62, 58 are Jewish experts in the Law, 1 is that Ephesian
clerk, and 3 are tagged in a plain "scholar" sense — Matthew 13:52, Matthew 23:34, and Paul's "Where
is the scribe?" in a list of the wise and the debaters of this age (1 Corinthians 1:20, ESV).

## What a scribe did

### Ezra, the pattern

The job had its model in Ezra, who "was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses that the LORD, the God
of Israel, had given" (Ezra 7:6, ESV). The Hebrew is <span dir="rtl">סֹפֵר</span> (*sofer*,
so-FARE, H5608a), and the Septuagint renders it γραμματεύς. Four verses later the job is described
by what Ezra did with it:

> ✝️ Ezra 7:10 (ESV)
>
> 10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes
> and rules in Israel.

Study, do, teach. The Persian king's letter then addresses him as "Ezra the priest, the scribe of
the Law of the God of heaven" (Ezra 7:12, ESV). Ezra held both offices, so the priesthood and the scribal trade were two different
things one man could hold together. The companion study
[The Scribe Trained for the Kingdom](https://the-way.lewy.au/scripture/scribe-trained-for-the-kingdom/) works through Ezra 7 in
more detail.

### Ben Sira's scribe

A Jerusalem teacher named Jesus ben Sira wrote a portrait of the trade around 180 BC, in the book
known as Sirach or Ecclesiasticus. It stands outside the canon this site holds, and is cited
here as a historical witness to what a scribe was two centuries before Jesus. Ben Sira sets the scribe beside the farmer, the
smith and the potter:

> ✝️ Sirach 38:24 (KJV Apocrypha)
>
> 24 The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure: and he that hath little business
> shall become wise.

"Learned man" is γραμματεύς in the Greek of Sirach. The craftsmen keep the city running (Sirach
38:31-34), and the scribe is the one who "giveth his mind to the law of the most High" (Sirach 39:1,
KJV Apocrypha). He studies prophecies and parables, serves before
princes, and prays for understanding (Sirach 39:1-6).

Ben Sira describes a profession. It takes leisure; it takes training in a
text; and it opens a door to rulers' councils. He names no party. By Ben Sira's account a scribe is
defined by his work on the Law.

## Pharisee and Sadducee name schools

### The word for a school

Luke has a word for what the Pharisees and Sadducees were. The high priest's circle is "the party
of the Sadducees" (Acts 5:17, ESV), and some believers came from "the party of the Pharisees" (Acts
15:5, ESV). Paul tells Agrippa, "according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a
Pharisee" (Acts 26:5, ESV). In each place "party" is αἵρεσις (*hairesis*, HAI-reh-sis, G139), a
chosen way of thought, a school. Scribes are never called an αἵρεσις.

"Strictest" is ἀκριβής (*akribēs*, ah-kree-BAYSS, G196), exact or precise. Paul counted himself
one of that school: "as to the law, a Pharisee" (Philippians 3:5, ESV).

### Josephus on the school of precision

The Jewish historian Josephus, who says he lived by the rules of the Pharisees from the age of
nineteen (*Life* 12), wrote in the AD 70s-90s and
describes the same schools with the same vocabulary. In the *Jewish War* the Pharisees are "those
who are esteemed most skillful in the exact explication of their laws, and introduce the first
sect" (*Jewish War* 2.162, Whiston's 2.8.14). His Greek is οἱ μετὰ ἀκριβείας δοκοῦντες ἐξηγεῖσθαι
τὰ νόμιμα, "reputed to expound the laws with precision", and the "sect" is αἵρεσις. Josephus's
noun for precision, ἀκρίβεια (*akribeia*, G195), is the one Luke's Paul uses for his own training,
"according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers" (Acts 22:3, ESV); Acts 26:5 has the
related adjective, ἀκριβής. Luke's Paul and Josephus reach for the same vocabulary of precision and school.

### What divided the schools

Josephus also says what divided the schools:

"the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their
fathers, which are not written in the laws of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees
reject them" (*Antiquities* 13.297, Whiston's 13.10.6).

Mark calls it "the tradition of the elders" (Mark 7:3, ESV). The Pharisees were a school of
interpretation, carrying a body of teaching that stood beside the written Law. Acts adds a
doctrinal divide: "the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the
Pharisees acknowledge them all" (Acts 23:8, ESV).

### What the names mean

**The meaning of "Pharisee" is contested.** Φαρισαῖος comes from an Aramaic form,
<span dir="rtl">פְּרִישָׁא</span> (*perisha*), which Abbott-Smith's lexicon gives as its source.
It is built on the root <span dir="rtl">פָּרַשׁ</span> (*parash*, pah-RASH, H6567), "to make
distinct, declare, distinguish, separate". Two readings follow from that root:

- **"Separated ones."** The older lexicons take it this way. The Middle Liddell and Scott glosses
  the word "Separatist", one of a sect who separated themselves from other Jews.
- **"Those who make the Law distinct."** The same root, in Nehemiah 8:8, describes Ezra and the
  Levites reading the Law "clearly" (ESV), <span dir="rtl">מְפֹרָשׁ</span> (*meforash*, H6567), so
  the people understood it. On this reading the name points to exact exposition, which fits Josephus.

The root supports both, and neither the New Testament nor Josephus explains the name.

"Sadducee", Σαδδουκαῖος (*Saddoukaios*, sad-doo-KAI-oss, G4523), is usually traced to Zadok, the
priest of David and Solomon (2 Samuel 15:24), whose line held the high priesthood; that derivation
is also debated. Acts places the Sadducees with the high priest (Acts 5:17).

### Scribes who were not Pharisees

If some scribes were "of the Pharisees", others were not. The Gospels regularly put scribes with
the chief priests (Matthew 2:4; Mark 14:1; 15:31). In the council of Acts 23, split between
Sadducees and Pharisees (Acts 23:6), it was "the scribes of the Pharisees' party" who stood up for
Paul (Acts 23:9, ESV).

The New Testament never uses the phrase "scribes of the Sadducees". That scribes served the
Sadducean high priests is a reasonable inference from where the Gospels place them; the text does
not name their school.

## Why Matthew pairs them

### Matthew's phrase

Matthew uses "scribes and Pharisees" more than any other Gospel. The two nouns share a verse ten
times in his Gospel, and seven of those are in chapter 23. The phrase first appears in the Sermon on
the Mount:

> ✝️ Matthew 5:20 (ESV)
>
> 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will
> never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Put the trade and the school together and Jesus has named the best Israel had: the men trained to
know the text, and the school reputed to keep it most exactly.

### Moses' seat

"The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but
not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice" (Matthew 23:2-3, ESV). Moses' seat is
the place of teaching the Law. Jesus affirms the office and condemns the men in it for failing to
live what they teach. Seven woes follow, and six of them are addressed "scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites" (Matthew 23:13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29); the seventh calls them "blind guides" (Matthew
23:16, ESV).

### How Luke divides the woes

Luke's parallel divides the woes between the two groups. At a Pharisee's table Jesus pronounces
three woes on the Pharisees (Luke 11:42-44), and then, when "one of the lawyers" protests, turns to
them: "Woe to you lawyers also!" (Luke 11:46, ESV). Luke's word there is νομικός (*nomikos*,
G3544), an expert in the Law; six of its nine New Testament uses are Luke's. When Jesus leaves,
Luke names the two together: "the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard" (Luke 11:53,
ESV), so Luke's lawyers are the scribes by another name. Luke pairs the two nouns in five verses
(Luke 5:21, 30; 6:7; 11:53; 15:2); in the woes he addresses each on its own.

### What Matthew's pairing names

Mark's parallel warns against the scribes alone: "Beware of the scribes" (Mark 12:38, ESV).
Matthew puts the pair in all six woes that name their hearers. Matthew wrote for readers who knew
the Law and its teachers, and his pairing names the whole teaching establishment of Israel at
once: the profession that taught the Law and the school whose reading of it the people followed.
That is a reading of Matthew's purpose drawn from how he uses the phrase; Matthew does not state
it. The ESV Study Bible's note at Matthew 23:2 likewise calls them "two distinct groups, though
there was some overlap between them".

## Jesus's own scribes

### The teacher with no training

The crowds noticed the difference at once. "He taught them as one who had authority, and not as
the scribes" (Mark 1:22, ESV). In Jerusalem they asked, "How is it that this man has learning, when
he has never studied?" (John 7:15, ESV). Jesus had sat under no scribe and belonged to no school.
He taught the Law as its author's Son.

### A trained scribe

After the parables of the kingdom Jesus asks the Twelve whether they have understood, and when they
say yes, He calls a disciple a scribe:

> ✝️ Matthew 13:52 (ESV)
>
> 52 And he said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is
> like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."

Jesus keeps the trade and gives it a new teacher. A disciple of His becomes a scribe: someone who
knows the old word God spoke and handles it in the light of the kingdom Jesus brings. The
companion study [The Scribe Trained for the Kingdom](https://the-way.lewy.au/scripture/scribe-trained-for-the-kingdom/) works
through this verse.

### Scribes He sends

At the end of the woes Jesus speaks to the scribes and Pharisees about the messengers still to
come:

> ✝️ Matthew 23:34 (ESV)
>
> 34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and
> crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town,

Luke gives the saying in a different form: "Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, 'I will send
them prophets and apostles'" (Luke 11:49, ESV). In Matthew Jesus says "I send", in His own name,
what Luke attributes to the Wisdom of God. Many interpreters take Matthew's form as Jesus speaking
in the place of God's Wisdom, an inference from comparing the two Gospels. Where Luke has
"prophets and apostles", Matthew has "prophets and wise men and scribes". The *NLT Life Application
Study Bible* reads them as the disciples and leaders of the early church, which makes the scribes
Jesus sends His own disciples; the *NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible* widens the list to include
John the Baptist and Jesus Himself. Of Matthew's 22 uses of γραμματεύς, the annotation tags only
this verse and Matthew 13:52 "scholar", the two where the scribe belongs to Jesus.

### What this shows about God

God has always taught His people through people. The hand of the LORD was on Ezra, who set his
heart to study the Law, to do it and to teach it (Ezra 7:6, 10). In Jesus, God Himself came as the
teacher: the one the scribes could not match, whose authority was His own because He is the one
Moses wrote about (John 5:46). And He shares the trade. He trains ordinary disciples to know God's
word, to live it and to hand it on, and He sends them.

So you may be a scribe of the kingdom. What it takes is a teacher, and you have one: sit under
Jesus, learn what He teaches, and go where He sends you.

## Discussion questions

1. **The language.** γραμματεύς can mean a Jewish expert in the Law, a Greek town clerk, or a
   scholar. What does it tell you that Jesus chose this word for His own trained disciples (Matthew
   13:52)?
2. **The text in its context.** Mark says "the scribes of the Pharisees" (Mark 2:16) and Acts
   "the scribes of the Pharisees' party" (Acts 23:9). How does knowing that scribe is a job and
   Pharisee a school change how you read "scribes and Pharisees" in Matthew 23?
3. **Christ.** The crowds said Jesus taught "not as the scribes" (Mark 1:22), and in Matthew 23:34
   Jesus says "I send" where Luke 11:49 has "the Wisdom of God said". What do these verses claim
   about who Jesus is?
4. **The hard part.** Jesus told the crowds to "do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the
   works they do" (Matthew 23:3). How can you honour sound teaching from someone whose life does
   not match it?
5. **Be transformed.** Ezra set his heart to study the Law, to do it and to teach it (Ezra 7:10).
   Which of the three is weakest in you, and what would one step look like this week?

## References & Recommended Reading

### Bible texts and original-language data

- *SBL Greek New Testament* (CC BY 4.0) — the Greek of Mark 2:16, Luke 5:30, Acts 23:9 and Acts
  26:5.
- *MACULA Greek Linguistic Datasets (SBLGNT)* (CC BY 4.0) — morphology and Louw-Nida semantic
  domains; the source of the γραμματεύς count and its distribution, and of the αἵρεσις tags.
  Domain assignments are the dataset editors' judgements.
- *unfoldingWord Greek New Testament* (CC BY-SA 4.0) and the *Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum
  Graece*, 28th edition — the reading of Mark 2:16.
- *Westminster Leningrad Codex* with MACULA Hebrew — the Hebrew of Ezra 7:6 and Nehemiah 8:8.
- *Septuagint lemmas* — γραμματεύς at Ezra 7:6, 11 (2 Esdras in the Greek) and Sirach 38:24.
- *Sirach*, KJV Apocrypha rendering (public domain), from the scrollmapper deuterocanonical
  dataset — Sirach 38:24-39:11. Cited as an extra-biblical historical witness.
- G. Abbott-Smith, *A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament*, via STEPBible's TBESG (CC BY),
  and the Middle Liddell and Scott, via STEPBible's TFLSJ (CC BY) — Φαρισαῖος and Σαδδουκαῖος. STEPBible TBESH (CC BY) —
  <span dir="rtl">פָּרַשׁ</span>.

### Translations quoted

- *The Holy Bible, English Standard Version* (Crossway, 2016) — every Bible quotation unless
  otherwise labelled.
- CSB, NKJV, NASB, NIV and LSB readings of Mark 2:16 are reported in the note on its text.

### Josephus

- Flavius Josephus, *Jewish War* 2.162 (Whiston 2.8.14), *Antiquities of the Jews* 13.297
  (Whiston 13.10.6) and *Life* 12 (Whiston 2). Greek text of B. Niese, *Flavii Iosephi opera* (1885-1895), in the Perseus
  Digital Library (CC BY-SA 4.0,
  [github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit](https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit),
  `tlg0526.tlg004`, `tlg0526.tlg001`); English from William Whiston's public-domain translation.

### Commentary and background

- *ESV Study Bible* (Crossway, 2016) — notes on Matthew 3:7, 23:2 and 23:13-36, and John 1:24.
- *NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible* and *NKJV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible* (Zondervan;
  John H. Walton and Craig S. Keener, eds.) — notes on Mark 2:16 and Matthew 23:2.
- *NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible* (Zondervan) — notes on Matthew 3:7, 23:34 and Acts 23:9.
- *NLT Life Application Study Bible*, 3rd ed. (Tyndale) — note on Matthew 23:34.
- *CSB Ancient Faith Study Bible* (Holman) — translators' footnote at Mark 2:16.

### On this site

- [The Scribe Trained for the Kingdom](https://the-way.lewy.au/scripture/scribe-trained-for-the-kingdom/) — Matthew 13:52, the
  disciple Jesus makes into a scribe.
- [Preparing to Teach](https://the-way.lewy.au/teaching/preparing-to-teach/) — Ezra's pattern of study, do, teach
  (Ezra 7:10) applied to preparing a lesson.