Not only is what follows a good response to those who want to revise history and claim there was no real conflict between Jesus and his proto-rabbinic contemporaries (Sanders, Vermes), but it has plenty of application to the temptations that beset Christian denominations.

Here again Sanders is justified in reacting against overstatements by too many New Testament scholars about Pharisaic hostility to the ordinary people. But here too the question has to be asked whether Sanders in turn has over-reacted and tried to push the pendulum too far in the opposite direction.

The Role of Social Conflict in Group Definition
We may consider, first of all, the insights of sociology and social anthropology into the nature of groups and their self-definition. Once we realize that the social identity of a group depends to a large extent on the distinctiveness of its practices and beliefs, it also becomes evident that the corollary of “identity” is “boundary,” that self-definition involves self-differentiation. In all this, ritual as a visible expression of social relationships usually plays a particularly important role. moreover, wherever there are other groups whose distinctives differ, each group is liable to be particularly protective of its identity and react strongly to any perceived threat to its boundaries. Indeed, group conflict can play an important role in binding a group more closely together and will often cause it to put still greater emphasis on the distinctiveness of its rituals. And particularly where groups are close to one another in origin or character or distinctives, the conflict is liable to be all the more intense. It is the brother who threatens identity most (“sibling rivalry”); it is the party most like your own which threatens to draw away your support and undermine your reason for existence as a distinct entity.

(James D. G. Dunn, “Pharisees, Sinners, and Jesus” Jesus, Paul, & the Law: Studies in Mark & Galatians (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1990), p. 72)

Notice, by the way, my hopeful title to this entry.