attack. >> ( dramatized ): woe to you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites.r you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside look beautiful, but inside, they are full of the bones of the dead and all kinds of filth. >> now, in jesus' own times, the pharisees weren't that prominent a group. why does matthew tell the story this way, so that a group that was less consequential during jesus' own lifetime now becomes the main opponent? it's precisely because that's what's going on in the life of matthew's community after the war. the pharisees are becoming their opponents, and we're watching two jewish groups-- matthew's christian-jewish group and the local pharisaic groups-- in tension over what would be the future of judaism. >> narrator: in "matthew," we see a debate between two jewish groups. tensions created by this debate will eventually fracture judaism and lead to the split with christianity. >> most of the gospels reflect a period of disagreement, of theological disagreement. and the new narrative history that evolves in the form of... of the new... n