Jesus, People, Pharisees corrects the prevailing, false Christian stereotypes of the Pharisees. It does so by examining the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees in Galilee through the lens of the complex social connections the Pharisees in Galilee had with the political powers in Jerusalem, including the Pharisees there, and how those powers expressed their allegiance to the emperor Tiberius in Rome.

As a result, Jesus' contentious relations with the Pharisees are best understood as a conflict over political power, not religious scruples. The Pharisees in Galilee were agents of the temple authorities, who were ultimately concerned about the Roman authorities and therefore attempted to prevent the crowds around Jesus from forming into rebellions, riots, or revolution. Jesus, on the other hand, was forming a network of kingdom followers who were drawn increasingly from the crowds, and the powers in Rome sent the Pharisees, who were popular with the crowds, to calm a potential problem.