Was Nehemiah the First Pharisee?

I want to say that I am not a professional theologian. I am strictly amatuer, so take the following with a grain of salt.

 What is the difference between Christianity and every other religion, you may ask.  Actually, there are many differences, but I think the principle thing is that the God who created everything that is in heaven and on earth loves us.  He loved us before he created us.  He loved us despite us doing wrong against His instruction.  He loves us even though we do not love him, or our fellow man.  Most of all, He loves us not because of who WE are, but because of who HE is.  For most other religions, consideration from the god is purely conditional upon doing something great or heroic that the god desires, for which he or she may deign save you.

I was thinking about this today as we finished up reading Nehemiah in our daily readings.  Nehemiah was the governor of Judah under the Persian Emperor Artaxerxes.  The Judeans had been conquered by Babylon, which was in turn was conquered by the Persian Empire under Emperor Cyrus.  Cyrus was moved by the Holy Spirit to allow the Judeans to return to their homeland and rebuild the City of Jerusalem.  The books of Ezra, the Priest, and Nehemiah the governor tell us about the return from captivity.

While in captivity, the Jews pondered what it was that they did so wrong to cause Yahweh, the God of Israel to punish them by allowing Babylon to conquer them.  Of course, they had plenty of warning from the various prophets about things like sacrificing to foreign gods, to Baal, Astarte and especially to Molech, and making images of these gods.  Moreover, they did not trust in Him, which caused them to go after other gods.  But their conclusions were typically wrong-headed and sought to bribe God by following every jot and tittle of the law instead of just loving Him and being repentant.

The so-called Second Temple Theology in my humble and not so learned opinion began with Nehemiah.  Someone found a copy of the "law" of God (the first 5 books of the Bible) and read it to Nehemiah.  Fearing a repeat of the Babylon captivity, he set out to cause Jewish men who had married wives from the nations to divorce their wives for example.  He closed the gates of Jerusalem to prevent merchants from selling their goods on the Sabbath. Nehemiah in the last chapter of his book makes these statements:

15In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and loading donkeys with wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I warned them about the day on which they were selling provisions. 16Men of Tyre dwelt there also, who brought in fish and all kinds of goods, and sold them on the Sabbath to the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem.

17Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said to them, “What evil thing is this that you do, by which you profane the Sabbath day? 18Did not your fathers do thus, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Yet you bring added wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.”

19So it was, at the gates of Jerusalem, as it began to be dark before the Sabbath, that I commanded the gates to be shut, and charged that they must not be opened till after the Sabbath. Then I posted some of my servants at the gates, so that no burdens would be brought in on the Sabbath day. 20Now the merchants and sellers of all kinds of [b]wares [c]lodged outside Jerusalem once or twice.

21Then I warned them, and said to them, “Why do you spend the night [d]around the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you!” From that time on they came no more on the Sabbath. 22And I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves, and that they should go and guard the gates, to sanctify the Sabbath day.

Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of Your mercy!

Was Nehemiah the first Pharisee? Could be. He seems to believe that Yahweh is a mercurial and vengeful deity ready to exact punishment for any slight. He also believes as evidenced by his statement above that God's salvation depends on things he does. But what we learned in the Psalms is that loving and trusting in our God can cover a world of sin. When David killed Uriah and took his wife Bathsheba, the prophet Nathan called him out. Thereafter, David repented and wrote Psalm 51:

14Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,

The God of my salvation,

And my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness.

15O Lord, open my lips,

And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.

16For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;

You do not delight in burnt offering.

17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,

A broken and a contrite heart—

These, O God, You will not despise.

God did not desire that they slavishly followed every one of the 613 "laws" of God every day for however long one lived and then, maybe, he would save them. He desired rather we had a humble contrite heart and a relationship with the Him.