History often saddles people with reputations that are undeserved. Take Florence Nightingale. The biographical facts show conclusively that she was pushy, domineering, and bitchy to an appalling degree. Yet such revelations will never shake her image as the caring nurse par excellence, the patient and saintly Lady With A Lamp. Judas Iscariot, good family man and excellent citizen of his time, is forever doomed to bear the stigmata of traitor to beat all traitors – but should he not get great credit for being instrumental in fulfilling God’s plan to have His Son save all men through His crucifixion?
And what about poor old King Canute, that wise and witty ruler, whose age-old reputation for stubborn stupidity seems impervious to correction even though it has been pointed out time and time again that when he commanded the incoming tide not to wet his feet he was simply making a demonstration to his ridiculously sycophantic courtiers that he was not, and did not pretend to be, all-knowing and all-powerful.
Such stereotyping is hard to defeat. One very good example is the case of those excellent people, the Pharisees,
