Question 2:
In The Gospel of Matthew, his attitude toward the Jewish Law is that he sees Jesus, not the Pharisees as the one who decides what is right and what is wrong. In fact, Matthew portrays the Pharisees in a horrible manner, especially when they come to John to be baptized and he says to them “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” In a way he sees Jesus as trumping the Pharisees when it comes to Jewish Law. During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks of being humble, loyalty, and loving one another. He also talks of praying the correct way and to always trust in God when he says “Rejoice, and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.” He portrays Jesus as giving more strict guidelines of following the Jewish Law. Matthew wants people to view Jesus as a better teacher than Moses. Jesus “has not come to abolish the law or the prophets. [He has] come not to abolish but to fulfill.” This means that he doesn’t want to get rid of the old laws but add to the old with new laws to live by. If one does not obey these laws however, and “[your] righteousness [does not] surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” He wants his disciples to not do the bare minimum of teaching but go out to all nations and teach the word of God.
PaddyT Theology 
Good observations re: Jesus’ attitude toward the Pharisees; they definitely don’t come off looking very good in Matthew’s Gospel. At the time this Gospel was written (ca. 80-85 CE), the Pharisees were probably even MORE influential that they were in Jesus’ own lifetime. After the Romans destroyed the Jewish Temple in 70 CE, Jewish people had to figure out what it meant to worship God without access to a Temple and its system of sacrifices; the Pharisees (who were open to ongoing development of tradition) were very influential in plotting the way forward over the next few centuries.
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