Thanks for the opportunity to learn something new-albeit a Latin phrase. I checked on the scholarship. SOME scholars, not all, believe it to be a matter of post-second Temple issues. As for being liberal, I can find no reference. Considering the fact that these tensions would lead to Jesus' crucifixion, I find it untenable that they were inserted after the fact unless the Gospels as such were a fabrication in the creation of religious mythology, as many a secular intellectual will hold. 
      One does not find it inconsistent with Mathew's story the idea that the legalism for which the Pharisees were known was used to advantage by some members of the sect, as related in the Synoptics and the Gospel of John. One can find many similar instances in the history of the Church, to which contemporary commentators have referred using the term "Pharisaical". 
      One could sympathize with those who hold that the term may hold pejorative connotations for Jews and Judaism, nevertheless.