Dr. Helen Bond

We sort of always go straight into this.

What does a name mean?

And this, I think, is a good example of where the gap filling goes in.

So it's possible that it comes from the Hebrew parash or Aramaic parash, and it might mean separated ones.

I mean, if you look at a dictionary, that's what you'll see.

It means separated ones.

And then the question is, who did they separate from?

You know, were they separate from the people, separate from the priests, you know, separate from the political establishment?

And of course, Christians have tended to kind of read them as, oh, you know, they were aloof, they were distant, they kept their distance from the ordinary people.

But there's no evidence for that at all.

Another interpretation of their name might mean something to do with interpreters or something like that.

And I think if you're going to go with an interpretation of the name, that's probably the most likely because everything we know about them suggests that they did have a body of biblical material and that they were very, very keen on interpreting it.

Well, the most fulsome sources are the Gospels.

They actually are mentioned more times in the Gospels than anywhere else in ancient literature.

I think there's something like 110 references.

So, you know, they're all over the place, but they're very, very negative.

Then an interesting one actually is Josephus, the first century historian.

He mentions them and it's even possible at the end in one of his books, he wrote an autobiography towards the end of his life,

And he may even be suggesting that he was a Pharisee.

That's a possible interpretation.