Dr. Helen Bond

And, you know, who knows what the background to this is, but it seems quite possible that certainly some of the Pharisees are washing their hands because again, this is sort of to do with temple purity.

Jesus and his disciples aren't and they're sort of

Asking him about that or fasting.

Again, the Pharisees seem to fast a couple of days.

Jesus's disciples don't fast.

And so they're, you know, again, they're interested.

What's going on?

Why are you not doing this?

We think this is a proper interpretation of the law.

Why are you not doing it?

You know, you're talking about the kingdom of God is about to arrive.

Why are you not living a pure life, being ready for it?

So you can think of all kinds of positive reasons why they're entering into these debates with a fellow teacher rather than just, you know, instantly thinking, oh, we don't like this guy.

We're going to try and get rid of him.

Yeah, well, I'm sure that was the case.

Originally, when these stories were first passed around in the time of the historical Jesus, people are just interested.

And these great crowds that come to hear Jesus...

They've all got brains of their own.

Some of them are thinking, wow, this is great.

Others are thinking, not so sure about this.