Dr. Helen Bond

But really, I think Jews found themselves in a very different

world now.

And so Pharisees, I think, were one of the groups that helped people to sort of come to terms with this, but not the only ones.

Yeah.

I mean, I think very soon, I mean, already in the Gospels, you know, they are really just standing there for this kind of legalistic way of reading things.

Matthew's Gospel is one of the worst.

Matthew 23 is this terrible, a whole chapter where Jesus is saying, you know, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, he says.

So, you know, already by then, that

Pharisees has become this kind of this negative term amongst Christ followers.

I mean, the ironic thing is that, you know, a lot of these people reading Matthew's gospel will still consider themselves Jews, but, you know, already Pharisees is sort of the name of opposition.

But particularly by the time you get to the Reformation, you know, that's

So many things kind of came in at the Reformation.

And the idea that, you know, Luther's understanding of Judaism as a really legalistic religion, I think, is founded to quite a large extent on this Pharisaic stereotype and caricature that you have in the Gospels.

You know, they're legalists.

They're interested in religion.

only sort of following the rules and they're not interested in mercy and justice and things like this.

So certainly by the time that you get the reformations, Pharisee is epitomizing what's wrong with Jewish faith.

I think strip them back to what we actually know about them, which is they were a group within first century Judaism, if that's sort of the area you're interested in, that perhaps had a certain amount of power beforehand, but they're very much a group of people who are interested in interpreting the law.

They've got a lot of popularity with the people.

They're creative.