Dr. Helen Bond

And the Pharisees seem to have worn them against their skin.

tied to them, and the Gospels mention them.

So despite the negativity of the Gospels, it's likely that these were actually worn by Pharisees, maybe almost like amulets, or they have protective qualities to have the words of the law against your body.

Yeah, they seem to have had their own particular ways of interpretation.

They also have what are variously referred to as the traditions of the elders.

Now, some people say that this is an oral law.

The problem is there's no evidence that the Pharisees actually had an oral law.

Much later on in rabbinic times, the rabbis have an oral law.

And it depends whether we think, and we may come on to this, whether we think there's a connection between the Pharisees and the later rabbis.

They certainly have their own bodies of scripture alongside the scripture that everybody else is using.

Whether it's written down or oral, we don't know for sure.

But this does seem to be an important aspect of what they're doing.

They have their own interpretations.

And in fact, the people who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls call them the seekers after smooth things or the interpreters of smooth things.

And again, it's that idea of sort of interpretation, reading

passages in particular ways that seems to be a characteristic of the Pharisees.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

And in an oral society, you know, this would be less strange than it maybe sounds to us.

You know, 10, 15 percent of people can read.

So most people, particularly if they're not educated, as the vast majority of people are going to be, may well have preferred an oral tradition rather than words written in a text.