Tristan Hughes

First and foremost, do you think groups of Pharisees would have heard about Jesus and his ministry if he is someone who starts out very much in the countryside, outside of the big cities?

The mistake is to say that it's the Pharisees who are the chief advocates of his death.

It's not that.

So I didn't realize that.

That's a stark difference there.

I also found the mention of the debates really interesting.

It sounds pretty intellectual, pretty, dare I say, open as well, if it's not just the highborns debating all the time.

I didn't realise just how big theological debate was amongst the Pharisees and how 2,000 years ago in Judea, theological debates were common between Pharisees and other people with different views on the teachings of the Hebrew Bible and so on.

So can we explore a couple of key debates that Jesus does have with Pharisees early in his ministry?

Are there particular episodes that stand out?

And in what ways would you say that actually you can see some clear similarities between the teachings, the beliefs of the Pharisees and what Jesus was preaching in his ministry?

It's interesting trying to picture a Pharisee entering the debating ring with Jesus, not from a point of wanting to utterly condemn and destroy his arguments, but rather from a place of intrigue, quite frankly.

So Helen, let's move on from the time of Jesus and the Pharisees remain prominent in Judea or they remain a sect in Judea.

Do we know much about what happens to the next?

And the destruction of the temple, so that's by the Romans, the high point of the great Jewish revolt.

And so could it be that with the removal of that big central temple building, the importance, the influence of Jewish teachers like Pharisees could well have increased as people flocked more and more towards those particular more educated individuals, I guess?

And harkening back to the beginning, as time goes on, the name Pharisee has a good association for Jews, but very negative one for Christians.

Helen, how quickly do you think this kind of bipolarism of the word Pharisee, it emerges in the world?

So Helen, how should we view the Pharisees today?

Last but certainly not least, you do have a podcast with another very good friend of the show, which covers everything Bible related.