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Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe. The Pharisees, we've all heard the name, remembered for their opposition to Jesus of Nazareth during his teachings in Judea

2000 years ago, educated men who challenged him on his beliefs.

Today, the Pharisees divide opinion, positively portrayed in Judaism, negatively for so long in Christianity.

But who actually were these people? How much power and influence did they have in ancient

Judea? What did they believe in? And did they really have next to nothing in common with

the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth? Welcome to the ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host,

and this is the story of the Pharisees.

Our guest is Dr. Helen Bond, Professor of Christian Origins at Edinburgh University,

and the host of the podcast Biblical Time Machine.

Helen, it's been too long. Great to have you back on the show. Thank you, Tristan. It's great to be here. And to talk about the Pharisees, and they are much more than just these portrayed villains in the New

Testament. Yeah, that is the trouble, actually. The two groups of people who are interested in them

are Jews and Christians, and we'll come on to this,

but we've got very little evidence about the Pharisees. And the problem is that Jews tend to see

them as everything that's good. They're the precursors of rabbinic Judaism. They're the good guys

of antiquity. Christians, because they've had such a bad press in the New Testament, particularly the Gospels,

tend to see them as everything that's bad. And Luther didn't like them in the Reformation.

...