Who were the Pharisees?
2026-06-21 · 40 min · 8 entities
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Feed author/publisher: Helen Bond & Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
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Feed category: Religion & Spirituality
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Feed author/publisher: Helen Bond & Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
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Episode description as stored
The Pharisees are among the most villainised groups in Jewish history. For centuries, Christians read them as legalists, religious hypocrites and bitter opponents of Jesus. But have we got the Pharisees all wrong?
To find out, Lloyd takes a trip in the Time Machine with our resident expert, Helen Bond, Professor of Christian Origins at the University of Edinburgh.
Drawing on a range of sources – from Josephus to the Dead Sea Scrolls – they construct a picture of the Pharisees beyond the stereotypes. Where did they come from? What did they believe? And how reliably do the gospels portray them.
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Theme music written and performed by Dave Roos, creator of Biblical Time Machine. Season 4 + 5 produced by John Nelson.