Letter and spirit of the law by God. Not all Pharisees, nor all Jews of that time, were legalistic. Though modern language has used the word Pharisee in the pejorative to describe someone who is legalistic and rigid, it is not an accurate description of all Pharisees. The argument over the "Spirit of the Law" vs. the "Letter of the Law" was part of early Jewish dialogue as well The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) is one of the New Testament texts to address this theme. The passage concerns a dialogue between Jesus and an "expert in the law" or "lawyer". As described in
Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard the King James Version of this parable is the denarius, a silver coin which was the usual day's wage for a laborer. The hours here are measured starting at about 6:00 AM, so that the eleventh hour is between about 4:00 and 5:00 PM. The workers are poor men working as temporary farmhands during the harvest season, and the employer realizes that they would all need a full day's pay to feed their families. The payment at evening follows Old Testament guidelines: In contrast to Rabbinic parables with a similar theme, this parable stresses God's unmerited grace, rather than any