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 assassin some of the fellows of the Jesus Seminar, "the story line of the parable originally had to do with Davidic reversal, as in David and Goliath: the little guy bests the big guy by taking the precautions a prudent person would take before encountering the village bully". A similar message can be found in the parable of the strong man. Parable of the assassin The Parable of the Assassin (also known as the Parable of the Killer), is a parable attributed to Jesus. However, it appears in none of the Canonical gospels of the New Testament but only in the