In this essay I suggest that the attitudes to Jewish law and the conflicting interpretations reflected by the early Jesus tradition are best understood within a landscape of change, in which the character of torah as instruction, guidance, and description gradually morphed into a more prescriptive and judicial nomos. Although the tensions described in the sources usually concern Jesus and the Pharisees, a comparison with the legal interpretation in some of the texts from Qumran sheds light on the principled differences between the early Jesus movement’s understanding of the law’s character and function and that of its opponents. It is suggested that Jesus and his early followers saw no conflict between the Torah’s guidance and its pragmatic application, but objected to some interpretations associated with its transformation.