The Jewish Sects in Judaea (The Holy Land) in the First Century AD (Excerpt from the book "UNBROKEN II: From Alexander the Great and Hellenization to the Hasmoneans, Herod the Great, and the Romans in the Holy Land")

Map of Judaea (A Roman Province from 6-132 AD

...It was during those years of early Hasmonean dominance that Jewish sectarianism became highly magnified, with the three dominant Jewish sects being:

·       the Sadducees who got their name from Zadok and came mostly from the upper echelons of  Judean society; their leaders were required to be Kohanim (Kohen or Cohen — a family of priests descended from Zadok, otherwise called "Sons of Zadok"), meaning that they had to be of direct patrilineal descent from the Aaron, the brother of Moses, through Aaron’s son Eleazar, which inadvertently placed them with the Tribe of Levi. Most of the Sadducees were not opposed to Hellenization,  favored paying much emphasis to the Temple with its rites and services, and recognized only the Written Torah. They would become irrelevant, if not extinct, after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD (CE). Many historians see a direct connection between the practices of the modern Karaite Jews and the Sadducees

·       the Pharisees who, like the Essenes, were initially Hasideans (a group that formed the backbone of the Jewish rebellion against the Seleucids, ardently opposed Hellenization, and placed much importance to other Mosaic Laws. Like the Sadducees, they also recognized the Written Torah, however, unlike them they accepted the roles of the Prophets, other Jewish doctrines such as the Oral Torah and the resurrection of the dead, as well as the writings of their sages. The beliefs of the Pharisees would survive the destruction of the Second Temple and become the foundation, liturgy, and ritual upon which modern Rabbinic Judaism is built. Their traditionalism, expertism and leadership in the accurate exposition of Jewish Law earned them the respect of most religious Jews. They were more of the Middle class.

·       the third on the list were the Essenes who became a distinct group after Jonathan Apphus was made the High Priest, based on their conviction that his priesthood was illegitimate. They also saw themselves as the genuine upholders of the true covenant with God, based their interpretation of the Torah on that of their early leader known as the “Teacher of Righteousness” whom many of the people thought was a legitimate High Priest (suggesting their secession from the Zadokite priests). Their conservative approach to Jewish law, belief in communality, commitment to celibacy for the priestly class, as well as their altruism, and nonmaterialistic life explain their divorce from political life. A set of ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period called the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered at the Qumran Caves in the Judaean Desert in the West Bank between 1946 and 1956, and proved to be a library of the Essenes, highlighting further the influence this Jewish group had on Early Christianity and other religious traditions.

 And a group that Onias IV, the heir of the Zadokite line of High Priests, and the son of Onias III began. Onias IV made Ptolemaic Egypt his new sanctuary,  built a new Jewish temple in the city of Leontopolis, reigned there as a rival High Priest to the one in Jerusalem, and commanded a huge following in Egypt, especially in the heavily Jewish-populated area of the Nile Delta stretching between Memphis and Pelusium, and including Leontopolis. This area was called  “Land of Onias” in his honor. This group did not gain the position of dignity and importance its founder had anticipated and suffered the same fate as the Sadducees in the aftermath of the First Jewish-Roman War when the Roman ruler Vespasian ordered the closure of the Temple of Onias in 73 AD. 

UNBROKEN II: From Alexander the Great and Hellenization to the Hasmoneans, Herod the Great, and the Romans in the Holy Land (Victims to Victims Book 2)

Book 1 of 2: Victims to Victims