Q: What were the principal sects of Judaism at the time of Christ?
Q: What were the principal sects of Judaism at the time of Christ?
A: In Jesus' day, the two most powerful sects (like denominations) in Judaism were the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sadducee sect died out after Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, so most of what we have known as Judaism ever since is derived from what the Pharisees believed..
One of the major differences between the two groups was that the Pharisees believed that people would be raised from the dead on Judgment Day, and the Sadducees did not. (Some people say that is why they were "Sad-you-see") See Acts 23:8.
The Pharisees
also believed that besides the written law of Moses (the Torah), there was
an “Oral Law” which expounded upon and explained the regulations
of the Torah. This tradition
they believed to have been “given to Moses at Sinai” along with
the written law, and was therefore believed to be equally important and
binding. This idea has survived into modern Judaism,
although it is taken much less literally by Reform Judaism.
You might
be able to find more information in Encyclopedias and books on Jewish History.
(Try the Encyclopedia Judaica, for example, or the Oxford
Dictionary of the Jewish Religion). Christian Bible Dictionaries might
also prove useful. On the Internet, you might try www.biblestudytools.net.
The Hebrew
name for Pharisees is Perushim, if you want to try that in a search.
David Brown
AMF International
http://www.amfi.org