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Religious Groups

The Ecole Initiative: Sadducees

No materials survive from the Sadducees themselves. Our only sources are the Christian Bible (New Testament), Josephus (BJ 2.119, 164--66; Ant 13.171--73, 293--98; 18.11; 16--17; 20.199; Vit. 10--11) and scattered rabbinic texts of varying value. These are all to a greater or lesser extent hostile. It is therefore impossible to derive a balanced vi...

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Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes

Examination of Their Distinctive Doctrines. Apart from the repulsively carnal form which it had taken, there is something absolutely sublime in the continuance and intensity of the Jewish expectation of the Messiah. It outlived not only the delay of long centuries, but the persecutions and scattering of the people; it continued under the disappoint...

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Catholic Encyclopedia: Essenes

One of three leading Jewish sects mentioned by Josephus as flourishing in the second century B.C., the others being the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Concerning their origin, history, and tenets there has been much inconclusive controversy. The only ancient authorities we have are a few paragraphs in Philo Judeaeus, a somewhat lengthier description ...

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The Qumran Community and the Essene Sect

By Cleve A. Johnson. Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 scholars have spent years studying them and the nearby ruins of Qumran. It has been assumed by most scholars that the community of Qumran was an Essene group and that they were responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls. In the past several years much debate has arisen concerning wh...

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Religious Groups: The Silent Centuries

Religious Groups of the Intertestamental Period by Al Maxey Judaism was certainly no exception to the human tendency toward sectarianism. The various sects or factions within the Jewish religion all considered themselves to be good, honorable, godly people, and to be devoted followers of Divine Law. However, their beliefs and practices were often q...

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Zealots

Jewish religious-political faction of Judah, existing for a period of about 70 years or possible more, in the 1st century CE. The Zealots achieved fairly little, except to trigger heavy Roman control over the Jews and the closing off of Jerusalem to Jews. But they were the main actors in one of the central legends in Jewish history: the defence of ...

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Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes

By Mitchell G. Bard. Of the various factions that emerged under Hasmonean rule, three are of particular interest: the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes....

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Jewish Encyclopedia: Pharisees

Party representing the religious views, practises, and hopes of the kernel of the Jewish people in the time of the Second Temple and in opposition to the priestly Sadducees. They were accordingly scrupulous observers of the Law as interpreted by the Soferim, or Scribes, in accordance with tradition. No true estimate of the character of the Pharisee...

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The Ecole Initiative: Pharisees

The nature and status of all of the various religious groups which arose after the fall of Judah (eg Pharisees, Sadducees, Boethusians, Essenes, Zealots, Samaritans; there were probably many others) are shrouded in obscurity. Although we have writings which are arguably sectarian in outlook, we have few contemporary descriptions of the varieties of...

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