What was the Jewish culture at the time of Jesus?

Answer 1

Josephus speaks of three groups: the Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes.

The Jewish group that concentrated on the study, teaching and application of the Torah was and is the Torah-sages and their many disciples, from Abraham down to today.

The word "Pharisees," which is based on a Greek misspelling, doesn't convey the meaning which it should. It actually refers to the Sages of the Talmud. (The Hebrew word "p'rushim," to which he referred, means people of temperance; the opposite of epicurean.)

Josephus' referring to Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes may convey the mistaken impression that the Pharisees were just one "sect" among others, when in fact Josephus himself admits that the Pharisees (Torah-sages) with their disciples constituted the large majority of the Jewish people.

The Pharisees were very egalitarian. They believed that all men were created in God's image and that all had the same rights, and the same right to an education, etc. They were devoted to the practicing of kindness, the fulfillment of mitzvot, the study and teaching of Torah and the education of all people, regardless of status in society. They detested hypocrisy and actively sought it out and criticized it whenever they encountered it. The Pharisees were the only movement to survive the destruction of the Second Temple and were the ancestors of modern Judaism.

Our traditional Jewish beliefs today, including the afterlife and the resurrection, are traditions continuing from the Prophets and the Sages of the Talmud ("Pharisees").

The Sadducees were men of politics and secular life. They had abandoned various parts of Judaism; and they claimed no earlier source (tradition) for their attitudes. They harassed the Torah-sages; and, like the miniscule breakaway group called the Essenes, disappeared at the time of the Second Destruction, just as the earlier Jewish idolaters had disappeared at the time of the First Destruction.

Note that there is a common conception that the Sadducees, like the later (and now largely defunct) Karaites, made a deliberate decision to reject the Oral Law and reinterpret the Scriptures.

However, a careful perusal of the Talmud reveals that the Sadducees were actually opportunists who had nothing much at all to do with religion in any fashion. They were lax in Judaism; they were men of politics who weren't interested in Torah-matters.

The group that did (on rare occasions) argue with the Torah-Sages concerning subjects of religious observance, were a tiny sect called the Baitusim (Boethusians), who quickly died out.

The Essenes were a small sect in Judea who eventually went extinct. They styled themselves "observant; pious ones." The normative, majority religious community viewed them as breakaways from the common stream of Jewish tradition, because of their beliefs and practices. Their beliefs included an excessive amount of dabbling with the names of angels, messianic fervor, gnosticism and eschatological speculation; and their practices were more like Christian monasticism than the generally accepted Jewish way of living. The practices of the Essenes included vegetarianism, dwelling in isolated groups, communal ownership, monastic asceticism and avoidance of money, commerce or private property, and (among some of them) celibacy. Also, they had some forms of non-traditional observances (such as round phylacteries [tefillin]). Some researchers identify the Essenes as a form of early Christianity, taking also into account the fact that early Christianity was far from uniform and was, for a time, thought of as a kind of modified Judaism.

Social classes:

The more wealthy could typically include those close to the king. Middle income could include tradespeople, merchants and artisans; and the least income would be that of unskilled laborers. However, in Israelite society, the Torah and Prophets put so much emphasis on social justice that the people tended to avoid the practice of neglecting the poor or judging people by their financial status. There were twenty-four types of tithe-"taxes" given to the Kohanim; a full ten percent of produce was given to the Levites; and ten percent was given to the poor. The result of all this was that the gap between the wealthy and the rest of the people was much less than in other nations.
As regards Torah-scholarship, anyone could become a great Sage; and in the study-halls, scholars of great wealth and of no wealth sat side by side and learned together.
But there were some individuals, men with positions of power, who misused that power. As was the case concerning the avoidance of idolatry, not everyone heeded the prophets.
Specifically, the monarchy and its hangers-on, and the judges and people holding public office, included a minority that took advantage of those who had no such power.