A couple centuries before the coming of Christ, a religious ruling class known as the Sadducees were responsible for the priestly maintenance of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Sadducees emerged out of the Maccabean revolt and took their name from Zadok, who was the father of the legitimate line of priests. The Sadducees were composed largely of the upper class. They adhered to a strict literal interpretation of the Torah and denied the belief in the resurrection of the dead, and also denied the existence of angels and demons. Adding to the power of this religious sect, the Sadducees were also in charge of a type of Jewish Supreme Court known as the Sanhedrin.
The Sanhedrin is mentioned in the New Testament several times, most notably in the Gospels where the trial of Jesus is concerned. During the Second Temple period, the Sanhedrin met in a hall in the temple of Jerusalem. The court convened every day excluding feast days and the Sabbath. After the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD the Sanhedrin was reestablished in Yavneh, a city on the central coastline of Judaea. However, the Sanhedrin had less authority now, for with the destruction of the Temple the Sadducees lost power. And though the Sadducees where the dominant players in the Sanhedrin, another Jewish body was also a part of the assembly. This additional religious sect were know as the Pharisees.
The name Pharisee is derived from the ancient Greek word Pharisaios, meaning “set apart, or separated.” The Pharisees were a group of devout religious Jews who believed in complete domination of the Law of Moses. They were also early supporters of the Maccabees, but later rejected the Hasmoneans when the king became the high priest. Though both the Sadducees and the Pharisees shared a common heritage they differed on both religious and political matters. The Pharisees regarded the oral tradition to be just as valuable as the written law, but the Sadducees on the other hand did not accept the oral tradition. The Sadducees were also pro-Hellenization, whereas the Pharisees were anti-Hellenization. The Pharisees also believed in the resurrection of the dead and the existence of angels and demons. The Pharisees would go on to write down the oral law in what would become the Talmud, and the Pharisees themselves becoming the foundation of Rabbinic Judaism.
Another Jewish religious sect that emerged around the same time as the Sadducees and the Pharisees, where a monastic like community known as the Essenes. The Essenes completely removed themselves from society, and built a settlement called Qumran in a remote area near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. As part of preparing themselves for the coming of the Messiah, they took vows of poverty and practiced asceticism. They considered themselves to be the righteous remnant which God would use to build a new kingdom on earth: The Kingdom of Heaven. It is also believed that the Essenes wrote the extensive library of religious documents known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.
After the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the only religious sects that survived were the Pharisees and the followers of Jesus: the Christians. In the early days some Pharisees became Christians themselves, take the Apostle Paul for example. In modern times the Hasidic Jews are arguably the closest thing to the ancient Jewish sect of the Pharisees. And even though the Second Temple was destroyed two-thousand years ago, the belief that a third Temple will be built sometime in the future still occupies a large tenet of Jewish faith even to the present day.