Theos-Talk Archives (March 2004 Message tt00347)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl@s...> wrote:
> stevestubbs wrote:
> > As for the Talmud, the oldest portions of that document were not 
> > written until after Titus destroyed the Temple, which was almost 
> > forty years after the Crucifixion.
> 
> What about the Babylonian Talmud?

Later than JC. The destruction of the Temple was the impetus for the 
end of the sect of Sadducees, who owned and operated the Temple, and 
the rise to total dominance of the Pharisees, who wrote down their 
traditions in the Talmud. Without a Temple the Pharisees had to 
essentially reinvent Judaism. The Pharisees are the ancestors of 
present day rabbinic Judaism and the Essenes are the ancestors of 
present day Christianity, The Sadducees and smaller sects are gone. 
The MISHNAH contains the oldest Talmudic tractates.