Acts of Apostles in the Early Church 

The decades after Jesus' death saw the political situation in Palestine continue to become more complicated and strained. In the early 40s direct Roman rule was suspended and a Jewish king, Agrippa I, ruled rather as Herod had. But after his death in AD 44, direct Roman rule returned and a series of heavy-handed officials led to rising tensions among the Palestinian Jews.

There had, perhaps, been revolutionary Jewish groups in Jesus' day. While there was anti-Roman sentiment in Palestine, actual groups dedicated to the overthrow of Roman rule seem to have been limited. But in the 40s more groups like this did emerge, who were opposed to Roman rule and hoped to see it overthrown.

In AD 66 resistance groups broke out into open revolt against Rome. They ransacked the countryside, invaded Jerusalem, and defeated the small garrison there. The legate of Syria invaded, but his men were routed at the battle of Beth Horon and an entire legion was destroyed. Jerusalem was firmly in the hands of the rebels, known as the Zealots.

However, the Zealots seem to have been not a single group but a number of different organizations, who shared the goal of removing the Romans but could agree on little else.

With the Romans ousted, the Zealots fell out with one another, and there was a protracted period of struggle for dominance among the Zealot gdroups and other Jewish groups in the city.

Meanwhile,  the emperor Nero was preparing a counter-attack. Under the leadership of general Vespasian, Roman forces invaded Galilee and besieged it. At this point Vespasian became emperor of Rome, and his son, Titus, was put in charge of quelling the rebellion.

Thousands of people sought refuge in the precincts of the Temple as the legions entered Jerusalem, perhaps believing that God would never allow it to be destroyed. They were wrong: Titus razed the city to the ground. The Temple was destroyed and its treasures plundered, to be exhibited in Titus' triumphal procession in Rome.

The destruction of Jerusalem, and the great Temple, was a shattering blow to Judaism in Palestine and beyond. After AD 70, many Jews referred to Rome as "Babylon", because the Romans had destroyed Herod's Temple just as the Babylonians had destroyed Solomon's six centuries earlier.

Some Jewish groups seem to have ceased to exist. The Sicari, for example, retreated to the great natural citadel of Masada, where in one of the most famous incidents of the war they were besiged by the Romans and defeated in AD 73. The historian Josephus tells us they all committed suicide rather than submit -- although there is some disagreement among modern historians whether it really happended like this.

The community at Qumran -- apparently associated with the Essenes -- was also destroyed. The Essene movement disappeared after the war, as did the Sadducees. The priests also dwindled rapidly. With no Temple, there was nothing for them to do.

One group that did not diminish, however, was the Pharisees. They seem to have grown in influence within Judasim in the years after AD 70. This was largely because of the work of Johanan ben Zakkai, a scholar who escaped the seige of Jerusalem and obtained Vespasian's permission to open a school in Jamnia, a small town in Palestine on the Mediterranean coast.

One of the features of this school was the Great Bet Din, or "house of judgment," which functioned in some ways as a new Great Sanheddrin, or supreme religous court. It replaced the old priestly one that had met at the Temple.

The Great Bet Din is normally considered the beginning of "rabbinic" Judaism, so called because its scholars became known by the title "rabbi" (a name that had not been used in the times of the Temple).

Rabbinic Judasim, with its emphasis upon the study and practice of the Torah, and its learned scholars, did not instantly displace all other kinds of Judasim. The Great Bet Din did not have any official authority, at least not in the time of ben Zakkai. Judaism remained diverse, but rabbinic Judasim gradually spread and became the dominant kind: indded, it was, in effect, the ancestor of modern Judaism.

The rabbis worte down the oral traditions of the scholars and teachers who had preceded them, forming the Mishnah, the major source for our knowledge of Judaism in the first century AD and earlier. The Mishnah would later form part of the Talmud, together with commentaries upon it, known as the Gemarch

(Source: "Christianity: How a tiny sect from a despised regligion came to dominate the Roman Empire," by Jonathan Hill)