I will be adding to this throughout the year, but this is to get us between the Old and New Testament.
Intertestamental Period
Kent Brown and Richard Hozapfel wrote the book on the approximately 500 years between the end of Malachi and the beginning of the New Testament, and it is excerpted in an Ensign article from December 2014 which you can find here Between the Testaments.
Here is some information on the groups of people who were inhabiting Jerusalem and its environs during Christ's time (taken from the New Testament Teacher Resource Manual):
Scribes
"Scribes originally were educated men who made their livelihood as record keepers and as copyists of the scriptures. These they studied diligently, both to understand their meaning and to detect scribal errors. The scribes supplied copies of the scriptures to the growing number of synagogues and also became teachers of the law. While Israel had prophets, the scribes remained copyists and teachers. But when the prophetic voice ceased in Israel, these experts in the law of Moses began to fill the vacuum.
Ezra, one such scribe, brought back part of the exiles from captivity and taught Israel “statutes and judgments” (Ezra 7:10; see also Nehemiah 8:9–12). Along with Nehemiah he took steps to teach, not just the priests and Levites, but all the people in the Mosaic law. This new emphasis on the open reading of the scriptures came to be one of the most distinguishing features of Jewish national life.
A major factor contributing to the rising power of the scribes was the shift of the common language of the people from Hebrew to Aramaic. Though sister tongues, the languages were different enough that Jews who spoke only Aramaic had trouble understanding the scriptures. So the people had to rely on the scholars to interpret and explain them. It should not be surprising that there was no unity of interpretation among these scholars, nor that they worked to bring others to their different viewpoints."
Pharisees and Sadducees
"During the second century B.C., two important Jewish groups emerged: the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees promoted the observance of Jewish rituals and the study of the Torah (the five books of Moses). Some of them took vows to separate themselves from the impurities of the Hellenistic influences that had crept into Jewish life and to strictly follow their interpretation of the law. They not only maintained the validity of the Torah as the source of their religion, but they enlarged on this background, trying to adapt old codes to new conditions. This interpretation became known as the oral law, since for the most part it was memorized and passed on by word of mouth. The Pharisees believed in a combination of free will and predestination, in the Resurrection, and in a judgment resulting in reward or punishment in the life to come.
The Pharisees were dedicated to the preservation of the Mosaic code. To counteract the Greek influences, they turned to strict obedience to the law. Because of their attempts to keep themselves separate from the worldly taint of false ideas, they were called Perushim, a Hebrew word meaning “separated ones.” The name Pharisees comes from the Greek transliteration of Perushim. In a time of growing alarm over the abandonment of the traditional values of Judaism, the Pharisees increased in popularity until they came to represent the religious views of the majority of the Jewish people.
While the Pharisees were primarily from the common people, the Sadducees were from the upper level of society: priests, merchants, and aristocrats. The name of the sect (Zedukim in Hebrew) is probably derived from Zadok, the high priest in the days of King David. Ezekiel entrusted Zadok’s family with control of the temple (see Ezekiel 40:46; 43:19; 44:10–15), and the descendants of this family controlled the temple hierarchy until about 200 B.C.The name Sadducees may have referred to those who were sympathetic with the Zadokites.
The Sadducees, on the whole, were conservative. Unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees rejected the oral law as binding except for that part based on the Torah. They placed emphasis on the sacrifices in the temple and rejected a belief in angels and the Resurrection. The Sadducees generally represented the wealthy class that accepted Greek culture; thus, the Sadducees were not popular with the majority of the people."
Hasmoneans and Maccabees
"The efforts of Antiochus to stamp out Judaism became more and more brutal. Instead of obediently submitting, the Jews stiffened their resistance, and hatred for Antiochus and his Greek soldiers spread. In 167 B.C., in the small village of Modin, Syrian soldiers gathered the people and demanded that Mattathias, an old priest, offer a sacrifice to the pagan god. Even though threatened with death, Mattathias refused. Another priest stepped forward and agreed to do as the soldier demanded. As this weaker priest lifted the knife, an enraged Mattathias grabbed a sword and killed both the priest and the Syrian officer. Mattathias and his five sons then fled to the hills and called on all of Judah to join them (see 1 Maccabees 2:1–30). The revolt had begun. It raged through the land, gathering support on every side as the Jews turned on the hated Syrians. By the time Antiochus took the revolt seriously, he faced an entire nation thirsting for freedom.
Since Mattathias was a priest seeking to defend the Mosaic code, the Jews threw their support behind his family, the Hasmoneans. Mattathias died shortly after the revolt began, but his son Judas took over. Judas was a military genius and repeatedly exhorted his vastly outnumbered and poorly equipped troops to have faith in God and the righteousness of their cause. Again and again he devastated enemy forces two to four times the size of his own.
By 165 B.C.the Jews had recaptured Jerusalem, cleansed the temple of its impurities, and rededicated it to the worship of Jehovah. Judea was independent of foreign domination for the first time in over four hundred years. The Hasmonean revolt is more commonly known as the Maccabean revolt because Mattathias’s son was called Judas Maccabees, which means “Judas the Hammerer.” The hard-won victories of Mattathias and his sons were short-lived, however. Very quickly, the descendants of the Hasmoneans forgot that it was the Lord who had delivered them. Like Saul and David and Solomon, the members of the new dynasty were corrupted by the power and glory of the courts of power. The sons and grandsons of the Maccabees degenerated into a mode of politics as usual, and just over a hundred years later, in 63 B.C., Israel was conquered by the Roman general Pompey."
Samaritans
From Talmage, Jesus the Christ: "The inhabitants of Samaria were a mixed people, in whom the blood of Israel was mingled with that of the Assyrians and other nations; and one cause of the animosity existing between them and their neighbors both on the north and the south was the Samaritans’ claim for recognition as Israelites; it was their boast that Jacob was their father; but this the Jews denied. The Samaritans had a version of the Pentateuch, which they revered as the law, but they rejected all the prophetical writings of what is now the Old Testament, because they considered themselves treated with insufficient respect therein.
To the orthodox Jew of the time a Samaritan was more unclean than a Gentile of any other nationality. It is interesting to note the extreme and even absurd restrictions then in force in the matter of regulating unavoidable relations between the two peoples. The testimony of a Samaritan could not be heard before a Jewish tribunal. For a Jew to eat food prepared by a Samaritan was at one time regarded by rabbinical authority as an offense as great as that of eating the flesh of swine. While it was admitted that produce from a field in Samaria was not unclean, inasmuch as it sprang directly from the soil, such produce became unclean if subjected to any treatment at Samaritan hands. Thus, grapes and grain might be purchased from Samaritans, but neither wine nor flour manufactured therefrom by Samaritan labor. On one occasion the epithet “Samaritan” was hurled at Christ as an intended insult. “Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?” (John 8:48). The Samaritan conception of the mission of the expected Messiah was somewhat better founded than was that of the Jews, for the Samaritans gave greater prominence to the spiritual kingdom the Messiah would establish, and were less exclusive in their views as to whom the Messianic blessings would be extended."
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