Reply #33: The Torah was written in Hebrew

[Meshuga]

And it was written throughout a few centuries and finalized in the 7th century BCE. Way before the time of Jesus. The Pharisaic Judaism is the one that survived after the fall of the temple and was established as what we know today as Rabbinic Judaism.

Paul was a Torah observant Jew of the sect of the Pharisees. "...I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee..." (Acts 23:6).

The Seduccees were the priestly class of the temple who rejected the Oral Law. Their interpretation of the Written Law was literal so, for example, they did not believe in an afterlife, since it is not mentioned in the Torah. The main focus of Sadducee life was rituals associated with the Temple.

Since their religion was based on the rituals at the temple they obviously disappeared around 70 CE after the destruction of the Temple.

The pharisees were not Bible literalists and the written Torah (the first five books of moses) was as important as the Oral Torah (hence the name "twofold law").

The Oral tradition was eventually written down as the Mishnah, Gemara, Midrash which forms the Talmud.

In a nutshell the Torah was written by different groups at different times (J,E, D, and P). The Torah was finalized by the Aronides priests (who eventually became the sedducees) in order to phase out the competing prophet class (around 7th century BCE). In the second century BCE the pharisees, in order to come to power, introduced the twofold law but still kept the Aronides priests in charge of the religious rites at the Temple. With the destruction of the temple the sedducees were no more.

On edit: what Jews today call Torah is the combination of the written Torah (the Five books of Moses) and the Oral Torah (the Talmud).