The Jews differed from other people in the ancient world because they believed that there was only one God. Like other people, they worshipped their God with animal sacrifices offered at a temple, but, unlike others, they had only one temple, which was in Jerusalem.
An important part of Jewish Scripture was the Torah, or Pentateuch, comprising five books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) that were believed to have been given to Moses by God, i.e. Mosaic Law. For Jews and their spiritual descendants, those books contain God’s law, which covers many aspects of ordinary life: it requires that males be circumcised, regulates diet, mandates days of rest for humans and animals alike (Sabbaths and festival days), requires pilgrimage and sacrifice, stipulates recompense and atonement following transgression, and specifies impurities and required purification before entry to the Temple.
Mosaic Law, also provides both rules and principles for the treatment of other people: for example, calling for the use of honest weights and measures in trade and for “love” (that is, upright treatment, hospitality) of both fellow Jews and foreigners (Leviticus 19).
The laws governing worship (sacrifice, purification, admission to the Temple, and the like) were similar to the religious laws of other people in the ancient world. Judaism was different because in most other cultures divine law covered only such topics, but in Judaism it regulated not only worship but also daily life and made every aspect of life a matter of divine concern.
In the Gospels we read of two predominant religious parties that differed from each other in several ways: the Pharisees (numbering about 6,000 at the time of Herod), and Sadducees (“a few men,” according to Flavius Josephus, in The Antiquities of the Jews 18.17).
The Pharisees, while largely a lay group with cultish overtures, had the reputation of being the most-precise interpreters of the law. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead—unlike the Sadducees—and they also relied on the nonbiblical “traditions of the fathers,” some of which made the law stricter while others relaxed it.
Many aristocratic priests, as well as some prominent laymen, were Sadducees. They rejected the Pharisaic “traditions of the fathers” and maintained some old-fashioned theological opinions. Most famously, they denied resurrection, (see Mark 12:18, Luke 20:27, and Acts 23:8).[1]
These “traditions of the fathers” some of which made the law stricter while others relaxed it, were often criticized by Jesus, as the laws that were often more strictly enforced by the Pharisees were inconsequential for the most part rendering the emphasis placed on them as being ridiculous; while the laws they had relaxed had been given to them by God for a good reason. Jesus was quick offer critical examination of the fallacies and failures of their interpretation and application—or lack thereof—regarding these laws.
Some contemporary scholars suggest that the Sadducees had more control over the Temple administration, while the Pharisees controlled adherence to and practice of Mosaic Law. Their position in the cultural hierarchy—of the day—gave the Pharisees a great deal of opportunity as well as privilege that they jealously guarded. As previously mentioned the nature of the Mosaic Law, which governed almost every aspect of daily life, afforded its guardians—the Pharisees—immense control over the people.
Jesus offered a religious system that was counter-cultural, it offered the people a more direct connection with God than was available through the prevailing systems of the day, which were controlled by groups such as the Sadduccees and Pharisees within Judaism and similar structures in the Pagan systems of the day. This made a Jesus a target of these Jewish groups setting the stage for his eventual arrest and crucifixion.
[1] Source: Britanica.com
The Way Of The Lord 