Jesus, Paul, and 2nd Temple Judaism

Just a reminder -- Jesus and Paul were both reacting to 2nd Temple Judaism. Don't confuse it with today's Rabbinic Judaism. At the time of J and P the Temple in Jerusalem was operational and the focal point for prayer and sacrifice. Jews lived throughout the Roman Empire and outside it too, in the east, and they had synagogues -- places to study and gather together (not quite like today's synagogues). But the grain and livestock offerings were all at the Temple in Jerusalem, which was God's point of contact on earth in the Holy of Holies.

The gospels were most likely (the academic theory states) written after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. So those writers were about the previous form of 2nd Temple Judaism but living with the beginning of Rabbinic Judaism. One reason that Jesus is debating the Pharisees so often is that they are the root of Rabbinic Judaism, the ones survived the destruction of the Temple (the Sadducees and Essenes disappeared). The Pharisees are the main competitors for the early Jewish Christians, and so it's important in the gospels that Jesus respond to their views of following God (YHWH).