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traditions, even as those in power choose the issues. By the time of the centuries preceding the birth of Jesus, the Jewish people were splintered into many factions and lived in geographically isolated groups. There was no central political leadership within Judaism after the Babylonian Captivity of 586 B.C.E. The land was occupied by a series of foreign powers, and the influences of multiple religious beliefs and practices led to divisions along lines of traditions ranging from magical superstition to legalistic obedience.
As we move closer to the time that Jesus was born to a Jewish family in Israel, we see an increasing prevalence among the common people to participate in practices of black magic and witchcraft, and to be influenced by false teachers and their false doctrines about sacrifices and strict laws of purification. Corrupt living and immorality became the norm among some of the Jewish sects.
During this time, paradoxically, there also emerged other Jewish groups which emphasized extreme moral codes and almost obsessive outward conformity to the avoidance of any sign of sin. In the more legalistic sects, the Sabbath' was considered so holy that anyone who did any work on that day, even collecting wood for fuel, could be sentenced to death. In other sects of the
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