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COMPARISON TO CONTEMPORARY JUDAISM
Pharisees = Religious Legalists/Orthodox: Similar to modern religious conservatives who strictly follow religious law, prioritize tradition and piety, and advocate for religious distinctiveness.
Sadducees = Liberal Elites/Religious Modernists: Comparable to wealthy elites or moderate/liberal religious leaders who prioritize political compromise, maintain established institutions, and may prioritize tangible, earthly benefits over afterlife doctrines.
Essenes = Monastic/Subculture Communities: Akin to modern monastic orders, isolationist groups, or Amish-like communities who withdraw from mainstream culture to create a "purer" community.
Zealots = Radical Activists/Religious Extremists: Equivalent to political extremists, religious radicals, or militant activists who believe that violent or extreme disruption is necessary to change society or fulfill a religious mandate.
AFTER HADRIAN- Most Sadducees and Zealots became Christian
There were Jewish Gnostic groups like the Sethians who thought that Jesus was Melchizedek reincarnated.
Zoroastrian Christians who thought that Jesus was a new manifestation of the Heavenly Light like Zoroaster had been.
Early Christians connected Jewish practices with a new way to structure groups as opposed to your family group/tribe and marriage arrangements.
The Sadducees were likely named after and comprised of the "Sons of Zadok" (Tzadokim), the elite, aristocratic priestly family tracing their lineage to Zadok, the High Priest under David and Solomon. As heirs to this priesthood, they controlled the Second Temple and aligned with the biblical mandate in Ezekiel, which favored them as the legitimate ministers. They clung to the written Torah (as upheld by the traditional priesthood) and rejected the expanding oral traditions championed by the Pharisees.
Historical Shift: While the Zadokites held hereditary power, the Sadducean party likely solidified around this identity during the Second Temple period to counter Pharisaic influence
Edomite Presence in the Area: Some studies of the Negev and the surrounding areas of the Dead Sea suggest a presence of forts or settlement activity that correlates with the migration of Edomites into the area during the early historical periods
The Idumaeans (Edomites) were forcibly to stop practicing practices where women were goddesses and their role centered not just on fertility but healing and protection using natural "alchemy".
Yohhanan Horkanos in one of the only known events If mass conversion or forced conversion in Jewish history. Herod was, indeed, descended on his father’s side from Idumaean converts.
When talking of the Pharisees, however, this is not relevant. The Pharisees were not Idumaean and Jews of Idumaean ancestry simply blended into Jewish society in general, joining whatever sect appealed to them. Most stayed in the Negev desert and continued to live as they always had, as nomadic pastoralists who took little interest in Jerusalemite politics."
Online comment on IF Jews are Edomites-
"The Edomites were conquered and forcibly converted by the Hasmonean kings, a couple of generations before Herod was born. He was ‘ancestrally’ an Edomite, but religiously (and by identity) a Jew, and - specifically - the King of the Jews (the King of Judea), backed up by the might of the Roman empire. His power base was Rome, and the SADDUCEEAN ‘philosophy’ or party - the priests and the rich, urban elite supporting the status quo and willing to work with Rome.
Pharisees, on the other hand, were part of a kind of populist, grass roots movement, mostly rural, mostly poor to moderately well off - a few rich men aligned with the movement, but not many. They were mostly hostile to Rome and Roman power, had different ideas about Judaism than the Sadducees, and were mainly centered in Galilee and the countryside AROUND Jerusalem, but outside of Samaria (which was the hill country to the north of Jerusalem).
The Pharisaic movement was somewhat apocalyptic, expecting the advent of the promised messiah (king of the Jews) any day - and that particular belief immediately set them as mortal ENEMIES of Herod, who was in no way a descendant of the famous king and founder of the Kingdom of Judea, David.
So, no. You have the wrong end completely. Herod was never EVER going to be a Pharisee, the Pharisees did NOT approve of Herod and wanted to see him deposed (or dead), and the ethnic Edomites were generally not involved with the Pharisaic party, either, since their biggest personage was Herod the Great."
John the Baptist's ministry was a direct confrontation with the political and religious control of the Herodian dynasty. Herodians often criticized by Jews as "half-Jews" or Edomites (descendants of Esau).
The entire "Edomite-descended" rule over Judea was a backdrop to John's radical message, representing the decay that he and others sought to change.
Indirect Cultural Assimilation: By the time of John, Idumeans were already incorporated into the Jewish nation and "blended into Jewish society in general" or keeping a more nomadic life with religious beliefs combining Jewish with older nature figures around fertility.
Idumean Jews in the crowd listening to John would have been part of the general Jewish audience he was urging to repentance from old "pagan" rituals and practices seen as unpure.
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