At the time of Jesus, the Holy Land was ruled by the Romans. The Romans did many good things for the country, but they also took a lot of money in taxes. The Jewish people wanted to run their own country: they did not like the Romans.

The Romans let Herod the Great rule over Palestine for them. He was king when Jesus was born. When he died, the country was split between his three sons: Herod Archelaus, Philip, and Herod Antipas. Herod Archelaus was so bad, that the Romans got rid of him and put Pontius Pilate in his place, to be procurator (governor).

One group of Jews, the Herodians, thought that the family of Herod was the best hope for the Jewish people.

The Romans employed Tax Collectors to collect money from the people they ruled. The Jews hated Tax Collectors, firstly because they took their money, secondly because they cheated, and thirdly because they helped the Romans.

Zealots were Jews who thought the best thing to do was to get rid of the Romans by fighting against them. They caused a lot of trouble. In some ways, they were like terrorists.

Samaritans were a group of people who lived in part of Palestine called Samaria. They were very like the Jews in many ways, but the Jews hated them and they hated the Jews.

Scribes, sometimes called ‘teachers of the law’ were people who had studied the Jewish law and tried to teach how God’s law should be kept. They were experts.

Sadducees were wealthy, upper-class Jewish people who ran the Temple and the Jewish religion. The believed in the Law of Moses, but they did not believe in other teachings, as the Pharisees did. For instance, the Sadducees did not believe in Resurrection.

The Pharisees were a group of scribes who tried to make the Jewish law easier for people to keep. However, they often made it even more complicated because they added on more and more rules.

The Essenes are not mentioned in the New Testament, but we know about them from the Dead Sea Scrolls. They were a religious group who lived together by the Dead Sea.