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Follow Jewish TimesWhat Are Pharisees?
Before the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jewish people were divided into three major sects; the Essenes, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. However, when the Temple was demolished by the Romans in 70 C.E., only the Pharisees lasted.
The Pharisees offered teachings to replace Temple worship, which included ritual practices as well as mannerisms for leading a good and proper life. (Rabbi Yohannan ben Zakkai, for example, explained one could be atoned even without the Temple via deeds of loving kindness.)
At first, when the Temple was destroyed Jews believed that — as with after the destruction of the First Temple — the sacred structure would be rebuilt in their lifetime. Three generations later, they were questioning this.
The Pharisees offered answers for how to live in a post-Temple world and for how to engage with the sacred in their daily lives. Likewise, the Pharisees had a commitment to scholarly debate. Their responses and their inclination for argument for the sake of Torah would eventually constitute Rabbinic Judaism. (The rabbis of the Amoraic period, for example, completed redacting the Jerusalem Talmud circa 400 C.E. and the Babylonia one circa 500 C.E.)
Rabbinic Judaism ultimately emerged as normative Judaism. In fact, today what most people simply call “Judaism” is Rabbinic Judaism.