Jesus in the Talmud
In the first few centuries CE, there were many sects of Judaism (such as Pharisees, Essenes, and Sadducees) each claiming to be the correct faith. Some scholars treat Christianity, during that era, referred to as Early Christianity, as simply one of many sects of Judaism. Some sects wrote polemics advocating their position, and occasionally disparaging rival sects. Some scholars view the depictions of Jesus in the Talmud as a manifestation of those inter-sect rivalries – thus the depictions can be read as polemics by the rabbinic authors of the Talmud which indirectly criticized the rival sect (Christianity), which was growing and becoming more dominant.
Hasideans
Scholars have until recently started with the assumption that Hellenism "took root only in the upper classes of society, the main body of the [Jewish] nation being wholly untouched by it" and distinguished between the pious, law-abiding majority of the people and the Hasideans as a society of "extra-pious" Jews. However, the sources mentioned do not justify such a view. The συναγωγ σιδαίων of the books of the Maccabees, upon which so much emphasis is laid, corresponds, as has already long been known, to the קהל חסידים of the Psalms, which means neither "sect" nor "society", but only "congregation", with no idea of party. The piety attributed to Ḥasidim in the Talmudic sources is not in any way suggestive of a sect (Lehmann, in "R. E. J." xxx. 182 et seq.). The supposition that they were a sect closely associated with the scribes, and related to them, rests only on the fact that the two classes are mentioned together in I Macc. vii. 12, 13; the genuineness of verse 13, however, has been questioned by Hitzig ("Gesch. des Volkes Israel," p. 417).