Judaism
Around the 1st century CE, there were several small Jewish sects: the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes, and Christians. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, these sects vanished. Christianity survived, but by breaking with Judaism and becoming a separate religion; the Pharisees survived but in the form of Rabbinic Judaism (today, known simply as "Judaism"). The Sadducees rejected the divine inspiration of the Prophets and the Writings, relying only on the Torah as divinely inspired. Consequently, a number of other core tenets of the Pharisees' belief system (which became the basis for modern Judaism), were also dismissed by the Sadducees. (The Samaritans practiced a similar religion, which is traditionally considered separate from Judaism.)
Heresy in Orthodox Judaism
The Greek term ἁίρεσις originally denoted "division," "sect," "religious" or "philosophical party," and is applied by Josephus to the three Jewish sects: Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes. The specific rabbinical term for heresies, or religious divisions due to an illegitimate spirit, is מינים ("minim") (lit. "kinds [of belief]"; the singular מין ("min") (literally, "a kind") for heretic or Gnostic is coined idiomatically, like "goy" and "`Am ha-aretz"). An alternative term, אפיקורוס (Apiqoros/Apikoros), which may have a different status, and is often used for apostates who turned towards agnosticism or atheism, is derived from Epicurus and the philosophy of Epicureanism.