philosophies Article Network Analysis of the Interaction between Different Religious and Philosophical Movements in Early Judaism Igor R. Tantlevskij 1 , Ekaterina V. Gromova 2,3 and Dmitry Gromov 2,* 1 Department of Jewish Culture, Saint Peterburg State University, 199034 St. Petersburg, Russia; [email protected] 2 Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Control Processes, St. Petersburg State University, 199034 St. Petersburg, Russia; [email protected] 3 Higher School of Economics, National Research University, St. Petersburg Campus, 190121 St Petersburg, Russia * Correspondence: [email protected] Abstract: This paper presents an attempt to systematically describe and interpret the evolution of different religious and political movements in Judaea during the period of the Second Temple using the methods of the theory of social networks. We extensively analyzed the relationship between the main Jewish sects: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes (Qumranites), and later also Zealots. It is shown that the evolution of the relations between these sects agreed with the theory of social balance and their relations evolved toward more socially balanced structures. Keywords: Judaean sects; social networks; social network analysis; signed graphs; Essenes; Qumran- ites; Sadducees; Pharisees; Zealots 1. Introduction Citation: Tantlevskij, I.R.; Gromova, There has been a lot of interest in understanding and interpreting the evolution of E.V.; Gromov, D. Network Analysis of Judaism during the early stage of Jewish history, in particular during the periods of the the Interaction between Different First and Second Temple. In this contribution, we consider the relations between different Religious and Philosophical schools of Judaism during the period of the Second Temple. It is argued that the evolution Movements in Early Judaism. of the relations between different schools of thought that existed in that time can be better Philosophies 2021, 6, 2. https:// captured and understood using the theory of social networks, in particular the theory of doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6010002 signed social graphs, which has proved to be very efficient in analyzing different historical, political, and social interactions (see Section 4.1 for a detailed introduction to the theory of Received: 15 December 2020 signed networks and its applications). Accepted: 31 December 2020 In this contribution, we consider the following Jewish sects: Pharisees, Sadducees, Published: 8 January 2021 Essenes (Qumranites), and Zealots. Those sects continuously interacted with each other, forming friendly ties, or developing animosity. Identifying the genesis, development, Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neu- interactions, and relationships of Judaean sects in the Hellenistic era and up to the de- tral with regard to jurisdictional clai- ms in published maps and institutio- struction of the Second Temple poses a major challenge. This is due to the fact that their nal affiliations. extant descriptions by their contemporaries are extremely scant and biased and are mostly directed at non-Jews; as for the rabbinic accounts of these Judaean sects, they are recorded about two to five centuries after these sects left the historical scene. Moreover, the Essenes are not mentioned at all either in the New Testament or in the Talmud. The Qumran Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Li- scrolls (2nd century BCE–1st century CE) shed a whole new light on the emergence of censee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. sectarian Judaism. Following most researchers, we identify the Qumran community as This article is an open access article a congregation of the Essene trend (see Section2 for a detailed account on the identifica- distributed under the terms and con- tion of Qumranites and their relation to Essenes). On the other hand, the esoteric nature ditions of the Creative Commons At- of manuscripts from Qumran caves, the use of symbols, pejorative nicknames, ciphers, tribution (CC BY) license (https:// tendentious judgments, and direct language of hostility do not allow us to clearly restore creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ the picture of the emergence, interactions, and relationships of key Jewish sects in the 4.0/). 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