When Jesus burst on the scene in the first third of the first century A.D., Judaism, a respected and honorable religion for almost two thousand years (assuming it had its nascency in Abraham), had many noble traditions in place, based on the Hebrew Scripture. In synagogue, Jesus Himself read from the scroll containing the book of Isaiah, for example. Both He and the teachers and scribes from perhaps the two biggest "denominations" within Judaism, the Pharisees and and the Sadducees, were conversant in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Writings, the three-fold division of the Tanakh, or "Old Testament."
In Jesus' day, however, many non-biblical traditions had become part and parcel of Judaism, and the number of laws, or commandments, in the Law of Moses alone, which numbered 613, according to one tradition, had increased significantly. to perhaps thousands! Some of these "new" commandments had a clear and non-controversial basis is scriptures; others did not. Evangelist Mark commented on some of the accretions of tradition which had attached themselves to some of the original 613 commandments contained in the Torah.
