Answer #14

                When Jesus arrived, an illegal council called the Sanhedrin was leading the nation.  It was comprised of 71 men some of whom were Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes and others with the High Priest as the leader.  Each of these groups had their own individual religious teachings.  For example, the Sadducees, of whom the High Priest was one, did not believe in a resurrection, in angels, nor in spirits, but the Pharisees did.  (Acts 23:8)  This means that the nation’s leader, the High Priest, believed only in the five books of the Bible that Moses wrote and none of the other books.  The Pharisees had also been influenced by pagan teachings such as the immortality of the human soul.  It is no wonder that the nation had strayed so far from “truth” and would eventually lose their covenant relationship with Jehovah.