The last decade has witnessed a growing interest in the study of the formation of Jewish identity in Antiquity. Thus, Albert I. Baumgarten has explored the paradox of The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era (1997), while Shaye J. D. Cohen has made a strong case for The Beginnings of Jewishness (1999) in the same context. These and other contributions – we could also mention those of Philip R. Davies (1998), Martin Goodman (1994), Lester L. Grabbe (1995), George W. E. Nickelsburg (2003), or the late Anthony J. Saldarini (1988) – highlight the social and ideological constructions of such new political and/or cultural realities in the aftermath of the Maccabean victory. The new and stimulating way these authors look at old and much debated topics is immediately perceptible when we compare their works with, for example, a great classic such as Morton Smith's Palestinian Parties and Politics That Shaped the Old Testament (1971). The main difference consists in a new and acute sensitivity to social-scientific, anthropological, and cross-cultural approaches, methods, and models. Such new perspectives, allied to the more traditional philological and literary skills, have been applied to long known documents, such as Josephus's works, and to newly published sources, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, with the result of a modification of our perception of Second Temple history and culture.