The historical record documenting the transition Judaic systems underwent following the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 ce is murky at best. Painting broad brush strokes, we can say that the systems were catastrophically altered. The rest of this text, in effect, traces the emergence of one Judaic system out of this mess. Rabbinic Judaism was one Judaic system that emerged out of the catastrophe, but it was quite a long time before anyone could consider rabbinic Judaism representative of all of Judaism, and thus normative. In fact, the status of rabbinic Judaism as a normative form of Judaism probably did not occur before the modern era, when our understanding of religion as a distinct social institution crystallized. Before that, Judaic systems were sufficiently vague and amorphous that no official version was obvious, despite the rabbinic effort to the contrary.

Following the destruction of the temple, teachers for the most part became the leaders of the rabbinic community. They inherited the authority of mythical prophets and diviners. Though some of the new teachers descended from priests, the Pharisaic movement that rabbinism grew out of had much closer association with prophecy. The Pharisaic god was not some mechanical diety who needed to be fed by the temple, but a god to whom one could talk.