Hellenization of the Jews

Many Jews became seduced by Greek culture, mostly the upper class aligning themselves with the Greek authorities and imitating their ways. Referred to as Hellenists, they sent their children to gymnasiums and reversed their circumcision through a painful procedure called epispasm. Josephus, Antiquities 12.5.1"Menelaus, and the sons of Tobias...were desirous to leave the laws of their country and the Jewish way of living... they desired [Antiochus Epiphanes'] permission to build a Gymnasium in Jerusalem...they also hid the circumcision of their genitals; that even when they were naked, they might appear to be Greeks.  Accordingly, they left off all the customs that belonged to their own country and imitated the practices of other nations."  A further fracture appeared that would become a major religious schism to the end of the Second Temple Period. Two students, Zadok and Bysos championed a new form of Judaism under Grecian influence. The followers of Zadok, called the Zadukim or Sadducees rejected the idea of G-d's involvement in man's affairs and denied the immortality of man's soul with a disregard of divine reward and punishment. This stood opposed to the mainstream observant Jews who followed the Perushim, pharisees or rabbis expanding on the Torah and urged the nation to guard the distinction of the Jewish People from other nations and pagan religions. The Sadducees played a key part in the corruption of the Priesthood, acquiring the position through money and murder.