How to find pr research what second temple period Jews and Romans Understood

Robb Keller

I’m looking for resources and ways to search Logos to understand what Second Temple Jews and the Romans knew and/or understood the Christian concepts.  What did they believe about sin, resurrection, the good news, propitiation, etc.  the New Testament wasn’t written in a vacuum and the readers clearly understood what they were saying. How did they view Jesus’s healings and what did they understand about the transfiguration at Mount Hermon?   And what about rhetoric and the use of words to frame the story and ultimately win an argument?

This is all kinda random I know, but I really want to get into the head of Jesus’s contemporaries  

Any advice will be appreciated.  

MJ. Smith

Welcome to the forum and sorry its taken so long to get any response. I was opening someone more knowledgeable would step in. I'm not sure that there are enough primary sources to answer you many questions. Second temple Judaism died in 70 A.D. I'd try Pliny the Younger and Tacitus as possible sources of information.