This chapter considers Weber's treatment of sects in Second Temple Judaism as found in his text Ancient Judaism. In distinction to the analysis undertaken thus far, the concern, given the nature of the case, is less with uncovering Weber's further development of conceptual distinctions (though when these occur they will be noted) and more with approaching the text as an example of Weber, as it were, applying his knowledge and theories to a particular example. Given that our interest in developing a Weberian approach to the sociology of sects has as one of its main intentions a reconstruction of sects and sectarian movements within the society of Second Temple Judaism, it is of great interest to see Weber's sociology, so to speak, “in action.” This seemed to be an appropriate place to begin before moving on to apply our own reconstruction of Weber's approach to sects to individual substantive cases. It is surely important to move towards the goal of a sociology of sects in Second Temple Judaism only after witnessing how Weber himself went about the task. Analysing Weber's approach to sects in ancient Judaism should alert us to the limitations as well as to the prospects of applying Weber. One essential difference between the context in which Weber worked and the context in which we find ourselves, is the fact that in Weber's day there was no knowledge of the Dead Sea Scrolls.