This is pretty deep. Never looked at the tree analogy like this before (Judaism, Essenes, Sadducees and Pharisees ) making up the branches. I see the tree only being made up of belief and unbelief.
In a way, it was simply belief vs. unbelief, separated out into various "branches" if you will of those who did and those who didn't; the believing segment of Israel were those parts of the "tree" that continued on and the unbelieving parts were those that were lopped off.
The interesting thing is that if you think about it, during New Testament times that ended up being one pretty rough-looking "tree" after the Lord got through with it, because most of Israel did not believe; nor did a very significant portion of the Gentile world until much later. But the "tree" grew to far greater proportions in the next two millennium, in keeping with the Parable of the Mustard Seed... which further confirms Backlit's contention that Jesus is the root, IMO, because in the Parable of the Mustard Seed, Jesus is the seed, being only one "Man," and yet in Christ the church grew to tremendous proportions in the earth, in Him.
30 Then He said, “To what shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what parable shall we picture it? 31 It is like a Mustard Seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth; 32 but when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out large branches, so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade.” (Mark 4:30-32)
Today, Christianity has "branches" all
OVER the place; the Baptists, the Catholics, the Presbyterians, The Methodists, Pentecostals, etc. It has indeed "shot out" branches in every direction.