Hi Sherman - I agree with all you say; it’s odd that people who want to argue for the truth of ECT sometimes make a big noise about the teachings of the Rabbis to buttress their arguments when Jesus is the one we look to as authoritative – and he had harsh things to say about the teachers of law in his day.
However, I think it’s always worth taking a look at evidence on its own terms (just becuase I’ve done the leg work 
) . I leave aside for the moment apocalypses like 2 Esdras and iv Ezra which address matters of national eschatology and I understand scholars now date as being written at the time of the Jewish Wars with Rome; rather I will look at what the Rabbis had to say about personal eschatology.
Before the fall of the Jerusalem Temple in AD 70 the traditions of rabbinical deliberation were passed on orally. But in response to the new situation after the fall of the Temple these traditions began to be written down lest they be forgotten in the form of midrash (scriptural interpretations) and halakot (legal rulings on the applicaiton of Torah). These writings were edited by Rabbi Yehudah haNasi circa 220 A.D. into the Mishnah). Then Rabbinic commentaries on the Mishnah over the next three centuries were edited as the Gemara, which, coupled with the Mishnah, comprise the Talmud. The consensus of scholars is that the Mishnah does indeed tell us much about the real views of Rabbis at the time of Christ but we always need to be aware that these have been edited. Bearing this in mind…
In the late nineteenth century – in England – there was much debate about the doctrine of ECT especially in the Anglican Church. Farrar’s sermon of 1877 that Sopho has mentioned gives the case against ECT (hesaw it at Helbusters and i have places it here on the Articles thread). Farrar cites the witness of Rabbinical literature as an appendix to his sermons, presumably because he knows that this has been used by those arguing the case for ECT. Farrar is scholarly in his use of quotations from the Mishnah/Talmud and he has asked the opinion of contemporary Jewish Rabbis on the Talmudic rulings – he’s done his homework like a good scholar. However, a criticism might be that he dwells on the merciful consensus that emerges from the later Rabbis in the Talmud and fails to give adequate attention to what the Talmud has to say about the opinions of first century Rabbis.
Alfred Edersheim was a Jewish convert to Anglicanism and a friend of Dr Pussey, the High Anglican who was the arch Victorian defender of ECT and antagonist of Dr Farrar. In an appendix to his The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah published 1883 – which I have seen cited on heel booster sites – he looks at the teachings of the Rabbis too – but concentrates on those part sof the Talmud that he thinks support the case for ECT.
He looks at the difference of opinion between Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel the two schools of thought among the Pharisees during the first century (and yes it would be good to look at these texts in a modern translation with parrallel Hebrew - but I’ve not been able to do this since there is currently no such facility online):
According to Shammai: "There will be three groups on the Day of Judgment: one of thoroughly righteous people, one of thoroughly wicked people and one of people in between. The first group will be immediately inscribed for everlasting life; the second group will be written and sealed to Gehenna, as it says, “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence” [Daniel 12:2], the third will go down to Gehenna and squeal and rise again, as it says, “And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried. They shall call on My name and I will answer them” [Zechariah 13:9]…
According to Hillel, the intermediate ones do not go there at all…and whereas transgressors (both Jewish and Gentile) are punished in Gehenna for only twelve months, only special categories of sinners such as adulterers are punished there to ‘the ages of ages. The pained prisoners of this place of torment suffer six days a week, but on the Sabbath are given rest.
Edersheim reads off confirmation of ECT from these texts. However…
First I note the in unwitting testimony of these passages is that there was no fixed and final teaching about the afterlife among the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. They were agreed that there was an afterlife - there would be a judgment. However, as for the details they were divided.
The different interpretations of the afterlife were based on particular exegesis of the texts of the Hebrew Bible (and whereas the Sadducees based their views entirely on the Torah, the Pharisees also saw the prophets and other writings as authoritative).
It is known that both Hillel and Shammai were members of the Jewish Council and they didn’t excommunicate each other and each others’ followers over their different views of the afterlife. The practice of Torah in this life was their primary concern – ideas of the world to come had a more notional status – they spoke in terms of inexact metaphors rather than definitive knowledge and normative teaching . And this fits with the whole development of Jewish eschatology – it was an open subject under review as part of a debate since no final and fixed teaching could be found – in their view – in the Hebrew Bible. And it is consistent with this tradition of debate that later Rabbis later were able to emphasize the merciful over the severe speculations
Neither Shammai or Hillel seem to envisaged the majority of mankind spending eternity in Gehenna – which has often been sadly traditional Christina teaching. Both Rabbis seem to have found it hard to belie that the truly wicked would ever repent – and hence both seem to have thought some might remain in Gehenna; but Hillel seems to have thought that even the truly wicked would be granted Sabbath rest.
It is by no means certain that they thought of Gehenna literally as a place of everlasting torment (indeed Hillel may have held to some idea of aeonian punishment it seems). Indeed to me it seems that the ealry Rabinic gehenna is purgatory - but there are doubts that some will ever emerge from purgatory.
Both thought the very good would go direct to paradise – Shammai was harsher in speculating that people of no exceptional goodness or wickedness would need purging in Gehenna, but Hillel thought this was not the case (so even Shammai had an idea of a purgatorial state to mitigate his doctrine.
Finally Hillel in placing adulterers automatically in Gehenna reflects Jewish focus on legitimate procreation and especial abhorrence of adultery as unforgiveable – but obviously his views are at variance with the teachings of Jesus.
Another text cited from the Talmud by Edersheim to support ECT is -
'Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai - ‘the light of Israel, the right hand pillar, the mighty hammer’ - lay a dying and wept, he accounted for his tears by fear as to his fate in judgment, illustrating the danger by the contrast of punishment by an earthly king ‘whose bonds are not eternal bonds nor his death eternal death,’ while as regarded God and His judgment: ‘if He is angry with me, His Wrath is an Eternal Wrath, if He binds me in fetters, His fetters are Eternal fetters, and if He kills me, His death is an Eternal Death.’
This first century Rabbi was chief of the Merkabah mystics – and had meditated long upon the awful majesty of God in the first chapter of Ezekiel. Eternal – as we well know – does not mean ‘everlasting.’ He was simply reflecting that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God whose majesty is far greater than that of earthly kings.
That’s all I have to say at the moment. I hope this is useful.
Dick
I just didn’t want you or anyone else to jump to anxious conclusions - because as we both know now, it’s not warranted in this case. But yay - those links about the Ophites diagram are very interesting!!! 
Thanks for bringing this up and digging around (it’s so good to learn from each other)