Have there ever been any Jewish sects that adopted a "sola scriptura" theology with regard to the Tanakh / Old Testament?

by joepyeweed
Freman00

The short answer is no. The closest Judaism has gotten to Sola Scriptora is the Karaites, which stands in contrast to the vast majority of world Jewry who belong to the Rabbinic tradition to one extent or another. Karaite Jews consider the five books of the Torah to be the highest authority on Jewish law, in contrast to the Rabbinic approach that puts a lot of emphasis on the Talmud. However, they still do not believe in Sola Scriptora in that they accept the idea of tradition and outside works informing the interpretation of the written Torah.

Keep in mind that I'm using present tense, so not really a "historic" answer.

But to add, Karaite Judiasm was at its peak during the "Islamic Golden Age" and a considerable, though debatable, percentage of Jews at the time would have followed it. A large amount of medieval Jewish discourse was based in the Rabbinic/Karaite debate, though most of it came from the Rabbinic perspective, like Judah Halevi. By the 20th century they were mostly concentrated in communities in Egypt and Crimea. The Karaite population of the Soviet Union was nearly entirely eradicated in the Holocaust, with Crimean Karaite also suffering from Stalin's policies against Tatars. Most of the Egyptian Karaites were expelled either during the generalized Jewish expulsions of the 1950s or with the 1967 war, with many of them either going to Israel or the United States.

They are now an extremely small minority.