You are too critical of the Jews, seeing Jews, through your “the bible only” glasses…
We may not know what they had to read. They recently discovered the dead sea scrolls. There was other stuff written and if it was written it may have been read, not to mention the Pharisee oral tradition later written down. They can for sure be said to have spoken to each other more than they read to each other.
Pseudepigrapha - refers broadly to other ancient Jewish writings which are not part of the HB nor of the LXX, but are often attributed to a biblical figure (e.g. Jubilees, 1 Enoch, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, etc.). They were popular among ancient Jews, and thus are very valuable for historical purposes, even if they were never considered biblical by most people.
Inter-Testamental Literature - another collective term for an even broader range of Jewish literature written “between” the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) - several collections of ancient writings (2nd century BCE to 2nd century CE) discovered between 1947 and 1956 in various caves near the NW shores of the Dead Sea; most famous are the large scrolls and numerous small fragments found in eleven caves near the ruins at Khirbet Qumran, associated by most scholars with the Essenes (a monastic group in Ancient Judaism); although copies of most books of the Hebrew Bible were also found there, more important are the original writings of the Essene/Qumran group itself.
Philo - an important Jewish writer who lived in Alexandria in the early 1st cent. CE (roughly contemporary with Jesus); he used Greek philosophical language and images to interpret Jewish biblical traditions (and vice-versa).
Josephus - the most important Jewish historian from the late 1st century CE; he was a general at the beginning of the First Jewish War against Rome, but surrendered early and then wrote a history of the “Jewish War,” as well as a large history of his people, entitled “The Antiquities of the Jews.”
