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Who Are the Sadducees?
THE Sadducees make brief but memorable appearances in the NT. They are most often cast in a negative light as the adversaries of Jesus and the early Christians. Sadducees seem to have been Jewish conservatives not prone to embrace new ideas or movements. This religious instinct—to cling to the "old ways"—set them at odds with Jesus and the radical claims of the gospel.
Although historical details about the Sadducees in the NT period are fragmentary, the combination of biblical and extrabiblical evidence brings a reasonably focused picture into view. The Sadducees emerged as a religious and political interest group around the second century B.C. Their name is derived from the high priest Zadok, who served under King Solomon (1 Kings 2:35) and whose descendants were granted exclusive rights to minister in Jerusalem (Ezek 40:46). As part of Jewish society's upper class, it is likely that many Sadducees were wealthy and held important positions in the Holy City. Most notably, the Sadducees were closely associated with the Temple and the priesthood (Acts 4:1; 5:17). While not all Sadducees were Levitical priests, many priests aligned themselves with the Sadducees and their agenda for Jewish life. The Sadducees thus held many "official" leadership positions in Old Covenant Judaism and were in charge of maintaining national relations between Israel and Rome. This high profile earned them the support of wealthier citizens, while many lower-class Jews held them in suspicion and even contempt. The masses probably regarded the Sadducees as corrupt.
Controversy surrounding the Sadducees stems from several factors. First, they were notoriously opposed to the Pharisees, a movement held in honor by many Jews. Unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees sought to maintain the status quo. Their outlook on Jewish life was likely one of tolerance: Live peaceably with the governing Romans, and Judaism will successfully weather the storm of foreign rule. This collided with the Pharisees' perspective that Israel had to separate and purify itself of the Gentiles, even if this meant driving the Romans out. Second, the Sadducees stand out on the Jewish landscape for their emphatic doctrinal denials. Unlike the majority of first-century Jews, the Sadducees expressly denied: (1) an afterlife with rewards and punishments for the righteous and wicked, (2) the immortality of the soul, (3) the resurrection of the body, and (4) the existence of angels or spirits (Acts 23:6-8). At a more fundamental level, the Sadducees denied full authority to any Scripture except the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible (Gen-Deut). As a consequence, they opposed every doctrine not explicitly taught within the Pentateuch. This restrictive view of the biblical canon also provided them with one more reason to oppose the Pharisees: the Sadducees repudiated the oral traditions that the Pharisees developed to supplement the books of Moses (Mk 7:1-5).
In the Gospels, Jesus squares off against the Sadducees only once (Mt 22:23-33; Mk 12:18-27; Lk 20:27-38). While Jesus is teaching in the Temple, the Sadducees approach him with a theological puzzle, convinced that the doctrine of the general resurrection is incompatible with the teaching of the Pentateuch (Deut 25:5). If a woman has several husbands during her life, they reason, surely this will cause great marital confusion in the next life. If all of her husbands are raised, whose wife will she be (Mk 12:20-23)? Jesus responds with ingenuity and tact, affirming nearly everything the Sadducees expressly denied. He asserts the existence of angels and deliberately cites the Pentateuch (Ex 3:6) to demonstrate that souls live beyond death and that their bodies will one day be raised (Mk 12:27). «Back to Mark 12:1.
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