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SADDUCEES

(Gk. Saddoukaíoi)

An important group within Palestinian Judaism from the 2nd century b.c.e. to the 1st century c.e. As also for the Pharisees, reconstructing the historical Sadducees means weaving a plausible historical portrait from educated ingenuity and sparse clues in the three main source collections: the NT, Josephus, and the rabbinic literature. The Sadducees receive far less attention than even the Pharisees. A possible fourth source is the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Sadducees hardly appear in the NT. They are absent from Paul’s letters. Mark presents them as flat, two-dimensional characters “who say there is no resurrection” (Mark 12:18). John collapses them altogether into an undifferentiated Jewish leadership; they do not appear by name. In addition to preserving Mark’s question about the resurrection, Matthew simply couples them with the Pharisees to represent the joint leadership of the old Israel who reject Jesus (Matt. 3:7; 16:1-12). Only Luke-Acts offers a nuanced portrait. In Acts 4:1; 5:17 the author indicates that the high priest and temple authorities were Sadducees. This clarifies the closing section of Luke, where the more or less friendly Pharisees leave the story at Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem (Luke 19:39). In dealing with the disciples, these figures continue the policy of aggressive hostility that they (not the Pharisees) had begun with Jesus. Near the end of Acts, the author reintroduces the Sadducees’ denial of resurrection as an issue that Paul uses to divide the Sanhedrin; only now Luke adds the unparalleled statement that they also deny the existence of angels or spirits (Acts 23:8).

Although Josephus was himself a proud member of the temple-based priestly aristocracy, neither of the two incidents he reports of the Sadducees expresses any admiration. First, he relates a story about the Hasmonean John Hyrcanus’ rejection of the Pharisees in favor of the Sadducees, which occurred because a Sadducee named Jonathan inflamed the prince’s anger toward the Pharisees. In this story we learn that the Sadducees were more severe than the Pharisees in punishing offenders (Ant. 13.294). Josephus also indicates that the Sadducees’ rejection of the Pharisees’ tradition “of the fathers” and insistence upon observing only the laws of Moses was a cause of major conflict between the two groups (Ant. 13.297), but that the Sadducees had only the support of “the well fixed.” He repeats these points in Ant. 18.16-17, where he admits that although the Sadducees include men of the highest standing, they must defer to the program of the Pharisees because of the latter’s popular support (18.17).

Although much of this might seem congenial to the aristocrat Josephus, sharp conflicts with his views come in the Sadducees’ outright and Epicurean-like denial of an afterlife and rejection of fate in favor of unfettered free will (BJ 2.164-65; Ant. 13.173; 18.16-17; cf. 10.277-81). And when he relates the second incident that involves Sadducees he is markedly hostile. That story concerns the execution by stoning of Jesus’ brother James and others, after the death in office of the Roman governor Festus but before the arrival of the new governor Albinus. The high priest Ananus, who instigated the proceedings, appears as a member of the Sadducees, who “when it comes to judgments, are savage in contrast to all other Jews” (Ant. 20.199). Although Josephus elsewhere praises the severity of the Jewish laws against wrongdoers (Ag. Ap. 2.276-78), he considers the Sadducees altogether too cruel.

Rabbinic literature from the 3rd to 6th centuries c.e. contains a number of references to the ṣĕḏûqîm (Hebrew), the etymology of which is uncertain. Scholars have usually taken it to approximate Gk. Saddoukaíoi and link it with the biblically authorized high-priestly family of Zadok (1 Kgs. 2:35; Ezek. 40:46), who lost power under Antiochus IV; however, this presents a linguistic difficulty in the double d of the Greek, and it is unclear why the non-Zadokite priesthood would perpetuate that name. The rabbinic ṣĕḏûqîm generally appear allied with the mysterious Boethusians (a Greek name) and in dispute with the sages and/or the pĕrûšîm. The ṣĕḏûqîm have their own date for Pentecost (m. µag. 2.4; Menaḥ. 10.3) and purity laws that differ from those of the majority (m. Yad. 4.6-7). Although they apparently seek to find fault with the others’ ritual prescriptions (m. Para 3.3), they do not appear as wealthy aristocrats in the early rabbinic literature. They can be isolated from “Israel” as much as the Samaritans (m. Nidd. 4.2).

Early rabbinic literature does preserve some hint that the priestly aristocracy (though not identified as Sadducean) was compelled to follow the prescriptions of “the elders” (though not named as Pharisees; cf. m. Yoma 1.1-7). By the time of the 6th-century Babylonian Talmud, we have the explicit claim that the Sadducean chief priests had to follow Pharisaic dictates (b. Yoma 19b). But this is vary late and hardly useful for reconstructing 1st-century conditions.

Lawrence Schiffman has argued that small correspondences between positions attributed to the rabbinic ṣĕḏûqîm and those advocated by the authors of a halakhic letter from Qumran (4QMMT) suggest that the original group behind the Dead Sea Scrolls were proto-Sadducees. Both groups claimed loyalty to the priestly line of Zadok. This view has not yet won wide acceptance because of the major disagreements between the views of the Scrolls’ authors (with strong emphasis on spiritual powers, heavenly intervention, and coming judgment) and those attributed to the Sadducees in the NT and Josephus.

What can be said with confidence about the Sadducees? It seems that they found their base in the priestly aristocracy, though not all of that group were Sadducees (witness Josephus). Rejection of the Pharisees’ living tradition, of the afterlife, and of (at least) an elaborate angelology or demonology would all fit together, since the Pentateuch does not elaborate such views. Nevertheless, they must have had an interpretive tradition besides the Law of Moses. Whatever form that tradition took, whether oral or written, explicitly recognized or unconsciously supplied, they must have had one, for the Torah itself requires clarification if one is to live by it. Speculations about the Sadducees’ precise religious program, motives, attitudes, and political platform, or even their role in the Jewish Revolt, must so far remain speculations because of the lack of confirming evidence.

Bibliography. S. Mason, “Chief Priests, Sadducees, Pharisees, and Sanhedrin in Acts,” in The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting, 4: Palestinian Setting, ed. R. Bauckham (Grand Rapids, 1995), 115-77; A. J. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees in Palestinian Society (Wilmington, 1988); E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 b.c.e.–66 c.e. (Philadelphia, 1992); L. H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran (Philadelphia, 1994); G. Stemberger, Jewish Contemporaries of Jesus: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes (Minneapolis, 1995).

Steve Mason

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

SADDUCEES

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)