Jewish Religious Parties at the Time of Christ

Part One: Pharisees and Sadducees

Written by Robert Jones

robertcjones@mindspring.com

  "Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION.  Copyright Ó 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.  Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House."

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction

Quiz on the Pharisees and Sadducees

Pharisees

Origins/History

Beliefs and attributes

Josephus

New Testament

The Apocrypha

Sadducees

Origins/History

Beliefs and attributes

Josephus

New Testament

Sources

Other Christian History & Theology courses

Introduction

Flavius Josephus (c. 37 – 95 A.D.), in his massive 1^st century A.D. works Jewish Antiquities and Jewish Wars describes that there were three Jewish religious “parties” or “sects” during the period ranging from the Hasmonean Dynasty to the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 A.D.:

“For there are three philosophical sects among the Jews. The followers of the first of which are the Pharisees; of the second, the Sadducees; and the third sect, which pretends to a severer discipline, are called Essenes.”  (Jewish Wars, Book 2, Chapter 8, William Whiston, Translator)

Two of those groups feature prominently in the New Testament – the Pharisees (“separatists”) and the Sadducees (“sons of Zadok” or “to be righteous”).  None of the three are mentioned in the Old Testament or the Apocrypha.  The Essenes may have been the sect associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

While we have a great deal of information about the three sects from various ancient sources, we have almost no reliable information as to the lineage of any of the three groups.  Commentaries often state that the Pharisees are descendents of the scribes who arose in the synagogues during the Diaspora; other times they are associated with a mysterious sect mentioned a few times in 1^st and 2^nd Maccabees called the Hasideans.  The Sadducees are typically associated with the priesthood in Jerusalem, but their origins are even murkier than the Pharisees (are they descendents of Aaron?  “Sons of Zadok?”  Associated with the Hasmoneans?)  And the origins of the Essenes are hotly contested – are they descendents of the Hasideans?  Formed during the Hasmonean dynasty in protest against non-Levites assuming the priesthood?  Considering that all three are household names 2000 years later, we have remarkably little solid knowledge of where they came from.  The terms seem to spring into existence in several 1^st century A.D. sources, with no obvious pedigree.

As far as the theology and characteristics of the three sects, though, we have more information.  Josephus describes the Essenes with loving detail, the Pharisees slightly less so, and the Sadducees the least.  We can glean much about the Pharisees and Sadducees from the New Testament, although the information is generally presented in a negative light, as they often (not always) opposed the ministry of Jesus.  Philo of Alexandria also discusses the Essenes in great detail (but doesn’t mention the Pharisees or Sadducees at all).

The purpose of this study is to attempt to present a survey of knowledge regarding these three sects from these sources:

•  Josephus (Jewish Antiquities – JA; Jewish Wars – JW)

• Philo of Alexandria

• Pliny the Elder

• The New Testament

• The Apocrypha

• The Dead Sea Scrolls

The last two sources will require a bit of interpretation, as none of the three sects are mentioned by name in either.

Part One of this study will cover the Pharisees and Sadducees.  Part Two will cover the Essenes.

Quiz on the Pharisees and Sadducees

1.      T/F  The Pharisees and Sadducees are mentioned by name in the Dead Sea Scrolls

2.      T/F  The Pharisees and Sadducees are mentioned by name in the Apocrypha

3.      T/F  The Pharisees and Sadducees are mentioned by name in the Old Testament

4.      T/F  The New Testament links the Sadducees with the chief priests of the Temple

5.      T/F  The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, angels, or spirits

6.      T/F  Paul (Saul of Tarsus) was a Sadducee by training

7.      T/F  Paul (Saul of Tarsus) persecuted the early Christian Church by authority of the chief priests

8.      T/F  There is no record of any Pharisees following Jesus

9.      T/F  The earliest historical mention of the Sadducees is in the times of Ezra the prophet

10.  T/F  One possible meaning of “Sadducee” is “sons of Zadok”

11.  Name three Pharisees mentioned in 1^st century A.D. sources

12.  Name a Sadducee mentioned in 1^st century A.D. sources

Pharisees

Origins/History

The Pharisees are mentioned by name in the New Testament and by Josephus (they are also mentioned in later rabbinical works).  The name is not mentioned in the Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Apocrypha.  The earliest chronological reference to the Pharisees is by Josephus.  He mentions the Pharisees as having existed during the reign of Hasmonean High Priest Jonathan (160-143 B.C.)  The description is brief:

“Now for the Pharisees, they say that some actions, but not all, are the work of fate, and some of them are in our own power, and that they are liable to fate, but are not caused by fate.”  (Jewish Antiquities, 13.172)  

The next reference chronologically in Josephus is an ambiguous discussion of the relationship between the Pharisees and Hasmonean leader John Hyrcanus (134-104 B.C.).  The passage begins with the following paragraph, which would tend to indicate that Hyrcanus and the Pharisees were at odds:

“However, this prosperous state of affairs moved the Jews to envy Hyrcanus; but they that were the worst disposed to him were the Pharisees, who are one of the sects of the Jews, as we have informed you already. These have so great a power over the multitude, that when they say anything against the king or against the high priest, they are presently believed.”  (JA, 13.10.5)

Josephus then turns right around and indicates that John Hyrcanus was a disciple of the Pharisees!

“Now Hyrcanus was a disciple of theirs, and greatly beloved by them.  And when he once invited them to a feast, and entertained them very kindly, when he saw them in a good humor, he began to say to them, that they knew he was desirous to be a righteous man, and to do all things whereby he might please God, which was the profession of the Pharisees also.”

Regardless of the exact situation, Josephus goes on to recount that at the aforementioned feast, a man of “ill-temper” named Eleazar shoots his mouth off to Hyrcanus, and questions the legitimacy of his high priesthood because “We have heard it from old men, that thy mother had been a captive under the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes.”  The other Pharisees at the feast quickly disavow themselves of any connection to the opinion of Eleazar.  However, egged on by a Sadducean friend named Jonathan, Hyrcanus eventually removes his allegiance from the Pharisees.

The Pharisees next show up in Josephus during the reigns of King Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 B.C.), and his wife Queen Salome Alexandra (76 - 67 B.C.).  Alexander was perhaps the most hated leader the Hasmoneans ever produced.  Josephus describes a protracted Civil War, which culminates in Alexander slaying 50,000 of his opponents:

“From thence he fled to Jerusalem, where, besides his other ill success, the nation insulted him, and he fought against them for six years, and slew no fewer than fifty thousand of them; and when he desired that they would desist from their ill will to him, they hated him so much the more, on account of what had already happened; and when he had asked them what he ought to do, they all cried out, that he ought to kill himself.”  (JA, 13.13.5)

On his deathbed, Alexander tells his Queen Alexandra that to survive she should “put some of her authority into the hands of the Pharisees; for that they would commend her for the honor she had done them, and would reconcile the nation to her…” (JA 13.15.5).   In the same dialogue, Alexander recounts why she should make this move, and indicates that the Pharisees were indeed opponents of his:

“…for that they [the Pharisees] are then believed best of all by the multitude when they speak any severe thing against others, though it be only out of envy at them. And he said, that it was by their means that he had incurred the displeasure of the nation, whom indeed he had injured.” (JA, 13.15.5, emphasis added)

We now begin to see that the Pharisees were not just a religious sect, but also had strong political leanings.  Alexandra does indeed enlist the aid of the Pharisees, and they take full advantage of their return to power:

“…she…permitted the Pharisees to do everything; to whom also she ordered the multitude to be obedient. She also restored again those practices which the Pharisees had introduced, according to the traditions of their forefathers, and which her father-in-law, Hyrcanus, had abrogated.   So she had indeed the name of the Regent; but the Pharisees had the authority; for it was they who restored such as had been banished, and set such as were prisoners at liberty, and, to say all at once, they differed in nothing from Lords.”

 “But these Pharisees artfully insinuated themselves into her favor by little and little, and became themselves the real administrators of the public affairs; they banished and reduced whom they pleased; they bound and loosed [men] at their pleasure; and, to say all at once, they had the enjoyment of the royal authority, whilst the expenses and the difficulties of it belonged to Alexandra.” (JW, 1.5.2)

One of the incidents described by Josephus during the previously mentioned Civil War under Alexander Jannaeus was when he crucified 800 of his opponents, and murdered their wives and children:

“…the Jews fought against Alexander, and being beaten were slain in great numbers in the several battles which they had, and when he had shut up the most powerful of them in the city Bethome, he besieged them therein; and when he had taken the city, and gotten the men into his power, he brought them to Jerusalem, and did one of the most barbarous actions in the world to them; for as he was feasting with his concubines, in the sight of all the city, he ordered about eight hundred of them to be crucified; and while they were living, he ordered the throats of their children and wives to be cut before their eyes.” (JA, 13.14.2)

Scholars have long postulated that the 800 crucified were Pharisees, because the Pharisees retaliate under the reign of Salome Alexandra.  However, the text doesn’t explicitly make that linkage:

“…and the country was entirely at peace, excepting the Pharisees; for they disturbed the queen, and desired that she would kill those who persuaded Alexander to slay the eight hundred men; after which they cut the throat of one of them, Diogenes: and after him they did the same to several, one after another…” (JA, 13.16.2)

Interestingly enough, the Dead Sea Scrolls may provide the missing link in this equation.  Geza Vermes in his book “The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English” believes that a reference in the Commentary on Nahum links the Pharisees to the 800 crucified men:

“Interpreted, this concerns the furious young lion [who seeks revenge] on those who seek smooth things and hang men alive…”

According to Vermes, the young lion is Alexander Jannaeus, and “those who seek smooth things” are the Pharisees.  Vermes also believes that another code word in the scrolls for the Pharisees is “Ephraim”.  The passage below links “Ephraim” with “those who seek smooth things”:

“Interpreted, this is the city of Ephraim, those who seek smooth things during the last days, who walk in lies and falsehood.” 

This leads to the speculation that the mysterious “Teacher of Righteousness” mentioned in several scrolls might have been a member of the ruling party under Alexander (the Sadducees?), and was displaced when Salome Alexandra brought the Pharisees (back) into power.  The invective against the (presumed) Pharisees continues:

“…this concerns the dominion of those who seek smooth things, from the midst of whose assembly the sword of the nations shall never be wanting.  Captivity, looting, and burning shall be among them, and exile out of dread for the enemy.  A multitude of guilty corpses shall fall in their days; there shall be no end to the sum of their slain…Cities and families shall perish through their counsel; honorable men and rulers shall fall through their tongues…[their] evil deeds shall be uncovered to all Israel at the end of time…” (Commentary on Nahum, Geza Vermes translation)

In the same vein, Michael Wise, in his book The First Messiah believes that the Dead Sea Scrolls Thanksgiving hymns were written by the Teacher of Righteousness, after his loss of power to the Pharisees.  An example follows – the “party of the Seekers of Accommodation” refers to the Pharisees, according to Wise:

“I praise You, O Lord, because Your eye re[mains] upon me, and You deliver me from the zeal of false advisors.  From the party of the Seekers of Accommodation have You rescued the life of the poor one whom they plotted to destroy, whose blood they planned to spill over the issue of Your Temple service…” (Thanksgiving Hymn 3, Michael Wise translation, emphasis added)

If the Wise premise is correct, the above passage also indicates what one of the main differences between the Pharisees and Sadducees was “the issue of Your Temple service.”  It should be noted that none of the three Jewish religious sects are mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls by the names that we know them today – Pharisees, Sadducees, or Essenes.  However, considering that the Scrolls were written from about 2^nd century B.C. – 1^st century A.D., we might expect to see the parties alluded to somewhere in the 600 non-Biblical scrolls – even if they are mentioned under different names.

The Pharisees show up again in Josephus in about 20 B.C. when they run afoul of King Herod.   Again, they seem quite involved in court intrigues, receiving support from the wife of the brother of Herod:

“…for there was a certain sect of men that were Jews, who valued themselves highly upon the exact skill they had in the law of their fathers, and made men believe they were highly favored by God, by whom this set of women were inveigled. These are those that are called the sect of the Pharisees, who were in a capacity of greatly opposing kings. A cunning sect they were, and soon elevated to a pitch of open fighting and doing mischief.  Accordingly, when all the people of the Jews gave assurance of their good will to Caesar, and to the king’s government, these very men did not swear, being above six thousand; and when the king imposed a fine upon them, Pheroras’s [brother of Herod] wife paid their fine for them.  In order to requite which kindness of hers, since they were believed to have the foreknowledge of things to come by divine inspiration, they foretold how God had decreed that Herod’s government should cease, and his posterity should be deprived of it; but that the kingdom should come to her and Pheroras, and to their children.  These predictions were not concealed from Salome, but were told the king; as also how they had perverted some persons about the palace itself.  So the king slew such of the Pharisees as were principally accused…” (JA, 17.2.4, emphasis added))

The figure of 6,000 in the text above is interesting.  Some scholars believe it refers to the total number of Pharisees in existence at the time of Herod.  Other scholars believe that it only refers to the number of Pharisees who were fined by the king.

There is one other interesting mention of the Pharisees as the 1^st century A.D. dawns.  Josephus introduces a Pharisee named Sadduc (or Zadok, or Zaddok) who was part of a revolt in 6 A.D.:

“…yet there was one Judas, a Gaulonite, of a city whose name was Gamala, who, taking with him Sadduc, a Pharisee, became zealous to draw them to a revolt…” (JA, 18.1.1)

Josephus then goes on to refer to the movement started by Judas and Sadduc as being a “fourth philosophy” of the Jews, and one that eventually led to the Zealots.  Their philosophy is described as essentially Pharisaic in nature:

“…for Judas and Sadduc, who excited a fourth philosophic sect among us, and had a great many followers therein, filled our civil government with tumults at present, and laid the foundation of our future miseries, by this system of philosophy, which we were before unacquainted withal…” (JA, 18.1.1)

“But of the fourth sect of Jewish philosophy, Judas the Galilean was the author. These men agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty; and say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord. They also do not value dying any kind of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man Lord…” (JA, 18.1.6)

Chronologically, we now move into New Testament times, which will be covered in a separate section in some detail.  However, it can be said that the Pharisees were a dominant group in the time of Jesus, being key members of the ruling Sanhedrin (sharing power with the Sadducees), and operating throughout all of Palestine. 

Since the title of this section includes the word “Origins”, the sharp-eyed reader might note at this point that we still haven’t identified where the Pharisees came from – did they suddenly spring into existence during the reign of Hasmonean High Priest Jonathan?  Or do they have an older pedigree? 

At this point, we can only offer speculation as to their predecessors and antecedents.  One theory is that the Pharisees were descendants of the Diaspora (c. 722 B.C.–532 B.C.) scribes. The scribes arose as the interpreters of the law in the local synagogues after the destruction of the Temple by King Nebuchadnezzar (c. 586 B.C.).  As power shifted from the keepers of the Temple (the Levitcal priesthood) to the “interpreters of the law” in the synagogue, a bitter rivalry was created that we may see echoes of in the discussions by Josephus of the Pharisees and Sadducees during the Hasmonean Dynasty hundreds of years later.  And while the Temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C., many Jews remained in exile, scattered around the Mediterranean – and remained under the influence of the scribes in the synagogues.  We get an interesting description of the scribes by Jesus ben Sirach, in the Apocryphal Wisdom of Sirach, written around 200 B.C.:

The Activity of the Scribe

        How different the one who devotes himself

        to the study of the law of the Most High!

¹       He seeks out the wisdom of all the ancients,

        and is concerned with prophecies;

²       he preserves the sayings of the famous

        and penetrates the subtleties of parables;

³       he seeks out the hidden meanings of proverbs

        and is at home with the obscurities of parables.

⁴       He serves among the great

        and appears before rulers;

        he travels in foreign lands

        and learns what is good and evil in the human lot.

⁵       He sets his heart to rise early

        to seek the Lord who made him,

        and to petition the Most High;

        he opens his mouth in prayer

        and asks pardon for his sins.

⁶       If the great Lord is willing,

        he will be filled with the spirit of understanding;

        he will pour forth words of wisdom of his own

        and give thanks to the Lord in prayer.

⁷       The Lord will direct his counsel and knowledge,

        as he meditates on his mysteries.

⁸       He will show the wisdom of what he has learned,

        and will glory in the law of the Lord’s covenant.

⁹       Many will praise his understanding;

        it will never be blotted out.

        His memory will not disappear,

        and his name will live through all generations.

¹⁰     Nations will speak of his wisdom,

        and the congregation will proclaim his praise.

¹¹     If he lives long, he will leave a name greater than a thousand,

        and if he goes to rest, it is enough for him.

(Sirach 38:34 – 39:11, NRSV)

While this is an interesting description, it is hardly conclusive in identifying the Pharisiac movement exclusively with the scribes.  However, the New Testament does seem to associate the scribes (“teachers of the law” in the NIV) and the Pharisees to some extent (22 times they are mentioned together), so the connection is not without some merit for consideration. 

Another theory for the antecedents of the Pharisees are the mysterious Hasideans (meaning “the pious”), mentioned only in 1^st and 2^nd Maccabees.  The references to the Hasideans are quoted in full below

^“42Then there united with them [Mattathias and his sons] a company of Hasideans, mighty warriors of Israel, all who offered themselves willingly for the law. ⁴³And all who became fugitives to escape their troubles joined them and reinforced them. ⁴⁴They organized an army, and struck down sinners in their anger and renegades in their wrath; the survivors fled to the Gentiles for safety.” (1 Mac. 2:42-43, NRSV)

This would seem to indicate that the Hasideans were war-like – “mighty warriors of Israel”.  But wait, we next meet the Hasideans when they seek peace from the Seleucids.  Alcimus was a high priest appointed by the Seleucids:

^“12Then a group of scribes appeared in a body before Alcimus and Bacchides to ask for just terms. ¹³The Hasideans were first among the Israelites to seek peace from them, ¹⁴for they said, “A priest of the line of Aaron has come with the army, and he will not harm us.” ¹⁵Alcimus spoke peaceable words to them and swore this oath to them, “We will not seek to injure you or your friends.” ¹⁶So they trusted him; but he seized sixty of them and killed them in one day, in accordance with the word that was written…”  (1 Macc 7:12-16, NRSV)

One reading of the above, of course, could indicate that the Hasideans were scribes.  We can also ascertain that it was important to the Hasideans to have someone from the Levitical priesthood as high priest.  This section doesn’t seem to reflect well on the Hasideans, because they seem to be willing to abandon the Maccabees.  However, there is one more reference to the Hasideans, in 2 Maccabees.  The speaker is the evil priest Alcimus:

⁶“Those of the Jews who are called Hasideans, whose leader is Judas Maccabeus, are keeping up war and stirring up sedition, and will not let the kingdom attain tranquility…”  (2 Macc 14:6)

In this passage, the Hasideans are viewed as the fomenters of the revolt, who faithfully follow Judas Maccabeus!  So, warriors, seditionists, or pacifists – take your pick from the references to the Hasideans in 1^st and 2^nd Maccabees.  So, is there anough information here to definitely associate the Hasideans with the Pharisees (or even with the scribes, who are associated somewhat with the Pharisees in the New Testament)?  The answer is no - one could equally speculate that the Hasideans are the predecessors of the Essenes!  However, it is at least an interesting (and somewhat romantic) theory.

After the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., the Pharisees became the dominant from of Judaism, leading to the rabbinical movement that is still the center of Judaism today.

Beliefs and attributes

In this section, we will examine what the beliefs and characteristics of the Pharisees were, based on our two primary first century sources – Josephus and the New Testament.  Starting with Josephus, we should first mention that Josephus identifies himself as a Pharisee (although his descriptions of the Pharisees are not always especially sympathetic!):

“…when I was about sixteen years old, I had a mind to make trial of the several sects that were among us. These sects are three: — The first is that of the Pharisees, the second that of the Sadducees, and the third that of the Essenes, as we have frequently told you; for I thought that by this means I might, choose the best, if I were once acquainted with them all; so I contented myself with hard fare, and underwent great difficulties and went through them all. Nor did I content myself with these trials only; but when I was informed that one, whose name was Banus, lived in the desert, and used no other clothing than grew upon trees, and had no other food than what grew of its own accord, and bathed himself in cold water frequently, both by night and by day, in order to preserve his chastity, I imitated him in those things, and continued with him three years. So when I had accomplished my desires, I returned back to the city, being now nineteen years old, and began to conduct myself according to the rules of the sect of the Pharisees, which is of kin to the sect of the Stoics, as the Greeks call them.”  (The Life of Flavius Josephus, Chapter 2, emphasis added)

The portrait that Josephus paints of the Pharisees beliefs and characteristics is generally sympathetic (certainly more so than some of the statements he makes about them in an historical context!).  The table below lists Josephus’ views of the beliefs and attributes of the Pharisees, but we may summarize here first:

• The Pharisees believed in a mixture of predestination and free will (in contradistinction to the Essenes, who were strict believers in predestination)
• The Pharisees had great popularity with the masses
• They believed in the importance of oral tradition, in addition to the written Law of Moses
• The believed in an afterlife in which the virtuous are rewarded and the evil are punished. With a few exceptions (Daniel 12, for example), this doctrine is not present in the Old Testament.

Josephus

New Testament

In the New Testament, the Pharisees are typically depicted as opponents of Jesus.  Jesus clashes with them on a number of important Jewish doctrines, including Mosaic hygienic law, the Sabbath, and the relationship of religion and the state.  The Pharisees are generally skeptical about Jesus being the messiah (believing, for example, that his power to exorcise demons comes from Beelzebub), and flatly reject any claim that Jesus could be the Son of God.  The Pharisees are part of the plot to kill Jesus, and are actively involved in his capture.  Jesus and John the Baptist use some especially severe language to describe the Pharisees (“you brood of vipers”).

All that being said, the portrait is not uniformly negative.  At one point in Luke, the Pharisees warn Jesus that Herod wants to kill him.  A prominent Pharisee on the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus, is a follower of Jesus.  In Acts, the apostles are released from prison by the intervention of the Pharisee Gamaliel, under whom Paul studied.  Acts 15 records that there were Pharisees among the early Christian Church.  And, of course, Paul announces on several occasions with some pride that he was trained as a Pharisee.

The Pharisees are connected with the scribes (“teachers of the Law”) on 22 occasions in the Gospels.  They are also connected several times with their assumed rivals, the Sadducees, and the unidentified Herodians.

In terms of doctrine, we are told in the New Testament that the Pharisees believe in the resurrection of the dead, in angels, and in spirits – all doctrines of the early Christians.

The Apocrypha

As already noted, the Apocrypha doesn’t mention the Pharisees by name.  They may have been the Hasideans described in 1 Maccabees, but the association is unsure. 

That being said, are there any writings in the Apocrypha that could be described as Pharisaic? Several apocryphal books show a keen interest in angels and demons, such as Tobit, 2 Edras, and 1 Enoch (although the Essenes also believed in angels and demons).  Several apocryphal books express a belief in an afterlife, and resurrection of the dead, including Wisdom of Solomon, 2 Maccabees, 2 Esdras and 1 Enoch.  However, we can’t for certain describe any of these as absolutely Pharisaic. 

Sadducees

There are no known extant writings by the Sadducees.  Thus, all information that we have about them is written by someone who was not a Sadducee – Josephus, the New Testament, early rabbinical works (and, possibly, the Dead Sea Scrolls).

Origins/History

The first mention chronologically of the Sadducees (“sons of Zadok”?) is by Josephus in Jewish Antiquities where they are said to have been in existence as one of the three “sects among the Jews” during the reign of Hasmonean High Priest Jonathan (160-143 B.C.):

“And for the Sadducees, they take away fate, and say there is no such thing, and that the events of human affairs are not at its disposal; but they suppose that all our actions are in our own power, so that we are ourselves the cause of what is good, and receive what is evil from our own folly.”  (JA, 13.5.9)

The next time the Sadducees are mentioned chronologically in Josephus is in the previously mentioned incident between the Pharisees and John Hyrcanus.  After the intemperate Pharisee Eleazar insults Hyrcanus, a Sadducee encourages the King to think that the insult is representative of the feelings of the Pharisees as a whole:

“Now there was one Jonathan, a very great friend of Hyrcanus, but of the sect of the Sadducees, whose notions are quite contrary to those of the Pharisees. He told Hyrcanus that Eleazar had cast such a reproach upon him, according to the common sentiments of all the Pharisees…” (JA, 13.10.6)

It is at the instigation of Jonathan the Sadducee that John Hyrcanus leaves the Pharisees:

“It was this Jonathan who chiefly irritated him, and influenced him so far that he made him leave the party of the Pharisees…”  (JA, 13.10.6)

The Sadducees don’t show up again in an historical setting in Josephus until the 1^st century A.D.  However, some scholars believe that the Civil War under Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 B.C.) was in fact one between the Sadducees and the Pharisees, which resulted in the Sadducees losing political power upon the death of Alexander.  However, this can only be considered speculation at this point.

Josephus includes a long discussion of High Priest Ananus who puts James the brother of Jesus to death.  The passage also notes that the priesthood was 1) bestowed by the Romans at this time in history and 2) was a family affair (as discussed in the New Testament).  Ananus is explicitly identified as a Sadducee – does this mean that we should presume that the rest of his family is also Sadducean?

“And now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator; but the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus.  Now the report goes, that this elder Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons, who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and he had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests: but this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned…”  (JA 20.9.1, emphasis added)

There is even less hard evidence about the origins of the Sadducees than there is about the Pharisees and Essenes.  Many commentaries and dictionaries connect the Sadducees with the Levitical priesthood that descended from the first chief priest of Solomon’s Temple  - Zadok (hence “sons of Zadok”).  And certainly, it appears in Josephus and in the New Testament, that there was some link between the chief priests of the Temple and the Sadducees, but one cannot really go any further.  It would be a mistake to assume that all chief priests were Sadducees, or that all Sadducees were priests.

Some scholars view that the Qumran (Dead Sea Scrolls) sectarians were a breakaway group of Sadducees.  The word sadducee is a derivative of zadokite, and the one label that the scrolls seem to apply to the sectarians is “sons of Zadok”.  The view of sectarians-as-Sadducees is represented here by Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman:

 “I believe the sect was formed when a group of Sadducean priests left the Temple service in the aftermath of the Hasmonean takeover of the Temple soon after the Maccabean revolt, probably by about 152 B.C.E.”  (New Light on the Pharisees, Lawrence Schiffman, Bible Review, June ’92)

As mentioned previously, Michael Wise in his book The First Messiah believes that the author of the Thanksgiving Hymns was the mysterious “Teacher of Righteousness”.  Wise believes that the Teacher was a member of the ruling Sadducean party under the reign of Alexander Jannaeus, who was thrown out of power after the Pharisses assumed power under Alexander’s widow.  If this is true, then parts of the Dead Sea scrolls could be Sadducean writings.

One possible argument against the sectarians-as-Sadducees view is that some of the beliefs found in the Dead Sea Scrolls seem to be against what we know of as Sadducean beliefs (the Scrolls show a strong belief in predestination, a high opinion of the writings of the prophets, etc.)

Beliefs and attributes

Josephus

Josephus seems to mention the Sadducees’ beliefs and characteristics primarily in contradistinction to the Pharisees.  At the end of the day, Josephus doesn’t tell us much, but we’ll summarize what he does tell us here:

• They were on the “free will” side of the eternal predestination vs. free will debate (early Baptists?)
• They trusted only in the written word of the scriptures, not in the “tradition of our forefathers”
• They believed that souls die with the body – there is no afterlife, and no resurrection of the dead
• Their appeal was primarily to the rich, or to the aristocracy.  They were not popular with the masses.