The Life of Jesus in Harmony |
Index
Sadducees
The Sadducees were so named because they claimed to be descended from Zadok,
the
high priest at the time of King David and King
Solomon. They consisted of the wealthy aristocratic families who controlled the
office of high priest. They rejected belief in angels and the
resurrection, but they were not liberal rationalists. Rather, they were staunch
conservatives, who observed the Law of the Books of Moses (Pentateuch) and who rejected
later interpretations of the law, the 'oral law'.
The Sadducees were angered at Jesus' cleansing the temple and at his teaching
on the resurrection. It was Sadducean
chief priests who condemned
Jesus at a night-time trial and handed him over to Pilate. The Sadducees were
primarily responsible for trying to suppress the preaching of
Peter and the other
apostles when they proclaimed that Jesus had risen from the dead. As the destruction
of the temple in AD 70 destroyed their reason for existence, the Sadducees did
not survive this period.