Sadducees

174:3.4Je­sus ap­pealed only to Moses in his en­counter with the Sad­ducees be­cause this re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal sect ac­knowl­edged the va­lid­ity of only the five so-called Books of Moses; they did not al­low that the teach­ings of the proph­ets were ad­mis­si­ble as a ba­sis of doc­tri­nal dog­mas. The Mas­ter in his an­swer, though pos­i­tively af­firm­ing the fact of the sur­vival of mor­tal crea­tures by the tech­nique of the res­ur­rec­tion, did not in any sense speak ap­prov­ingly of the Phar­i­saic be­liefs in the res­ur­rec­tion of the lit­eral hu­man body. The point Je­sus wished to em­pha­size was: That the Fa­ther had said, “I am the God of Abra­ham, Isaac, and Ja­cob,” not I was their God.

184:1.1An­nas, en­riched by the tem­ple rev­enues, his son-in-law the act­ing high priest, and with his re­la­tions to the Ro­man au­thor­i­ties, was in­deed the most pow­er­ful sin­gle in­di­vid­ual in all Jewry. He was a suave and politic plan­ner and plot­ter. He de­sired to di­rect the mat­ter of dis­pos­ing of Je­sus; he feared to trust such an im­por­tant un­der­tak­ing wholly to his brusque and ag­gres­sive son-in-law. An­nas wanted to make sure that the Mas­ter’s trial was kept in the hands of the Sad­ducees; he feared the pos­si­ble sym­pa­thy of some of the Phar­isees, see­ing that prac­ti­cally all of those mem­bers of the San­hedrin who had es­poused the cause of Je­sus were Phar­isees.

129:1.5Zeb­e­dee’s wife, Sa­lome, was a rel­a­tive of An­nas, one­time high priest at Je­ru­sa­lem and still the most in­flu­en­tial of the Sad­ducean group, hav­ing been de­posed only eight years pre­vi­ously. Sa­lome be­came a great ad­mirer of Je­sus. She loved him as she loved her own sons, James, John, and David, while her four daugh­ters looked upon Je­sus as their el­der brother. Je­sus of­ten went out fish­ing with James, John, and David, and they learned that he was an ex­pe­ri­enced fish­er­man as well as an ex­pert boat­builder.

157:2.2When Je­sus had thus spo­ken, he with­drew and pre­pared for the evening con­fer­ence with his fol­low­ers. At this con­fer­ence it was de­cided to un­der­take a united mis­sion through­out all the cities and vil­lages of the De­capo­lis as soon as Je­sus and the twelve should re­turn from their pro­posed visit to Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi. The Mas­ter par­tic­i­pated in plan­ning for the De­capo­lis mis­sion and, in dis­miss­ing the com­pany, said: “I say to you, be­ware of the leaven of the Phar­isees and the Sad­ducees. Be not de­ceived by their show of much learn­ing and by their pro­found loy­alty to the forms of re­li­gion. Be only con­cerned with the spirit of liv­ing truth and the power of true re­li­gion. It is not the fear of a dead re­li­gion that will save you but rather your faith in a liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in the spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties of the king­dom. Do not al­low your­selves to be­come blinded by prej­u­dice and par­a­lyzed by fear. Nei­ther per­mit rev­er­ence for the tra­di­tions so to per­vert your un­der­stand­ing that your eyes see not and your ears hear not. It is not the pur­pose of true re­li­gion merely to bring peace but rather to in­sure prog­ress. And there can be no peace in the heart or prog­ress in the mind un­less you fall whole­heart­edly in love with truth, the ide­als of eter­nal re­al­i­ties. The is­sues of life and death are be­ing set be­fore you—the sin­ful plea­sures of time against the righ­teous re­al­i­ties of eter­nity. Even now you should be­gin to find de­liv­er­ance from the bond­age of fear and doubt as you en­ter upon the liv­ing of the new life of faith and hope. And when the feel­ings of ser­vice for your fel­low men arise within your soul, do not sti­fle them; when the emo­tions of love for your neigh­bor well up within your heart, give ex­pres­sion to such urges of af­fec­tion in in­tel­li­gent min­istry to the real needs of your fel­lows.”

137:7.7The Sad­ducees con­sisted of the priest­hood and cer­tain wealthy Jews. They were not such stick­lers for the de­tails of law en­force­ment. The Phar­isees and Sad­ducees were re­ally re­li­gious par­ties, rather than sects.

167:7.1As they jour­neyed up the hills from Jeri­cho to Beth­any, Na­than­iel walked most of the way by the side of Je­sus, and their dis­cus­sion of chil­dren in re­la­tion to the king­dom of heaven led in­di­rectly to the con­sid­er­a­tion of the min­istry of an­gels. Na­than­iel fi­nally asked the Mas­ter this ques­tion: “See­ing that the high priest is a Sad­ducee, and since the Sad­ducees do not be­lieve in an­gels, what shall we teach the peo­ple re­gard­ing the heav­enly min­is­ters?” Then, among other things, Je­sus said:

174:3.1Be­fore Je­sus could get started with his teach­ing, an­other group came for­ward to ques­tion him, this time a com­pany of the learned and crafty Sad­ducees. Their spokesman, draw­ing near to him, said: “Mas­ter, Moses said that if a mar­ried man should die, leav­ing no chil­dren, his brother should take the wife and raise up seed for the de­ceased brother. Now there oc­curred a case where a cer­tain man who had six broth­ers died child­less; his next brother took his wife but also soon died, leav­ing no chil­dren. Like­wise did the sec­ond brother take the wife, but he also died leav­ing no off­spring. And so on un­til all six of the broth­ers had had her, and all six of them passed on with­out leav­ing chil­dren. And then, af­ter them all, the woman her­self died. Now, what we would like to ask you is this: In the res­ur­rec­tion whose wife will she be since all seven of these broth­ers had her?”

174:3.2Je­sus knew, and so did the peo­ple, that these Sad­ducees were not sin­cere in ask­ing this ques­tion be­cause it was not likely that such a case would re­ally oc­cur; and be­sides, this prac­tice of the broth­ers of a dead man seek­ing to beget chil­dren for him was prac­ti­cally a dead let­ter at this time among the Jews. Nev­er­the­less, Je­sus con­de­scended to re­ply to their mis­chievous ques­tion. He said: “You all do err in ask­ing such ques­tions be­cause you know nei­ther the Scrip­tures nor the liv­ing power of God. You know that the sons of this world can marry and are given in mar­riage, but you do not seem to un­der­stand that they who are ac­counted wor­thy to at­tain the worlds to come, through the res­ur­rec­tion of the righ­teous, nei­ther marry nor are given in mar­riage. Those who ex­pe­ri­ence the res­ur­rec­tion from the dead are more like the an­gels of heaven, and they never die. These res­ur­rected ones are eter­nally the sons of God; they are the chil­dren of light res­ur­rected into the prog­ress of eter­nal life. And even your Fa­ther Moses un­der­stood this, for, in con­nec­tion with his ex­pe­ri­ences at the burn­ing bush, he heard the Fa­ther say, ‘I am the God of Abra­ham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Ja­cob.’ And so, along with Moses, do I de­clare that my Fa­ther is not the God of the dead but of the liv­ing. In him you all do live, re­pro­duce, and pos­sess your mor­tal ex­is­tence.”

174:3.3When Je­sus had fin­ished an­swer­ing these ques­tions, the Sad­ducees with­drew, and some of the Phar­isees so far for­got them­selves as to ex­claim, “True, true, Mas­ter, you have well an­swered these un­be­liev­ing Sad­ducees.” The Sad­ducees dared not ask him any more ques­tions, and the com­mon peo­ple mar­veled at the wis­dom of his teach­ing.

174:3.5The Sad­ducees had thought to sub­ject Je­sus to the with­er­ing in­flu­ence of ridicule, know­ing full well that per­se­cu­tion in pub­lic would most cer­tainly cre­ate fur­ther sym­pa­thy for him in the minds of the mul­ti­tude.

173:2.8And it was this ge­nius of the Mas­ter for deal­ing with his ad­ver­saries that made them so afraid of him. They at­tempted no more ques­tions that day; they re­tired to take fur­ther coun­sel among them­selves. But the peo­ple were not slow to dis­cern the dis­hon­esty and in­sin­cer­ity in these ques­tions asked by the Jew­ish rulers. Even the com­mon folk could not fail to dis­tin­guish be­tween the moral majesty of the Mas­ter and the de­sign­ing hypocrisy of his en­e­mies. But the cleans­ing of the tem­ple had brought the Sad­ducees over to the side of the Phar­isees in per­fect­ing the plan to de­stroy Je­sus. And the Sad­ducees now rep­re­sented a ma­jor­ity of the San­hedrin.

173:3.3Je­sus did not de­spise the Phar­isees and Sad­ducees per­son­ally. It was their sys­tems of teach­ing and prac­tice which he sought to dis­credit. He was hos­tile to no man, but here was oc­cur­ring the in­ev­i­ta­ble clash be­tween a new and liv­ing re­li­gion of the spirit and the older re­li­gion of cer­e­mony, tra­di­tion, and au­thor­ity.

138:2.96. Ju­das Is­car­iot was an only son of wealthy Jew­ish par­ents liv­ing in Jeri­cho. He had be­come at­tached to John the Bap­tist, and his Sad­ducee par­ents had dis­owned him. He was look­ing for em­ploy­ment in these re­gions when Je­sus’ apos­tles found him, and chiefly be­cause of his ex­pe­ri­ence with fi­nances, Na­than­iel in­vited him to join their ranks. Ju­das Is­car­iot was the only Judean among the twelve apos­tles.

139:12.1Ju­das Is­car­iot, the twelfth apos­tle, was cho­sen by Na­than­iel. He was born in Ke­rioth, a small town in south­ern Judea. When he was a lad, his par­ents moved to Jeri­cho, where he lived and had been em­ployed in his fa­ther’s var­i­ous busi­ness en­ter­prises un­til he be­came in­ter­ested in the preach­ing and work of John the Bap­tist. Ju­das’s par­ents were Sad­ducees, and when their son joined John’s dis­ci­ples, they dis­owned him.

194:4.10This Je­sus sect was grow­ing rapidly, and once more the Sad­ducees took no­tice of them. The Phar­isees were lit­tle both­ered about the sit­u­a­tion, see­ing that none of the teach­ings in any way in­ter­fered with the ob­ser­vance of the Jew­ish laws. But the Sad­ducees be­gan to put the lead­ers of the Je­sus sect in jail un­til they were pre­vailed upon to ac­cept the coun­sel of one of the lead­ing rab­bis, Gamaliel, who ad­vised them: “Re­frain from these men and let them alone, for if this coun­sel or this work is of men, it will be over­thrown; but if it is of God, you will not be able to over­throw them, lest haply you be found even to be fight­ing against God.” They de­cided to fol­low Gamaliel’s coun­sel, and there en­sued a time of peace and quiet in Je­ru­sa­lem, dur­ing which the new gospel about Je­sus spread rapidly.

175:4.4The Sad­ducees, who now con­trolled and dom­i­nated the San­hedrin, were de­sirous of mak­ing away with Je­sus for the fol­low­ing rea­sons:

175:4.51. They feared that the in­creased pop­u­lar fa­vor with which the mul­ti­tude re­garded him threat­ened to en­dan­ger the ex­is­tence of the Jew­ish na­tion by pos­si­ble in­volve­ment with the Ro­man au­thor­i­ties.

175:4.62. His zeal for tem­ple re­form struck di­rectly at their rev­enues; the cleans­ing of the tem­ple af­fected their pock­et­books.

175:4.73. They felt them­selves re­spon­si­ble for the preser­va­tion of so­cial or­der, and they feared the con­se­quences of the fur­ther spread of Je­sus’ strange and new doc­trine of the broth­er­hood of man.

175:4.14A small group of the Sad­ducees had ac­tu­ally pro­posed to dis­pose of Je­sus by as­sas­si­na­tion, but the Phar­isees ut­terly re­fused to coun­te­nance such a pro­ce­dure.

157:2.1On Mon­day, Au­gust 8, while Je­sus and the twelve apos­tles were en­camped in Ma­g­a­dan Park, near Beth­saida-Ju­lias, more than one hun­dred be­liev­ers, the evan­ge­lists, the women’s corps, and oth­ers in­ter­ested in the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom, came over from Ca­per­naum for a con­fer­ence. And many of the Phar­isees, learn­ing that Je­sus was here, came also. By this time some of the Sad­ducees were united with the Phar­isees in their ef­fort to en­trap Je­sus. Be­fore go­ing into the closed con­fer­ence with the be­liev­ers, Je­sus held a pub­lic meet­ing at which the Phar­isees were pres­ent, and they heck­led the Mas­ter and oth­er­wise sought to dis­turb the as­sem­bly. Said the leader of the dis­turbers: “Teacher, we would like you to give us a sign of your au­thor­ity to teach, and then, when the same shall come to pass, all men will know that you have been sent by God.” And Je­sus an­swered them: “When it is evening, you say it will be fair weather, for the heaven is red; in the morn­ing it will be foul weather, for the heaven is red and low­er­ing. When you see a cloud ris­ing in the west, you say show­ers will come; when the wind blows from the south, you say scorch­ing heat will come. How is it that you so well know how to dis­cern the face of the heav­ens but are so ut­terly un­able to dis­cern the signs of the times? To those who would know the truth, al­ready has a sign been given; but to an evil-minded and hyp­o­crit­i­cal gen­er­a­tion no sign shall be given.”

135:6.7John was a heroic but tact­less preacher. One day when he was preach­ing and bap­tiz­ing on the west bank of the Jor­dan, a group of Phar­isees and a num­ber of Sad­ducees came for­ward and pre­sented them­selves for bap­tism. Be­fore lead­ing them down into the wa­ter, John, ad­dress­ing them as a group said: “Who warned you to flee, as vipers be­fore the fire, from the wrath to come? I will bap­tize you, but I warn you to bring forth fruit wor­thy of sin­cere re­pen­tance if you would re­ceive the re­mis­sion of your sins. Tell me not that Abra­ham is your fa­ther. I de­clare that God is able of these twelve stones here be­fore you to raise up wor­thy chil­dren for Abra­ham. And even now is the ax laid to the very roots of the trees. Ev­ery tree that brings not forth good fruit is des­tined to be cut down and cast into the fire.” (The twelve stones to which he re­ferred were the re­puted memo­rial stones set up by Joshua to com­mem­o­rate the cross­ing of the “twelve tribes” at this very point when they first en­tered the prom­ised land.)