A Note on Pharisees and Sadducees

Don't think of the Pharisees as a religious sect so much as a religious party. Protestant Christianity has divided itself into so many little splinter groups that when we get to the New Testament and start reading about the Pharisees and Sadducees we start thinking of them like Methodists and Baptists--as if they were different Jewish denominations. But this is the wrong way to think about them. It makes more sense and comes a lot closer to reality to look at them as two separate political parties within a legislature. They differ on particulars but both alike support the institution. The majority party rules and gets to make more decisions, but the minority party still has a say and influence. In this respect the Pharisees are the majority party and the Sadducees the minority while the Jewish faith is the institution in which they vie for supremacy.

Now let's look at each a little bit more closely.

The Pharisees obsessed over purity and outward conformity to the Law. Theirs was a brotherhood zealous of the traditions of their fathers. There was no law they could not improve, expound, and expand upon. Because theirs was the majority position, their opinion was official. Therefore the synagogue worship service is strongly Pharisaical in its design and emphasis. We also see this in Jesus's words to his disciples concerning them:

Matthew 23:[1] Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, [2] “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, [3] so practice and observe whatever they tell you—but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice.

Jesus is pointing out that because they were the majority position on ecclesiastical matters they were in charge of the worship and religious judgment of Israel and as such they were the law. This is why Jesus tells the crowd they must submit to the Pharisees's opinions on religious observance. But then he goes on to expose them for what they really were.

Matthew 23:[4] They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. [5] They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, [6] and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues [7] and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.

He expounds further, but this quotation will suffice for our purposes.

Now, about those Sadducees. The Sadducees were a brotherhood also, in some respects more liberal, and some more conservative than the Pharisees. While a Sadducee might roll his eyes at the pretense of the Pharisees, we might note that he had his own foibles. The Sadducee did not accept the Prophets to be as authoritative in spiritual matters as the Torah (the Law). To them, the Torah, (what we know of as the Pentateuch or the books of Moses) was the only certain source of spiritual knowledge and the rest of what we know of as the Old Testament were considered companion writings. For this reason they were either agnostic about or did not believe at all in an afterlife or a resurrection. These things could not be found in the Torah. Did you notice in our synagogue worship service that there is much to be said about the resurrection and a future life with God and those who have gone on and are now living with God? This is by design and a Pharisee would have emphasized it not just for the reason that he would have considered it an important point of worship, but also to let the Sadducees know whose opinion was supreme.

But the Sadducees still had their influence. We will see that the reading of the Torah was divided up and completed in a cycle covering a certain time period. At the time of Christ it is believed that this would have been once every three or three and a half years. The reading of the prophets, however, was more random and not systematic at all. Chalk one up for the Sadducees.

As for that question of the resurrection, Jesus answered them fully and finally during his last week on earth when all his enemies sought to trip him up and find occasion to have him arrested. Recall that the Sadducees came to him with a question about the resurrection:

Matthew 22:[23] The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, [24] saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.’ [25] Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother. [26] So too the second and third, down to the seventh. [27] After them all, the woman died. [28] In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.”

Looks as if they clearly thought they had cornered him and asked him the question that showed the fallacy of his ways. But they were wrong. Note Jesus's response:

[29] But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. [30] For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. [31] And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: [32] ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” [33] And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

Jesus takes them to the Torah and shows them that God speaks to Moses about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the present tense. He proved them wrong on their own turf, from their own texts.

Anyway, just thought I would point out a few things that might help you understand the New Testament a little better. Back to our synagogue service shortly.