What Is Sadducee?
The Sadducees were the movement in Jesus-era Judaism rooted in the temple and the priesthood; their name is thought to be connected with Zadok, the high priest of David's time. They were influential among the wealthy and governing classes; the high priests usually came from this circle, and they held significant weight in the Sanhedrin. In teaching they took only the written Law as their standard and rejected oral tradition; the New Testament records that they denied the resurrection, angels and spirits. Their debates with Jesus in the Gospels are therefore mostly about resurrection, the question of the woman married to seven brothers being the best-known example. In Acts they are the group most disturbed by the apostles' proclaiming of the resurrection, and Paul appeals to the Pharisee-Sadducee divide on exactly this point before the council. With the temple's destruction in AD 70 the institution they depended on disappeared, and the Sadducees passed from history.