Who were the Sadducees and the Pharisees?

Who were the Sadducees and the Pharisees?

We're going to answer that question.

The Gospels referred often to Sadducees and Pharisees, as Jesus was in constant conflict.

With them.

Together they comprised the ruling class or political classes of Israel.

They share many similarities, but there are important differences between them as well.

The Sadducees.

During the time of Christ and the New Testament era, the Sadducees were aristocrats.

They tended to be wealthy and held powerful positions, including the majority of the seventy seats of the ruling

council called the Sanhedrin.

They worked hard to keep the peace by agreeing with the decisions of Rome, and they seemed to be more concerned with politics

than religion.

Because of this, they did not relate well to the common man, nor were they well liked.

The Sadducees preserved the authority of the written word of God.

While they could be commended for this, they held beliefs that definitely contradict scripture.

They were extremely self -sufficient, to the point of denying God's involvement in everyday.

Life.

They denied any resurrection of the dead.

They denied any afterlife, holding that the soul perished at death, and therefore denying any penalty or

reward after the earthly life.

They denied any existence of a spiritual world, including angels and demons.

The Sadducees ceased to exist in AD 70, since this party existed because of their political and

priestly ties.

When Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70, the Sadducees were also destroyed.

The Pharisees.

In contrast to the Sadducees, the Pharisees were mostly middle -class businessmen.

Because of this, they were held in much higher esteem by the common man than the Sadducees.

Though they were a minority in the Sanhedrin and held a minority number of positions as priests, they seemed to

control the decision -making of the Sanhedrin far more than the Sadducees did, again because they had the

support of the people.

Religiously, they accepted the written word of God as inspired by God, but they also gave equal

authority to verbal traditions which added to God's word.

Such is forbidden, and examples can be found in these references.

Now in contrast to the Sadducees, they believed that God controlled all things, yet decisions made by

individuals also contributed to the course of a person's life.

They believed in the resurrection of the dead.

They believed in an afterlife with appropriate reward and punishment on an individual basis.

And they believed in the existence of angels and demons.

Though the Pharisees were rivals of the Sadducees, they managed to set aside their differences on one occasion, the

trial of Christ.

It was at this point that the Sadducees and Pharisees united to put Christ to death.

Both the Pharisees and the Sadducees earned numerous rebukes from Jesus, and perhaps the best lesson we can

learn from them is not to be like them.

Unlike the Sadducees, we are to believe everything the Bible says, including the miraculous and the afterlife.

Unlike the Pharisees, we are not to treat traditions as having equal authority as scripture, and we are not

to allow our relationship with God to be reduced to a legalistic list of rules and rituals.

That answers the question, who were the Sadducees and the Pharisees?

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