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"For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the
Pharisees confess both."
The rationalist of today does not accept such things, which are reckoned to be beyond
the sphere of human experience.
Josephus, the Jewish historian, says of the Sadducees that "they take away fate
entirely, and suppose that God is not concerned in our doing". He further testifies as to
the conduct of this party that "the behaviour of the Sadducees one towards another is in
some degree wild, and their conversation with those that are of their own party is as
barbarous as if they were strangers to them" (Wars of the Jews, Book 2, chapter 8). It
should be remembered before accepting this too readily, that Josephus himself was a
Pharisee.
It is interesting to note in line with the Sadducean denial of the resurrection, that
whereas the Pharisees were more active during the Lord's ministry, the Sadducees
became so after the resurrection of the Lord.
"And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the
Sadducees, came upon them, being grieved that they taught the people, and preached
through Jesus the resurrection from the dead" (Acts 4: 1, 2).
In Acts 5: 17, they were filled with indignation at the popularity of the Apostles, and
again laid hands on them, putting them into the prison.
During the lifetime of Christ, they could probably afford to ignore what they
considered to be the religious views of a zealot. But after His triumphal entry into
Jerusalem when the multitudes cried, "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the
Lord", and His action in the Temple when He cast out all them that sold and bought, and
overthrew the tables of the money changers, saying, "My house shall be called the House
of Prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves", the Sadducees would be forced to
recognize the political implications of these things, and in particular the claim already
being made that here was the King of the Jews (Matt. 21: 1-15).
The Sadducees appear to have had the chief share in the crucifixion, as Dean Farrar
notes:
"It is most remarkable and, so far as I know, has scarcely ever been noticed that,
although the Pharisees undoubtedly were actuated by a burning hatred against Jesus, and
were even so eager for His death as to be willing to co-operate with the aristocratic and
priestly Sadducees, from whom they were ordinarily separated by every kind of
difference, political, social and religious, yet, from the moment that the plot for His arrest
and condemnation had been matured, the Pharisees took so little part in it that their name
is not once prominently mentioned in any event connected with the arrest, the trial, the
derisions and the crucifixion. The only exception to this is John 18:3. The Pharisees as
such disappear; the chief priests and elders take their place" (The Life of Christ).
It was only natural then, that when it was claimed of this One Whom they had put to
death, that He was risen from the dead, and when the Apostles had filled Jerusalem with
their doctrine (Acts 5: 28), the Sadducees should again be the chief antagonists.