The Pharisees and Sadducees were two Jewish religious groups that were mentioned in the New Testament. They met with Jesus and sometimes tried to trick him by asking him difficult questions.
Many people today who study the Bible still do not know everything about the Pharisees and the Sadducees. No one is sure when these groups started. In addition, scholars are not absolutely sure about everything the Pharisees and Sadducees believed. Even though it is impossible to know everything about them, when we look at what the Bible tells us, we can have a better understanding of the two groups and the main differences between them.
PHARISEES
The Pharisees were a group of religious leaders who lived in Palestine during the time of Jesus’ life and the beginnings of the Christian church.
Pharisees in the New Testament
The Pharisees are consistently described in the Gospels as Jesus’ antagonists. It is commonly held that the Pharisees represented what most Jews believed in the first century and that they were not very moral people. Because of this, most Bible dictionaries describe the Pharisees as greedy and hypocritical people who were only interested in fulfilling the literal details of God’s law. In the same way, many Christians believe that the behavior of the Pharisees is a representation of the behavior of all people who follow Judaism.
There are several problems with this common perception of the Pharisees. In the first place, the Gospels themselves do not describe the Pharisees in this way. Second, there are other Jewish writings, like the Mishnah and the Talmud, that are positive and praiseworthy. Third, it has become clearer to scholars, especially since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that before A.D. 70, the Pharisees were only a small group of people in a society that was very diverse. No matter how popular they might have been, we should not think they are a good representation of Judaism in general.
Their Origin
Scholars do not know everything about the origins of the Pharisees. Because of this, there is a lot of debate about when the Pharisees became a group. According to Jewish tradition, the Pharisees can be traced back to the time of Ezra which was around 450 BC. However, some other scholars think, because there are no historical documents to support this view, that the Pharisees became a group some time after the Maccabean revolt, which was in 167 BC. Some other scholars believe that there are historical documents that show a group that was very similar to the Pharisees starting around 250 BC. They use an ancient book called The Wisdom of Joshua to support this claim. Each of these views is probably partially correct. The scribes that began working around Ezra’s time probably did have something to do with the development of the Pharisees. In the same way, it is very likely that there were some groups forming before the Maccabean revolt that were very similar to the Pharisees. An example of this would be the Jews who were Hasideans. These Jews were called “the faithful ones” because they did not want the secular Greek culture to influence Jewish life.
According to a popular and reasonable tradition, the Hasideans did not agree with the Jewish rulers during the Maccabean period. The Hasideans felt the rulers’ behavior violated Jewish laws in several ways. Because of this, some of the Hasideans separated themselves from the nation and developed into groups of their own, such as that of the Essenes. The Hasideans who remained in Israel tried to exert their influence on Jewish life. Most likely, it was these people who eventually became the first Pharisees.
The Pharisees played a significant role in Jewish life during the next century, even though they did not have very much political power. By the time Jesus began his ministry, the Pharisees were widely recognized as religious leaders. The historian Josephus, who tells us that he was a Pharisee, wrote in his bookAntiquities that the Pharisees were “extremely influential among the townsfolk; and all prayers and sacred rites of divine worship [were] performed according to their exposition. This is the great tribute that the inhabitants of the cities, by practicing the highest ideal both in their way of living and in their discourse, have paid to the excellence of the Pharisees.” It is impossible for scholars to know whether or not Josephus was talking about the Pharisees who lived before AD 70. However, the Gospels also seem to describe the Pharisees as religious leaders in the community. For example, the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee condemns the Pharisee for being proud before God (Luke 18:9-14). However, this parable only makes sense if we understand that it is a parable about role reversals. Usually it was the tax collectors who were wicked and the Pharisees who were righteous. By understanding this parable, we can know that the Pharisees were generally well respected during the time of the New Testament.
Basic Characteristics of the Pharisees
In the same way that scholars cannot agree on the exact origins of the Pharisees, it is also difficult to know everything that the Pharisees believed and practiced. For some scholars, the most important characteristic of the Pharisees was that they generally separated themselves from society. These scholars base their thinking on the name “Pharisee,” which comes from the Hebrew wordparush which means “the separated one.” Other scholars believe that the most important characteristic of the Pharisees was their desire to keep their religious rituals pure (Mark 7:1-4). These scholars believe that the Pharisees wanted to make all Jews follow laws that were originally created only for the priests. This idea may help to explain why the Pharisees were not that concerned when the temple and sacrifices were no longer a part of Jewish life after AD 70. Other scholars believe that the Pharisees were a group of scholars. There are many similarities between the Pharisees and the scribes, who were experts in the law. In the same way, there are many references in later Jewish literature that describes the importance of intellectual pursuit. This is especially true in the very detailed logical argumentation that goes on when discussing the meaning of Jewish laws. Once again, each of these viewpoints is probably partially correct.
Even with these disagreements, there does seem to be widespread agreement about one belief that was the theological foundation for the Pharisees. All Pharisees were committed to the idea of two different forms of God’s law. The first form, the written Torah, included the writings in the Old Testament. The second form, the oral Torah, included that laws and traditions that were passed down from generation to generation. The belief in these two forms of law was a big difference between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sadducees only believed that the writings of Moses had any type of authority and they thought the Pharisees put too much emphasis on tradition. These oral traditions, which attempted to help people live godly lives, became more and more detailed over the course of time. Around A.D. 210, all of these laws were collected and written down in a single book called the Mishnah. As the law was passed down from generation to generation, many Jews began to believe that God had given the oral law to Moses and that it had the same divine authority that Scripture had.
By looking carefully at the New Testament, we can see that the Pharisees’ belief in the authority of the oral law caused conflicts with the message Jesus and the apostles taught. For example, the apostle Paul, pointed out that his preaching was distinctive from “the traditions of the fathers” which he had studied as a young man (Galatians 1:14). Another important passage on the subject occurs when the Pharisees complained to Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with ‘unclean’ hands?” (Mark 7:5). Jesus rejected their criticism by saying, “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men....Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down” (Mark 7:8; Mark 7:13).
Because the Pharisees put so much emphasis on their interpretations of the law, they neglected to see God’s true message for all people. To make matters worse, many of the Pharisees’ interpretations of the law distorted God’s original laws for the Israelites. For example, when Jesus rebukes the Pharisees in Mark 7:10-12, he is responding to the Pharisees’ belief that people could ignore the fifth commandment.
The rules and regulations of the Pharisees were numerous and sometimes aggravating, but at least they could be fulfilled. However, people who followed the rules completely were in danger of concluding that their behavior on earth was enough to satisfy God’s demands. Paul wrote that, as a younger man, he believed this (Philippians 3:6). When the Pharisees began to believe that they were without sin, they did not have to depend on God’s mercy to save them, and the Bible teaches that this type of thinking is wrong. The parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee illustrates this point very well (Luke 18:9-14). Instead of legalistic nitpicking, Jesus called his followers to a higher righteousness than the Pharisees did when he said, “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
SADDUCEES
Like the Pharisees, the Sadducees were a Jewish group that is mentioned many times in the New Testament but not in the Old Testament.
Their History
A number of suggestions have been made about the origin of the name of the Sadducees. First, some suggest a connection with the Hebrew word saddik which means, “righteous.” However, this is not likely because there is no reason to think that the Sadducees made claims that they were the “righteous ones.”
Second, the name has been connected with Zadok, who was a priest in the days of King David (2 Samuel 8:17 and 2 Samuel 15:24-29). Zadok anointed Solomon (1 Kings 1:32-39) and became chief priest during Solomon’s reign (1 Kings 2:35). Zadok is said to have descended from Eleazar, who was the son of Aaron (1 Chronicles 6:3-8), and it seems that Zadokite priests were responsible for priestly duties in the temple until Jerusalem was conquered. In the blueprints for the restoration of the temple (Ezekiel 40-48), the Zadokite priests are commanded to minister as “Levitical priests” (Ezekiel 44:15-16 and Ezekiel 48:11-12). After the exile of the Israelites, the Bible tells us about Joshua, the son of Jehozadak who was the high priest (Haggai 1:1). The Bible traces Joshua’s lineage back to Zadok (1 Chronicles 6:8-15). The importance of the Zadokite priesthood continued to be an important topic in other writings of the early second century BC, but it is not completely clear that this is where the Sadducees got their name.
Third, another tradition says that the Sadducees took their name from another Zadok who lived in the second century BC However, there is not very much evidence to support this view.
Finally, the British scholar T. W. Manson, who is an expert on the New Testament, suggested that their name is connected with the Greek word sundikoi, which means, “members of the council.” This would mean that the Sadducees were council members that were ruled by the Hasmoneans.
The first historical knowledge we have of the Sadducees is in the time of Jonathan Maccabeus, who led the Jewish revolt against the Seleucids from 160 BC to 143 BC. Josephus (Antiquities 13.5.9) said that they were a group at this time. In addition, Josephus also wrote that there was conflict between the Pharisees and the Sadducees around this same time (Antiquities 13.10.6). Josephus says that the Sadducees had the rich people on their side, while the Pharisees had support from the common people. In the days of Salome Alexandra (76-67 BC), the Pharisees were the dominant religious leaders, but when Judea became a Roman province and Roman governors began to decide who would be high priest, it appears that most of the high priests were from Sadducean families. While they were temporary high priests, these Sadducees had power and influence over many people. As conflicts between the Jews and Romans began to develop, the Sadducees lost some of this influence. In fact, after the Romans conquered Jerusalem in AD 70, the Sadducees faded from history altogether.
The Sadducees in the New Testament
In the Gospels, the first time the Sadducees appear is at John’s baptism. In this story, John said they were “sons of snakes” and he encouraged them to repent of their sins (Matthew 3:7-10). Later, the Sadducees came along with some Pharisees to “test” Jesus by asking him to show them a sign from heaven (Matthew 16:1). Jesus warned his disciples to beware of the Sadducees (Matthew 16:6 and Matthew 6:11-12).
A big difference between the Pharisees and the Sadducees begins to show up in Matthew 22:23-33 (compare Mark 12:18-27 and Luke 20:27-38). The Sadducees, who wanted to embarrass Jesus with their trick questions, asked Jesus a question that showed their doubts concerning the resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees were described in this context as people who said that there was no resurrection after death. They asked Jesus about a woman who had seven brothers as her husbands in succession. “Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?” they asked. By asking this, the Sadducees were suggesting that the resurrection could not be true. Jesus answered this question speaking of the error of their view caused by their ignorance of the Scriptures and of God’s power.
In the early days of the church in Jerusalem, the priests, the temple police, and the Sadducees became annoyed because Jesus’ disciples were preaching about the resurrection of the dead (Acts 4:1-2). The Sadducees seem to have been the leaders of this opposition against the preaching of the apostles. Later on, the high priest and Sadducees decided to arrest the apostles and put them in prison (Acts 5:17). The only other reference to the Sadducees in the New Testament is in Acts 23:6-8, which tells the story of Paul’s trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin (Acts 23:6-8). In this story, Paul deliberately spoke about his belief in the resurrection so he would cause a division between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. By reading the New Testament, we get a good picture about the main beliefs of the Sadducees, their position in Jerusalem, and the differences they had with the Pharisees.
Josephus, the Jewish historian who wrote at the end of the first century AD, adds to the information in the New Testament about the Sadducees. Josephus wrote that the Sadducees, in contrast to the Pharisees and Essenes, did not believe in the overruling power of God. Instead, they believed that everything that happens to people is the result of the good or evil that we do (Antiquities 13.5.9 and War 2.8.14). Josephus, in a way that echoes stories from the New Testament, wrote about the Sadducees’ rejection of “the immortal duration of the soul, and the punishments and rewards in Hades” (War 2.8.14). The Sadducees said, “Souls die with the bodies” (Antiquities 18.1.4). Hippolytus, Origen, and Jerome, who were other early Christian writers, said that the Sadducees only accepted the Pentateuch and did not accept the other Old Testament books as part of God’s Word. However, it would seem that they were not opposed to other books of the Old Testament. Most likely, there were opposed to the legal regulations the Pharisees introduced. The Sadducees thought that the laws of the Old Testament should be mandatory for all people. In this situation, as in their disbelief of life after death, the Sadducees appear to have regarded the Pharisees as innovators while they saw themselves as conservatives.
The other main source of knowledge about the Sadducees is the Mishnah, which is the collection of the teaching of the rabbis. The Mishnah was put down in writing in the second century AD. The Sadducees opposed many of the detailed regulations that the Pharisees wanted the people to follow (Parah 3.3,7). The Mishnah also shows that the Sadducees had a greater tendency to compromise with the ways of the Gentiles than other Jewish religious groups (Niddah 4.2).
Who?
Who were the Pharisees and Sadducees? The Pharisees and Sadducees were two groups of Jewish religious leaders mentioned in the New Testament.
When?
When did the Pharisees become a group? We do not know the exact year the Pharisees became a group, but it was probably between 450 BC and 150 BC.
What?
What were the two types of law the Pharisees believed in? The Pharisees believed in the written law, which was in the Old Testament, and the spoken law, which had been passed down from generation to generation.
Where?
Where did the Pharisees write down their collection of the spoken law? The Pharisees wrote all of these laws down in a book called the Mishnah.
How?
How did Jesus react to the Sadducees’ questions about the resurrection? Jesus pointed out that the Sadducees did not understand Scripture or the power of God.
Why?
Why did Jesus react in this way? The Sadducees thought that their good behavior was enough to please God. Jesus knew that this was completely wrong.
Dead Sea Scrolls
Essenes
Hasideans
Hasmoneans
Judaism
Judea
Law
Maccabean Period
Mishnah
Palestine
Sanhedrin
Talmud
Torah
Aaron
David
Eleazar
Ezra
Jesus
Josephus
Paul
Solomon
YES, BUT . . .
The Pharisees received Jesus’ harshest criticism. He railed against their hypocrisy, their pride, and their spiritual blindness (Matthew 23).
Yes, but . . . their intentions seemed good. In a time when many Jews were adopting the unscriptural lifestyle of the Greeks, the Pharisees claimed to uphold God’s word. They were trying to make Israel holy by setting up laws. Many of these laws added to Old Testament commands, specifying some things that God had been vague about, and building a legal “hedge” around the law so that it would be difficult even to come close to breaking God’s commands. Sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it?
Where did they go wrong? Pride kept them from seeing their own need for forgiveness. They judged others harshly but found loopholes for themselves. They put their own regulations on a par with God’s original commands. They also made it hard for poor people to practice their religion.
In any era, we need to be careful that we don’t let good intentions go awry. It’s great to desire holiness, but let’s be humble and loving too.