Nadene Goldfoot
Sadducees and Pharisees were of different thoughts in Judaism. They lived during the 2nd Temple Period around 538 BCE. That was 2,561 years ago and they were modernizing our religion with debates about 2 different ways of thinking about it. Modernizing Judaism took place 2,561 years ago as the first need to do so. Actually, Judaism started with Abraham (1948 BCE) a time of human sacrifice, and believing in one G-d that went against all the civilizations. Then of course it was Moses (1391-1271 BCE) who upgraded that belief. So by 538 BCE, it was time for discussion about it again.
Sadducees were upper-class wealthy men mostly from Jerusalem who made up the Jewish aristocracy. They may have started with the high priest Zadok, a Cohen, whose descendants carried on till 162 BCE. His father was Phineas Rehabiah. son of Eliezer, son of Moses. For them, their religion was part of the Temple cult with no abstract faith. To them, individuals and groups must aspire to well-being in this world without expecting recompense in the world to come. They had no belief in a future world, resurrection, or the immortality of the soul and also rejected the existence of angels and spirits.
To me, it sounds like Judaism with many people of today; all quite scientific about it.
They stuck to the written law which actually caused them to behave severely in cases involving the capital penalty and they interpreted the Lex Talionis literally rather than in the sense of monetary compensation which was adopted by the Pharisees.
Gever relates, “In the Second Temple period several factions were formed amongst the people of Israel, including the Pharisees and those who did not accept their path.” The Karaites did not accept the Oral Torah that was added over the generations."
In politics, they developed into the supporters of the Hasmonean kings of our Chanukah story from the reign of John Hyrcanus, son of Simon the Hasmonean who ruled (135-104 BCE) John was governor of Gezer.
His father and 2 brothers were murdered by his brother-in-law Ptolemy, son of Abubus. Ptolemy son of Abubus was an official in the early Hasmonean kingdom which then controlled Judea. According to the book of 1 Maccabees, in 135 BC, he served as the governor of Jericho. While High Priest Simon Thassi was visiting, Ptolemy orchestrated the murder of Simon and two of his sons, as well as some of Simon's servants. This act of betrayal of guest right earned Ptolemy a place in Dante's The Divine Comedy; one of the sections of the ninth layer of hell described in Inferno is called Ptolomea, where those who betray guests in their home suffer. Ptolemy then murdered his mother whom he had been holding as hostage.
John was made high priest. which made the Hasmonean state again a tributary to Syria. Sadducees constituted the backbone of his army and state administration. Finally there was a breach with the Pharisees and he abolished several Pharisaic regulations and suppressed the coming uprising. His last years were peaceful.
Jerusalem's Queen: reigning 2,158 years ago for 9 years.
A Novel of Salome Alexandra (The Silent Years Series)
They lost influence under Salome Alexandra who was ruler of Judea (76-67 BCE. She took over from her husband, Alexander Yannai, and reversed his inimical policy toward the Pharisees, traditionally by his dying request. John Hyrcanus suffered severely at the hands of Herod. The whole power and existence of the Sadducees was bound up with the Temple cult, and on the destruction of the Temple, they disappeared. According to Josephus, Salome handed internal control to the Pharisees while retaining responsibility for the army and foreign policy. Her appointment of her eldest son, Hyrcanus as high priest and heir, was opposed by his brother, Aristobulus. The Talmud says that Salome was the sister of Rabbi Simeon ben Shetah and regard her favorably, but Josephus was critical.
Pharisees came from all economic classes but were distinguished by their rigid adherence to specific behavior prescriptions arising from their interpretation of the ambiguities in the Torah. They seem to have come from a continuation of the Hasideans. Their name means to be set apart; and avoided contact with others for reasons of ritual purity. The Pharisees were a relatively narrow body, closed to the masses, but their activity was directed to the masses whom they sought to imbue with a spirit of holiness by propagating traditional religious teaching.
There was a gulf between the Pharisees and those ignorant of the Law or not practicing it. The Pharisees used to eat in groups of their own and observe all the rules of purity in the same manner as the priests consuming consecrated food in the Temple. In other words, they were doing the same things only the food was not as kosher as the food of the Sadducees.
Simchat Beit Hashoevah - Sukkot's Joyous Water-Drawing Ceremony ...
They tried to influence the Temple whose control there was absolute. They incorporated into the cult folk-customs not mentioned in the bible, like the Water-Drawing Festival (simhat bet ha-shoevah), to the dismay of the Sadducees. This was a festival of water-libation at the end of the 1st day of Succot (the Feast of Tabernacles). It was advocated by the Pharisees, not wanted by the Pharisees as it was not acknowledged by the Sadducees since it had no authority in the Torah (Pentateuch), but the populace nevertheless observed it enthusiastically. After all, this was a hot country and water at the end of a hot day was like playing with the hose. It was a modern addition to the holiday, probably beloved by the children. With the fall of the Temple it was finished but revived recently in an altered form in modern Israel. This sounds so much like the Music Festival held on October 7th at a secular kibbutz near Gaza.
There were other reasons for antagonism between the 2 parties that extended to many spheres, mainly basic social differences.
The Pharisees admitted the principle of evolution in their legal decisions, while the Sadducees were incapable of adaption to a changing environment. So, the Pharisees were seen as being generally lenient in their interpretations, while the Sadducees clung to the letter of the written text. The Pharisees placed the nation's life within a halakic framework expressed in the ORAL LAW which they regarded as no less vital than the Written Law (the Bible). Their doctrine aspired to embrace the entire life of the community, touching therefore on the theological foundations of life, questions of fate, good and evil, the immortality of the soul, and eschatology. They admitted divine predestination but also man's responsibility for his deeds. Pharisees incorporated more than the Torah had written. They were at the point of thinking of more questions they needed answers to in the frame of the law.
Yet, by the time Jesus was born , by Jewish literature, died in 29 CE, said to have died at age from 33 to 40 years old, lets say 37, would have been born in 8 BCE and raised, he picked on the Pharisees.
"Jesus regularly condemned the practices and behavior of the Pharisees because he said they lived hypocritically and went against His teachings. That's because he was straying way away from Judaism's basic views. Jesus's education went as far as Bethlehem and Nazareth, small towns. Pharisees were stationed at the Temple in Jerusalem which was the center, like Yale or Harvard. To understand the complexity of Jesus and the Pharisees, it’s important to understand who the Pharisees were, why they disliked Jesus, and why Jesus rejected their practices and lifestyle." They were the most modernized of the two theories, the most lenient. Jesus was evidently not used to debate, which was how the Sadducees and Pharisees settled their division. He was like many; hearing something new that went against his decisions, and he didn't listen anymore; was angry, even made a scene by throwing things in the Temple where they changed money from other countries to Israel's so they could buy food.
This was over 2,000 years ago and Judaism would not stand still but continued to upgrade the religion to fit the times. Debate was usually the way they did it. It is a peaceful way, and people can follow it, seeing what is sensible and what isn't. We haven't even come to the Dark Ages yet of the Middle Ages.
Since Jesus, Christianity has felt that they are in competition with Judaism. That's why Rome came down hard on Judaism and took over Christianity for sure with Constantine's mother, Helena and his meetings in the 300s.
Resource:
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1971019/jewish/Simchat-Beit-Hashoevah.htm
https://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2014/04/pharisees-and-sadducees-of-2nd-temple.html
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4943529,00.html
https://www.angel.com/blog/the-chosen/posts/jesus-and-the-pharisees
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_son_of_Abubus
https://academic.oup.com/book/26648/chapter-abstract/195392028?redirectedFrom=fulltext
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