40 Fun Facts About Sadducees

The Sadducees most likely took their name from which high priest of King Solomon's day?

Zadok anointed Solomon as king, a scene Handel set to music in the anthem sung at every British coronation since 1727.

Which apostle set Sadducees against Pharisees by saying he was on trial over resurrection?

Paul knew the two parties disagreed about the dead rising, so he announced that he was a Pharisee and the hearing collapsed into an uproar.

In Acts 5, who opens the prison doors at night after the Sadducees jail the apostles?

An angel of the Lord made an awkward rescuer for these jailers: Acts 23 says the Sadducees denied that angels or spirits existed at all.

In Matthew 16, Jesus warns against which baking ingredient 'of the Pharisees and Sadducees'?

Yeast was his image for their teaching, but the disciples first assumed he was scolding them for forgetting to bring bread.

Which biblical penalty did the Sadducees take literally, while the Pharisees made it a cash payment?

An eye for an eye meant physical payback to the Sadducees; the Talmud objects that such a rule could never be applied to an offender who was already blind.

What is unusual about the written record the Sadducees left of their own beliefs?

None of it survives, so every description of the Sadducees comes from rivals and critics: Josephus, the New Testament writers and the rabbis.

Which high priest linked to the Sadducees presided when Jesus was tried before the Sanhedrin?

Caiaphas held the office longer than any other high priest of New Testament times; a bone box that may be his was unearthed in Jerusalem in 1990.

Which Roman commander destroyed the Jerusalem Temple, leaving the Sadducees without a power base?

Titus razed the Temple in 70 CE; with no altar or priesthood left to run, the Sadducees vanished, while the Pharisees' heirs became the rabbis.

According to Josephus, the Sadducees drew their support mainly from which part of Judean society?

The wealthy were their only backers, Josephus wrote; ordinary people followed the Pharisees, so Sadducee officials often had to give way to Pharisee rulings.

Who greeted the Pharisees and Sadducees arriving at the Jordan River as a brood of vipers?

John the Baptist flung the insult when both parties came out for his baptism, then asked who had warned them to flee the coming wrath.

When Pharisees and Sadducees demanded a sign from heaven, Jesus offered the sign of which prophet?

Jonah spent three days and nights inside a huge fish, which Matthew's Gospel treats as a preview of Jesus's own time in the tomb.

Which scene from Exodus did Jesus cite to answer the Sadducees who denied resurrection?

The burning bush speech calls God the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; Jesus argued that God would not name himself after men who were gone for good.

The Sadducees' riddle to Jesus about a widow of seven brothers relied on which biblical custom?

Levirate marriage obliged a man to wed his childless brother's widow; the Sadducees asked whose wife she would be if all seven husbands rose again.

Which body of Pharisee tradition, later compiled in the Mishnah, did the Sadducees refuse to accept?

The Oral Torah was, in Pharisee teaching, given to Moses at Sinai alongside the written text; the Sadducees held that only what was written down was binding.

Josephus says the Sadducees rejected which idea, insisting people choose their own good or evil?

Fate played no part in Sadducee thinking, Josephus wrote, while the Pharisees held that people act freely but God already knows how things will turn out.

Josephus named three Jewish sects: Pharisees, Sadducees and which group tied to the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Essenes shared their property and lived communally, a world away from the Temple politics that occupied the Sadducees.

Which respected Pharisee talked the Sadducee-led council out of killing the apostles in Acts 5?

Gamaliel argued that a movement of merely human making would be overthrown anyway, so the council let the apostles go with a beating.

Which brother of Jesus did a Sadducee high priest have stoned while Judea was between Roman governors?

James died after the high priest convened a court without Roman consent; Josephus says the outcry cost the priest his office after only three months.

On which day of the week did the Sadducees insist the festival of Shavuot must always fall?

Sunday followed from reading 'the day after the Sabbath' in Leviticus literally, so their seven-week count to the festival always began on the first day of the week.

On which holy day did Sadducees and Pharisees dispute where the high priest lit the incense?

Yom Kippur was the only day the high priest entered the Holy of Holies; the Sadducees wanted the incense lit outside so that he walked in already veiled in smoke.

Which Hasmonean ruler left the Pharisees for the Sadducees after a dinner guest insulted him?

John Hyrcanus was told by a Pharisee at his own table to give up the high priesthood over a rumor about his mother, and the insult ended the alliance.

What fruit did a festival crowd hurl at the pro-Sadducee king Alexander Jannaeus in the Temple?

Citrons are carried at Sukkot, so worshippers had them in hand; tradition says the king had poured the ritual water over his feet instead of the altar.

Which queen handed power to the Pharisees, ending decades of Sadducee dominance at the Judean court?

Salome Alexandra succeeded her husband, Alexander Jannaeus, who is said to have urged her on his deathbed to share power with the Pharisees he had fought.

Which sect do rabbinic sources always pair with the Sadducees, tracing both to pupils of one teacher?

Boethusians shared the Sadducee denial of an afterlife; historians link them to a priestly family that King Herod raised to the high priesthood.

Which medieval Jewish movement that rejects the Talmud have some scholars traced to the Sadducees?

Karaites were even nicknamed 'Sadducees' in their early days, though they themselves insist the two groups differ in major ways.

Which Greek poet did the Sadducees cite to mock the Pharisee rule that holy scrolls defile the hands?

Homer was their example of a book that leaves the hands clean; the Pharisees replied that the rule reflected how dearly the holy scrolls were loved.

The Sadducees demanded extra purity from priests sacrificing which rare animal for its cleansing ashes?

A red heifer had to be free of any blemish and never yoked; the Pharisees pointedly opposed the stricter Sadducee rule for the priest who prepared it.

In later Talmud editions, 'Sadducee' was often a censor's stand-in for a word with which meaning?

Heretic, 'min' in Hebrew, is what the manuscripts say; censorship led printers to substitute 'Sadducee', so many Talmudic 'Sadducees' never belonged to the sect.

Which tribal name do the Dead Sea Scrolls use as a code word for the Sadducees?

Manasseh stood for the Sadducees and Ephraim for the Pharisees, while the scroll writers cast themselves as the true Judah.

Scholars think the Sadducees emerged as a party in the decades after which Jewish uprising?

The Maccabean Revolt put the Hasmonean family on the throne, and the Sadducees first appear as the priestly party around those new rulers.

Which former high priest, named in Acts 4 beside the Sadducees, saw five sons hold the same office?

Annas kept his influence long after Rome removed him from office; John's Gospel says the arrested Jesus was brought before him first.

The priestly name behind 'Sadducee' comes from a Hebrew root that carries what meaning?

To be just, or in the right, is the root's sense; the rival name 'Pharisee' comes instead from a word meaning 'separated'.

According to Josephus, Sadducee judges stood out from other Jews for what tendency in court?

Harsher sentences were a Sadducee hallmark: Josephus calls them more rigid in judging offenders than all the rest of the Jews.

How did the pro-Sadducee king Alexander Jannaeus execute some 800 rebels, many thought to be Pharisees?

Crucifixion of the captives took place in Jerusalem, and Josephus adds that the king had their wives and children killed in front of them first.

Church Fathers often confused the Sadducees with which community that keeps only the Pentateuch?

Samaritans really do accept the five books of Moses alone, which may be why early Christian writers said the Sadducees rejected the Prophets, a claim no earlier source backs.

Which sage, said to have escaped besieged Jerusalem in a coffin, beat the Sadducees in an inheritance debate?

Yohanan ben Zakkai's win is said to have earned its own date of honor in the calendar; after the Temple fell he made his school at Yavne the new center of Jewish life.

In rabbinic legend, the Sadducees arose when pupils misread which sage's saying about unpaid service?

Antigonus of Sokho meant only that God should be served without thought of pay; his pupils are said to have decided that no world to come existed at all.

A rabbinic tale says the first Sadducees dined from vessels of which materials, expecting no afterlife?

Silver and gold tableware was their way of enjoying this world, the story goes, and they pitied the Pharisees for a hard life with nothing to follow.

In a Mishnah dispute, the Sadducees held a man liable for damage done by which member of his household?

His slave was his responsibility just like his ox, the Sadducees argued; the Pharisees objected that an angry slave could then ruin his owner on purpose.

Which two apostles did Sadducees and Temple officers arrest in Acts 4 for preaching resurrection?

Peter and John spent the night in custody and were released with threats the next day, because the crowds were praising God for the healing they had done.