Sadducees
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40 free Sadducees trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Sadducees are the other party in the Gospels: the priestly establishment that ran the Temple in Jerusalem, argued with the Pharisees about almost everything, and famously denied that the dead would rise. Then the Temple fell and they disappeared from history. This quiz collects the facts worth knowing about them: where the name comes from, what they believed and refused to believe, how they fared under the Hasmonean kings and queens, their run-ins with Jesus and the apostles, and the points of ritual law on which they would not budge. It suits Bible study groups, students of Second Temple Judaism, and anyone who has wondered who the Sadducees actually were. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Sadducees most likely took their name from which high priest of King Solomon's day?
Zadok
Zadok anointed Solomon as king, a scene Handel set to music in the anthem sung at every British coronation since 1727.
Q 02Which apostle set Sadducees against Pharisees by saying he was on trial over resurrection?
Paul
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.
Q 03In Acts 5, who opens the prison doors at night after the Sadducees jail the apostles?
An angel of the Lord
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.
Q 04In Matthew 16, Jesus warns against which baking ingredient 'of the Pharisees and Sadducees'?
Yeast
Yeast was his image for their teaching, but the disciples first assumed he was scolding them for forgetting to bring bread.
Q 05Which biblical penalty did the Sadducees take literally, while the Pharisees made it a cash payment?
An eye for an eye
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.
Q 06What is unusual about the written record the Sadducees left of their own beliefs?
None of it survives
None of it survives, so every description of the Sadducees comes from rivals and critics: Josephus, the New Testament writers and the rabbis.
Q 07Which high priest linked to the Sadducees presided when Jesus was tried before the Sanhedrin?
Caiaphas
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.
Q 08Which Roman commander destroyed the Jerusalem Temple, leaving the Sadducees without a power base?
Titus
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.
Q 09According to Josephus, the Sadducees drew their support mainly from which part of Judean society?
The wealthy
The wealthy were their only backers, Josephus wrote; ordinary people followed the Pharisees, so Sadducee officials often had to give way to Pharisee rulings.
Q 10Who greeted the Pharisees and Sadducees arriving at the Jordan River as a brood of vipers?
John the Baptist
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.
Q 11When Pharisees and Sadducees demanded a sign from heaven, Jesus offered the sign of which prophet?
Jonah
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.
Q 12Which scene from Exodus did Jesus cite to answer the Sadducees who denied resurrection?
The burning bush
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.
Q 13The Sadducees' riddle to Jesus about a widow of seven brothers relied on which biblical custom?
Levirate marriage
Q 21Which Hasmonean ruler left the Pharisees for the Sadducees after a dinner guest insulted him?
John Hyrcanus
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.
Q 22What fruit did a festival crowd hurl at the pro-Sadducee king Alexander Jannaeus in the Temple?
Citrons
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.
Q 23Which queen handed power to the Pharisees, ending decades of Sadducee dominance at the Judean court?
Salome Alexandra
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.
Q 14Which body of Pharisee tradition, later compiled in the Mishnah, did the Sadducees refuse to accept?
The Oral Torah
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.
Q 15Josephus says the Sadducees rejected which idea, insisting people choose their own good or evil?
Fate
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.
Q 16Josephus named three Jewish sects: Pharisees, Sadducees and which group tied to the Dead Sea Scrolls?
Essenes
Essenes shared their property and lived communally, a world away from the Temple politics that occupied the Sadducees.
Q 17Which respected Pharisee talked the Sadducee-led council out of killing the apostles in Acts 5?
Gamaliel
Gamaliel argued that a movement of merely human making would be overthrown anyway, so the council let the apostles go with a beating.
Q 18Which brother of Jesus did a Sadducee high priest have stoned while Judea was between Roman governors?
James
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.
Q 19On which day of the week did the Sadducees insist the festival of Shavuot must always fall?
Sunday
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.
Q 20On which holy day did Sadducees and Pharisees dispute where the high priest lit the incense?
Yom Kippur
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.
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.
Q 24Which sect do rabbinic sources always pair with the Sadducees, tracing both to pupils of one teacher?
Boethusians
Boethusians shared the Sadducee denial of an afterlife; historians link them to a priestly family that King Herod raised to the high priesthood.
Q 25Which medieval Jewish movement that rejects the Talmud have some scholars traced to the Sadducees?
Karaites
Karaites were even nicknamed 'Sadducees' in their early days, though they themselves insist the two groups differ in major ways.
Q 26Which Greek poet did the Sadducees cite to mock the Pharisee rule that holy scrolls defile the hands?
Homer
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.
Q 27The Sadducees demanded extra purity from priests sacrificing which rare animal for its cleansing ashes?
A red heifer
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.
Q 28In later Talmud editions, 'Sadducee' was often a censor's stand-in for a word with which meaning?
Heretic
Heretic, 'min' in Hebrew, is what the manuscripts say; censorship led printers to substitute 'Sadducee', so many Talmudic 'Sadducees' never belonged to the sect.
Q 29Which tribal name do the Dead Sea Scrolls use as a code word for the Sadducees?
Manasseh
Manasseh stood for the Sadducees and Ephraim for the Pharisees, while the scroll writers cast themselves as the true Judah.
Q 30Scholars think the Sadducees emerged as a party in the decades after which Jewish uprising?
The Maccabean Revolt
The Maccabean Revolt put the Hasmonean family on the throne, and the Sadducees first appear as the priestly party around those new rulers.