The Sadducees suddenly appear after Jesus has silenced the Sanhedrin. They ask Jesus what seems like a ridiculous question about a woman whose husband dies and is then married in turn to each of his seven brothers as they die one by one. Their question is who the woman will be married to in heaven. William Barclay points out that this question depends on two things. First, it depends on the Mosaic regulations about marriage and, second, it depends on what the Sadducees believe. Really the question only seems silly because we don't know where the Sadducees were coming from. Barclay outlines the differences between the Pharisees and Sadducees so we have a clear frame of reference.
(a) The Pharisees were entirely a religious body. They had no political ambitions and were content with any government which allowed them to carry out the ceremonial law. The Sadducees were few but very wealthy. The priests and the aristocrats were nearly all Sadducees. They were the governing class; and they were largely collaborationist with Rome, being unwilling to risk losing their wealth, their comfort and their place.
(b) the Pharisees accepted the scriptures plus all the thousand detailed regulations and rules of the oral and ceremonial law ... The Sadducees accepted only the written laws of the Old Testament; and in the Old Testament they stressed only the law of Moses and set no store on the prophetic books.
(c) The Pharisees believed in the resurrection from the dead and in angels and spirits. The Sadducees held that there was no resurrection from the dead and that there were no angels or spirits.
(d) the Pharisees believed in fate; and that a man's life was planned and ordered by God. The Sadducees believed in unrestricted free will.
(e) the Pharisees believed in and hoped for the coming of the Messiah; the Sadducees did not. For them the coming of the Messiah would have been a disturbance of their carefully ordered lives.
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