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Sadducees

The Sadducees were so named because they claimed to be descended from Zadok, the high priest at the time of King David and King Solomon. They consisted of the wealthy aristocratic families who controlled the office of high priest. They rejected belief in angels and the resurrection, but they were not liberal rationalists. Rather, they were staunch conservatives, who observed the Law of the Books of Moses (Pentateuch) and who rejected later interpretations of the law, the 'oral law'.

The Sadducees were angered at Jesus' cleansing the temple and at his teaching on the resurrection. It was Sadducean chief priests who condemned Jesus at a nighttime trial and handed him over to Pilate. The Sadducees were primarily responsible for trying to suppress the preaching of Peter and the other apostles when they proclaimed that Jesus had risen from the dead. As the destruction of the temple in AD 70 destroyed their reason for existence, the Sadducees did not survive this period. Weekly temple services, the temple treasury and the maintenance of the sacred vessels.