Contributing to the faulty view of rabbinic dominance in early Jewish history is the Mishnah and Talmud and Midrashic literature. This, taken together, is called rabbinic literature. And in the rabbinic literature, the dominance of the rabbinic movement is greatly exaggerated.

Also contributing to this distorted view of early Jewish history is a sad reality: most of the Jews in the early centuries are invisible to us today. Literature from the Jewish communities of the Roman empire outside of rabbinic literature is scarce. The rabbis seem to have been the leaders of the Jewish world because their literature, almost exclusively, survives. But historians have enough evidence to know that the widespread Jewish communities of the early centuries were not so rabbinic in practice and that the rabbinic movement was a small one, growing slowly in importance and influence.

What sort of people set the standards for the synagogues of early Judaism? For the most part, they are invisible Jews. We only wish we could know more about synagogue life in those times.

E.P. Sanders (Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE – 66 CE) gives us some helpful and thoroughly researched pointers to the identity and character of the Sadducees. Here is my summary from pg. 318:

(1) There is a “high degree of correspondence” between the aristocracy in Judea/Jerusalem and the Sadducean party.

(2) Not all Jerusalem aristocrats were Sadducees “but it may be that all Sadducees were aristocrats.”

(3) We know very little about the Sadducees specifically but much more about aristocrats at the time.

(4) Josephus (Ant. 18:16f.) says that the secret doctrines of the Sadducees were taught only to a few and these were all males.

(5) Ananus is the only person (in the 63 BCE – 66 CE period) Josephus specifically names as a Sadducee. Ananus or Annas questioned Yeshua at one phase of his trials according to John 18:19-23 and was the father-in-law of Caiphas.

(6) The book of Acts suggests that Caiphas was with the Sadducees (Acts 5:17).

(7) While know one knows the origin of the term Sadducee, it may derive from Zadok, priest in the time of David (2 Sam 20:25) and the one whose line was considered the correct one for the priests to descend from after the exile (Ezek 40:46; 43:19; 44:15; 48:11).

(8) Some have suggested another origin for the term Sadducee, from the word for “righteousness” (tzedek).

(9) By the time of the Mishnah, the Sadducees and the Judean aristocracy were insignificant and maybe non-existent.

(1) The chief priests headed up the Judean aristocracy, the highest authorities in the land besides the Romans.

(2) The chief priests exercised power through a sort of Senate called the Sanhedrin headed by the high priest.

(3) The chief priests had the Temple guard at their disposal and could arrest and even execute people (though executions could get them in trouble with Rome).

(4) The chief priests were powerful, but the will of the populace was a political concern and the Pharisees could exert popular pressure on them.

(5) Luke and Josephus tell us more about what the Sadducees did not believe than what they did.

(6) Luke, more so than Josephus, assumes that the Sadducees were the major influence in the circles of the chief priests.

(7) The Sadducees were essentially a skeptical philosophy and they denied the afterlife, the influence of angels in human events, and the value of the traditions of the elders (promoted by the Pharisees).

(8) The Pharisees were sort of a middle ground between the people and the Sadducees — they were also elitist in some ways, but closer to the people’s desires and sentiments.

By the time of the Mishnah (c. 200 CE), the Sadducees and the old aristocracy were gone. If some remained after the First Jewish Revolt (66-73 CE), the horrors of the Second Jewish Revolt (132-136 CE) wiped them out. E.P. Sanders discusses this disappearance in Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE – 66 CE on p. 318.

In the time of the New Testament, the Sadducees and the aristocracy were the greatest power in Israel besides Rome.

But three factors have confused the issue. One is that many took their cue from rabbinic literature to understand the Judaism of Yeshua’s lifetime. The Mishnah and Talmud give a distorted picture of the situation, since the Sadducees were gone and the Pharisees were essentially predecessors of the rabbis. A second factor is that Yeshua spoke more about Pharisees than Sadducees, so it seems to casual readers of the gospels that Pharisees were his prime enemy. But read more carefully and see the role of the chief priests (partly or mostly Sadducees). And know that the Sanhedrin was controlled by the Sadducees (though it is likely some Pharisees wielded influence through force of popular opinion). And a third factor is Josephus’ tendency to exaggerate the influence of the Pharisees (cf. Sanders, 451 and following).

Richard Horsley makes the case that too little attention has been given in historical Jesus research to the latest information and guesses about religious and political differences between Galilee and Judea. Suddenly statements such as in the fourth gospel about the “Passover of the Jews” begin to make more sense (Passover at the Temple run by the Judeans and based on Judean interpretations of the Torah and the obligations of Israel).

What follows is a summary of some main points from Horsley’s book (restated in my own words and greatly simplified) and a comparison with the four controversy stories between Yeshua and the Pharisees, scribes, and Sadducees of Judea in Matthew 22.

Some Major Issues of Religious and Political Difference Between Galilee and Judea

(1) The Judeans had an aristocracy and worked with Rome through aristocrats and diplomacy. Galilee was ruled directly by the Herodians under Roman power with no representatives of their own to stand between.

(2) Judeans ran the Temple and obligated all the Israelite regions, such as Galilee, to send tithes and taxes.

(3) Galileans did not support the Temple en masse. Evidence is fragmentary, but it suggests that few Galileans went. (This does not suggest a rejection of Torah, but perhaps a sense of protest against a corrupt Temple regime).

(4) The traditions of the elders lobbied for by the Pharisees and scribes were part of Judean control, as far the Galileans saw it, and were resisted. (Note: this is not an argument that Pharisees had controlling power or influence at the time, but their power and influence was substantial and was likely resented as coming from Judea). Pharisees have no power over Galilee.

(5) The Sadducees would have had even less love from the Galileans, being the corruptors of the Temple and collaborators with Rome. They have no power over Galilee.

Matthew 22 and the Four Controversies

THE POLL TAX – MT 22:15-22
-Pharisees and Herodians.
-Pharisees are Judean scribes who seek to conform Israel to their version of Torah customs. Herodians are Galileans who collaborate with Rome and rule Galilee with a heavy hand.
-The goal of the parties is to trap Yeshua, either hurting his popularity if he approves of the Roman tax or entangling him with Rome if he speaks publicly against it.
-Yeshua condemns his opponents (implicitly) by asking if one of them has a denarius, a coin which has an image of Caesar and the motto filius divius, son of god. This is supposedly the religious reason for objecting, yet one of his opponents has such a coin in his possession.
-Yeshua calls them hypocrites.
-Yeshua’s reasoning: one can obey the government and also God. The tax is of little consequence, but are his opponents rendering their total allegiance to God?

RESURRECTION/AFTERLIFE – MT 22:23-33
-Sadducees.
-The Sadducees were the aristocrats and chief priests who mediated between Rome and Judea and in so doing compromised for personal power and wealth.
-The Sadducees induced a clever argument from the levirate marriage laws of Torah to ridicule the idea of resurrection and afterlife.
-Yeshua’s reasoning: Torah is permeated with hints of resurrection and Yeshua claims knowledge of the afterlife which appears to come from his own authority.
-Possible Galilean twist: experience with the living God (prophetic) as a sign of truth versus the rationalist Sadducean (Hellenism and Torah mixed) approach.

THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT – MT 22:34-40
-Judean Pharisees test Yeshua, thinking perhaps his grasp of Torah will be poor since he is Galilean.
-Yeshua answers wisely and the conflict is abated (note: Mark’s version is even more positive).

THE MESSIAH – MT 22:41-46
-Yeshua challenges the Judean Pharisees and shows them unschooled in the Psalms and prophets (possibly a Galilean affinity for prophetic and poetic spirituality?).
-Yeshua raises a mystery in Psalm 110 which is about his own identity (Messiah is not David’s lesser but his greater, which reveals a lack of Pharisaic understanding of the depths of God’s prophetic plan).