Category:Sadducees (subject)

The Sadducees were one of the religious parties of Second Temple Judaism.

Overview

During the late Second Temple period, the Sadduccean party represented the interests of the upper-class Jewish priestly aristocracy. Not all priests were Sadducees, but more than any other party the Sadducees emphasized the centrality of the Temple and the priesthood.

Religiously, the Sadducees were a conservative party, which after the Maccabean revolt preserved the ideology of the Zadokites. According to Josephus, they stressed human freedom, and rejected the belief in the end of time or in the coming of an eschatological Messiah. They considered normative the five books of Moses, downplaying the role of the Prophets and the tradition.

Until the Jewish War, the Sadduccees - although numerically a minority - were the ruling party. They supported the Hasmoneans and then the Romans. The Pharisees and the Essenes were the most significant opposition; as reform movements they openly challenged the authority of the Sadducees. More radical groups, like the Zealots and the Early Christians, attacked (sometimes violently) the leadership of the Sadducees and had to face repression and even the execution of some of their most prominent leaders (Judas the Galilean, Jesus of Nazareth, James).

The Sadducees continued to have a role of leadership at the beginning of the Jewish War, when Ananus ben Ananus succeeded in creating a government of national unity with the Pharisees and the Essenes. As the revolt progressed, however, the more moderate parties were marginalized and suppressed by the most radical factions (such as the Zealots and the Sicarii).

With the destruction of the Temple, the Sadducees disappeared as a political party. In Medieval times, the Karaites claimed to be the descendants of the Sadducees against the authority of the Rabbis.