Sadducees
The Sadducees ( Hebrew צְדוֹקִים Ṣəḏōqīm , Gr . Σαδδουκαῖοι Saddoukaîoi ) were a group of Judaism in Israel at the time of the Second Temple .
Lore
There are no texts whose Sadducee origin is undisputed. The information available is from descriptive sources. Flavius Josephus , the New Testament and rabbinical texts report on the Sadducees for different reasons.
Josephus reports in two places about the Sadducees and conceives them as a philosophical school. He contrasts them with the Pharisees , stating that the Sadducees denied fate, God's intervention in human affairs, and the persistence of the soul. In addition, they only recognize the "law". This probably means that the (written) Torah (the five books of Moses) should be the sole basis of religious authority, in contrast to the oral tradition.
According to Josephus, the Sadducees belonged to the higher social classes. The New Testament shows them in the environment of the priestly aristocracy. However, it is not clear whether the priestly aristocracy consisted of Sadducees in principle or even in the majority of cases.
The origin and development of the Sadducees are obscure. According to some researchers, they are more closely related to the Zadocids. According to a theory common in Old Testament research, this group, which is only mentioned in the Bible by Ezekiel and there is called "Sons of Zadok" (בני צדוק), the high priests at the Jerusalem temple . The theory assumes that Zadok , the priest of David and ancestor of the suspected dynasty, the name "Sadducees" is based on. Other researchers reject this or consider a Zadok who was not "the" Zadok to be the founder of the sect. Ultimately, the problem cannot be clearly solved philologically . Another theory assumes that the Sadducees were around 150 BC. Originated because Josephus mentions them for the first time for this time; since the naming (in the Antiquitates Judaicae ) is an excursus, it cannot be assumed that Josephus dates its origin to this time. In addition, he puts his other Sadducee excursion (in the Bellum Judaicum ) in the context of the early 1st century AD. According to others, the Sadducees did not emerge until the end of the 1st century BC. BC or even as late as the 1st century AD.
Josephus reports, however, that John Hyrcanus I had himself at the end of the 2nd century BC. Renounced by the Pharisees and joined the Sadducees. A theory still supported by parts of the research connects the Sadducees with the writings of Qumran . The scriptures know a group called “Sons of Zadok” and their interpretation of the law shows parallels to what the later rabbinical sources call the Sadducean conception. What this finding can say, however, is controversial.
The end of the Sadducees has often been associated with the destruction of the temple in AD 70, because it was assumed that the Sadducees could be described as the temple aristocracy. However, this cannot be proven, and there were still Jewish priests after 70. Since the rabbinical texts polemicize against the Sadducees, it is not unlikely that there were still people who called themselves Sadducees after 70.
literature
- Ernst Bammel : Sadducees and Sadocids. In: Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 55, 1979, pp. 107-115. Reprinted in: Ders .: Judaica. Kleine Schriften I. Mohr, Tübingen 1986, pp. 117–126. ISBN 3-16-144971-1 (= Scientific Studies on the New Testament , Volume 37).
- Albert I. Baumgarten: The flourishing of Jewish sects in the Maccabean era. An interpretation. Leiden / New York / Cologne 1997.
- Martin Goodman : The Place of the Sadducees in First-Century Judaism. In: FE Udoh, S. Heschel, M. Chancey, G. Tatum (Eds.): Redefining First-Century Jewish and Christian Identities. Essays in Honor of Ed Parish Sanders. Notre Dame 2008, pp. 139-152.
- Jonathan Klawans: Sadducees, Zadokites, and the Wisdom of Ben Sira. In: DB Capes, AD DeConick, HK Bond, TA Miller (eds.): Israel's God and Rebecca's Children. Christology and Community in Early Judaism and Christianity. Essays in Honor of Larry W. Hurtado and Alan F. Segal. Waco 2007, pp. 261-276.
- Eyal Regev: Were the Priests all the Same? Qumranic Halakhah in Comparison with Sadducean Halakhah. In: Dead Sea Discoveries 12, 2005, pp. 158-188.
- Günter Stemberger : Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes. Questions, facts, background. Catholic Bible work , Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-460-30030-9 .
- Hans-Friedrich Weiß : Art. Sadducees . In: Theological Real Encyclopedia . Volume 29, 1998, pp. 589-594 (Lit.!), ISBN 978-3-11-017555-4 .
- Gehring, René, The ancient Jewish religious parties. Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots and therapists. Research publications: Historical Theology, Vol. 2, St.Peter / Hart 2012. ISBN 978-3-900160-86-9 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Sadducees. In: Biblical Studies. German Bible Society, Stuttgart, 2010, accessed on August 4, 2011 .
- ↑ Flavius Josephus : Jewish War ( DjVu ) on Wikisource . Translated by Philipp Kohout. Quirin Haslingers Verlag, Linz 1901, p. 165.