But the high priest rose up, and all who were with him (that is, the party of the Sadducees), and filled with jealousy, they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison.  (Acts 5:17-18)

The word ‘party’ translates the Greek noun αἵρεσις (hairesis) and stands for people who strongly self-identify with each other (the verb hairéomai means ‘to personally select’), in other words to cohere as a sect or a religious or philosophical group.

The Romano-Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, writing in the second half of the first century AD, identified four distinct groupings of Jews.  For ‘party’, it is best not to consider them in modern terms like political parties, or even organisations (with rules and membership) rather imagine a cross between a faction and a coterie or socio-religious affiliations, although ‘sect’ can certainly be applied in one instance.

In chapter 5 of Acts of the Apostles, we see three such ‘parties’ recognised by Luke.

The Sadducees

As we read above in verse 17, Luke refers to the ‘party of the Sadducees’.  Deriving their name from the first High Priest, Zadok, to serve Solomon’s Temple, the Sadducees were the nearest the Jews had to an aristocratic class.  As such, they were the ruling elite who held a majority on the Greater Sanhedrin.  In Judea, among the Jews was no meaningful separation of civil and religious law, so their stance on Hebrew Scriptures was critical, in that they recognised Scripture as the Torah alone.  Consequently, their knowledge of God and his purposes was limited; as an example, they clashed with Jesus over the issue of resurrection.  Josephus wrote of them that they did not believe in any form of afterlife, not even Sheol.  Mark’s gospel records the Sadducees attempt to depreciate Jesus.

Using the application of the Leverate marriage custom (yibbum) taken from Deuteronomy (25:5-10) and extending the argument ad abursdum, they tried to ridicule the idea of life after death:

And Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question, saying, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no offspring. And the second took her, and died, leaving no offspring. And the third likewise.  And the seven left no offspring. Last of all the woman also died. In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife.’  (Mark 12:18-23)

Jesus gives them short shrift, rebuking them for not knowing the Scriptures (by which he meant the whole Tanakh, which included other ‘writings’ and prophecy as well as books of Moses) – and says this about resurrection: 

‘And as for the dead not being raised have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?” He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.’ (Ibid 12:26-27)

The Pharisees

In verse 34, Luke mentions Gamaliel, saying he is a Pharisee.  Gamaliel was known for his wisdom, as can be seen by his perceptive warning to the Sanhedrin regarding the apostles.   The grandson of one of the greatest scholars of Jewry, Rabbi Hillel, who advanced the study and annotation of Scripture known as the Mishnah and the Talmud.  Luke later informs us that Gamaliel was the Apostle Paul’s teacher (Acts 22:3), Paul himself also being a Pharisee.  

The Pharisees were a social movement that began after the Jews return from Babylonian exile.  They were a class of ‘scribes’ or religious lawyers and they established the tradition of Rabbinical Judaism.  They believed in strict observance of the Law of Moses and established written commentary to ‘interpret’ or further clarified perceived ambiguity, one example being what exactly constitutes ‘work’ on the Sabbath, hence the many clashes with Jesus on this topic.  But it is important to note that Jesus respected their authority, declaring publicly:

The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so practise and observe whatever they tell you—but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practise. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others.  (Matthew 23:1-5)

That the Pharisees revered Scripture and attempted to uphold the Law of Moses was not the problem for Jesus, it was their legalism, that is the endless extensions and additions to God’s commands; added to this presumption was also ostentation – a major theme of The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6).

The name ‘Pharisee’ derives from the Hebrew meaning ‘set apart’ and is thought to refer to the concept of ritual purity rather than being ‘separatists’ in the modern sense (that definitely applies to the next of Josephus’ groups, the Zealots!).  This was another area of dispute with Jesus.

While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, ‘now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools!  Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.’  (Luke 11:37-41)

Jesus was unconcerned with mere appearances, and challenged their superficiality which came from a narrow interpretation of the Law of Moses; Jesus’ focus was the intention and motivation that would have resulted from a fuller understanding of God had they read the Law less as a proscriptive check list but as promoting righteousness.  It would take an enlightened Pharisee, Paul, to comprehend that the Law did not fail humanity, humanity failed the Law:

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  (Romans 8:3-4)

Also, we know from Luke, that the Pharisees and the Sadducees of the Sanhedrin were often in dispute.  At Paul’s trial before the ‘council’, the apostle deliberately provokes disunity by mentioning that he was ‘in hope of the resurrection of the dead.’

…. a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. (Acts 23:7-8)

The two parties also clashed over the issue of Hellenisation, which was the assimilation of ‘Greek’ or gentile customs; broadly, the Sadducees were open to cultural change, while the Pharisees were conservative and vehemently opposed.

The Zealots

Through the astute words of Gamaliel in verse 37, Luke introduces another grouping, the Zealots.  Although Luke does not name this movement, Josephus attributed Judas the Galilean as being the founder of the Zealots at the time of census of Quirinus, which is 6BC.  This was a group of ‘separatists’, more akin to the radical arm of a political party, in that there were about the overthrow of foreign rule, viz. the Romans.

One of the twelve disciples was a Zealot, also called Simon the Canaanite, he is named ‘the Zealot’ in Luke’s Gospel (6:15).

In contrast to the previous parties, it may more helpful to think of the Zealots in terms of religious and political fanatics, in the same way that Islamic State uses Islam to justify political ends, and that through violent means.  Josephus widely condemns this group for fulminating the wars with Rome that would eventually result in the sack of Jerusalem and forcing a new Jewish diaspora.  

It is widely accepted that the Gospels show how Jesus was forced to distance himself from the ends of this group, which very much allied with Messianic prophesy.  By conflating the Davidic and Land Covenants with their own desire for self-rule, it might be understandable that many confused Jesus teaching on the Kingdom of Heaven, with a bid for political power.  After miraculously feeding five thousand men and their families comes this:

When the people saw the sign that (Jesus) had done, they said, ‘this is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!  Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.  (John 6:14-15)

Only when Jesus had concluded his earthly ministry, did he allow the association with insurrection in connection with himself – even then refusing to satisfy his accusers with simple answers, let alone any the admission they desired.

 So, Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, ‘are you the King of the Jews?’… 

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king.  For this purpose, I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, ‘what is truth?’  (John 18:33 & 37-38)

The Essenes

For completeness, the final group named by Josephus was the Essenes.  Like the Zealots, the Essenes were also ‘violent extremists’, although their hostile acts were limited to the violence of their believes and verbal condemnation of others.  They attacked the decadent ruling classes and corrupted priesthood with words not the sicae, the small dagger of choice of the Zealot assassins whence they derived their name, ‘Sicarii’.

Broadly comparable to later Christian monasticism Josephus writes of several orders of Essenes, some of which were celibate while others permitted marriage; theirs was a communal existence away from the towns (and especially Jerusalem, which they eschewed).  They forbade themselves ritualistic sacrifice of animals, rather believing in ritual cleanliness of water purification by full immersion in baths (mikvot).  They may also have taken Nazarite vows, that restricted diet to exclude meat and any product of the grape, and also not to cut hair and beards.  They were very much in the ascetic tradition.

While the Essenes abhorred the methods of the Zealots, they did not balk at character assassination, that is if we allow for the possibility that John the Baptist and many of John’s followers were Essene; the public condemnation of Herod Antipas’ incestuous marriage would ultimately result in John’s own extra-judicial execution.  

John based himself in the desert, as did the Essenes, but unlike them, he drew crowds, who clearly did not mind being addressed as ‘you brood of vipers’ (Luke 3:7) – in other words, the spawn of Satan.

Having their origins in the Essene, may explain the evident tension emanating from John’s disciples to Jesus’:

Then the disciples of John came to (Jesus), saying, ‘why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ (Matthew 9:14)

While later, Jesus – referring to himself as the Son of Man – says:

‘For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon.” The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!”’  (ibid 11:18-19)

On reflection, someone reading the New Testament, might wonder why Jesus did not align himself with any of the groupings, or more broadly credit them in certain areas, as he appeared to on one occasion with the Pharisees.  Although understandable the one who above all else taught love, was never going to find common ground with the Zealots, both the Sadducees and the Pharisees revered the Law of Moses, after all, and professed to be God-fearing.   While Essene ascetism seems to run parallel with Jesus’ teaching on self-denial and turning one’s back on worldliness in general, as recorded here:

 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (John 12:25)

But note what Jesus says immediately after:

If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honour him. (ibid 12:26)

He, the Son of God, ‘through him all things were created’ (John 1:3) comes to be the pattern, not cohere to, align with or endorse a creature’s viewpoint.  Yet Jesus became man and walked among men, inhabited their world, thus his mortal life is set against this historical milieu, and the gospels tell how he necessarily reacted and engaged with his world.  Therefore, it is instructive to compare Jesus in the context of these parties.

Jesus was low born, a very common man, not aristocratic as the Sadducee; he did not set himself apart from sinners, like the Pharisee or the Essene. Jesus chose to have violence inflicted on him, rather than inflict violence on others, like the Zealots, and one could surely go on…

In fact, not only in the context of first century Judea, but in all contexts, in any land, whatever the culture and in any age, Jesus is always counter-cultural.  He cannot fit into what is humanly created; rather Jesus comes to make a way for humanity to fit with God!  Only in the new creation, will everyone be fully aligned to Jesus Christ, and to his Father.  Thus, we pray to the Heavenly Father: your kingdom come, you will be done on earth and it is in heaven.