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50 Is JUDAISM the Religion of Moses?

"And for the Sadducees, they take away fate [the determination of God], and say there is no
such thing, and that the events of human affairs are not at its [God's] disposal; but they sup-
pose that ALL our actions are in our power, so that we are ourselves the cause of what is
good, and receive what is evil from our own folly" ("Antiquities of the Jews," xiii, 5, 9;
Wars of the Jews, ii, 14).

The Sadducees were wrong in this! In the Scripture it shows that God at times directs indi-
viduals and nations to do certain duties (Isa. 10:13-15, etc.). Of course, not every single action an
individual does is being determined by God (Eccl. 9:11). The Pharisees, in this case, understood
correctly that God intervenes in the affairs of mankind when He considers it necessary for the carry-
ing out of His plan, but on the whole, mankind's actions are his own (Antiquities of the Jews, xiii, 5,
9).

The Sadducees certainly did not have belief in many truths of the Scripture. By disbelieving
in the resurrection, disbelieving in the spirit world and also rejecting the fact that God ever inter-
venes in the affairs of man, they show clearly that they had little regard for the Word of God.

"They [the Sadducees] were very nearly free-thinkers, and in all cases were men of little re-
ligion, mere worldlings. Their wisdom was all worldly. The doctrines attributed to them by
Josephus, concerning liberty and divine Providence [that is, the lack of divine Providence],
are interpretations or compromises after the Greek fashion. For them all [the Sadducees]
this was only an attempt to reduce the supernatural to its minimum, a process for eliminating
God" (Renan, History of the People of Israel, vol. v, p. 40).

As pointed out by Schurer: '"THEIR INTERESTS WERE ENTIRELY IN THIS WORLD,
AND THEY HAD NO SUCH INTENSIVELY RELIGIOUS INTEREST AS THE PHARISEES"
(The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, sec. ii, vol. ii, p. 39).

Brief History of the Sadducees!

When religious authority was again established among the Jews after the period of religious
anarchy, the Pharisees were anxious for the people to start living a religious life, even though they
brought into their religion many of the new customs from Hellenism. However, the majority of
Sadducees made no real attempt to return to religion. They certainly saw no reason for accepting
the many new customs as extra religious duties to perform.

The majority of Sadducees were priests (Cycl. of Bib. Thee. and Ecc. Lit., vol. ix, p. 238)
who had been ordained of God to teach the people the Scriptures. The forefathers of the priests, the
Sopherim, were entirely faithful in their appointed task. But the majority of priests after the period
of religious anarchy MADE NO ATTEMPT to teach the people the Scriptures. One of the main
reasons for their attitude was because most of them had been out-and-out Hellenists! (Herford, Tal-
mud and Apocrypha, pp. 77, 78). Among all the Jews in Palestine, the priests had become the most
Hellenistic.

After the religious anarchy, when the lay leaders, the Pharisees, began to exert an influence
over the people, they "refused to recognize the authority of the priests as a class, and inasmuch as

The Berean Voice March-April 2003