Judaism Between The Testaments

The Old Testament discusses prophets, priests, and kings but the New Testament includes Pharisees and Sadducees. Who were these people and where did they come from?

By JASON HENSLEY

Read Time: 6 minutes

Have you ever opened up the New Testament and wondered what happened? Whereas the Old Testament discusses prophets, priests, and kings, the New Testament looks completely different. While the New Testament still references priests, it also references Pharisees and Sadducees. Who were these people? Where did they come from? And how are they relevant to the story of the Lord Jesus? In considering each of these two groups, this article will then discuss how these groups impacted the message of the gospel in the days of the Lord Jesus and, ultimately, again, how an understanding of Israel’s history supports our understanding of the Biblical text.

The Pharisees

Historically, most Jews in the first century fell into one of three categories: Pharisees, Sadducees, or Essenes.1 While we won’t cover the Essenes in this article, we’ll see how the Pharisees and Sadducees developed at similar times.

The Pharisees appear to have developed near the end of the Old Testament. Imagine this: in 586 BC, Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple, and suddenly, the entire Jewish system of worship changed. What would it have been like to have been Jewish at the time? Sacrifices were to be offered in Jerusalem, at the temple (Deuteronomy 12:5–6). The people gathered at the temple three times a year for the major festivals (Deuteronomy 16:16). Even more, once a year, the high priest confessed the sins of the people at the temple (Leviticus 16:21). Everything about worship revolved around this place. And yet, by the end of 586, there was no temple.

What did that mean? How was worship supposed to happen? How could the Jews follow the commandments?

The community struggled to understand how to continue worshiping God. Some adapted their practices. Daniel, for instance, continued to pray toward the temple, even though it no longer existed (Daniel 6:10). He also, in some ways, continued trying to keep the kosher laws––or at least the principles beneath those laws (Daniel 1:8). In this way, Daniel saw through the letter of the law and into what God truly wanted. Other groups, however, took different approaches.

The Pharisees were one of these groups. While they also looked for the principle beneath the commandments, they still held onto the importance of law for spiritual development. Thus, instead of simply developing the principles and trying to apply those principles in their new situation, like Daniel, the Pharisees developed the principles and used those principles to create new laws. They called these new laws the “Oral Torah.” Conveniently, they claimed that these laws had been passed from God to Moses at Mount Sinai, but unlike the written Torah, Moses didn’t write them down. Instead, he passed them down to the next generation, which then passed them down to the next generation, and finally, they ended up with the Pharisees, who realized that the Babylonian exile was the time to reveal them. Eventually, after the destruction of the second temple in AD 70, the rabbis recorded the Oral Torah in a document called the Mishnah, and the Mishnah eventually formed the basis for the Talmud, a major source of Jewish tradition and ideas.

The historical origins of the Pharisees unveil a major theological challenge: essentially, this group of people claimed that their traditions, which had simply been invented at some point, came from God. In fact, the Talmud still makes this claim: “Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the Men of the Great Assembly. They said three things: Be patient in [the administration of] justice, raise many disciples and make a fence round the Torah.” (Pirkei Avot 1:1). While it’s difficult to identify the “Men of the Great Assembly” with certainty, some believe that this group refers to the Pharisees. Regardless, can you hear the approach of the Pharisees here? “Raise many disciples:” The Lord Jesus noted that the Pharisees “travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte.” (Matthew 23:15).2 “Make a fence around the Torah:” Rather than using the principles beneath the law to draw nearer to God’s way of thinking, the Pharisees consistently created more laws (Matthew 23:4).

The Oral Torah and its exaltation of the status of God’s word gives a major insight into the Pharisees. In response to the crisis of exile, the Pharisees developed around a desire to understand the principle beneath the law but continue to follow the law, and thus, created their own law, which they made equal to the word of God or, in some cases, even more important. As Christ said, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!” (Mark 7:9).

In addition to developing their own ideas and holding those ideas as divinely inspired, the Pharisees also believed in outside influences. In some ways, this was positive, as the New Testament notes that they believed in angels (Acts 23:8). In other ways, however, this development also led to false ideas. For instance, while Acts states that they believed in angels, it also mentions that they believed in “spirits.” What does that mean?

In reading the New Testament, you’ve maybe noticed some of the times that it references spirits. Oftentimes, we don’t necessarily register the term just because we personally don’t believe in spirits. Yet, the gospels refer to them often. Jesus regularly heals those who have a malignant “spirit” (Mark 1:23; 9:17; Luke 13:11). After his resurrection, when Jesus appeared to the disciples, they believed him to be a “spirit” (Luke 24:37). Generally, these spirits connect to demons (Luke 4:33). Thus, the Pharisees believed in these demonic spirits, most likely taking these ideas from the Zoroastrianism they experienced in the Persian Empire.

Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, gives interesting insight into both the Pharisees and Sadducees: he was born a Sadducee and yet chose to become a Pharisee. In particular, he notes that while the Sadducees were somewhat elite, most of the people followed the Pharisees, largely due to their teachings.3 These teachings included oral traditions, the belief in spirits, and also the belief in the resurrection. The Pharisees essentially had what was true but corrupted. They had taken the word of God, added to it, and blended it with other religious beliefs.

The Sadducees

In many ways, the Sadducees stood as the opposite of the Pharisees. Just as the Pharisees developed during the Babylonian exile, the Sadducees did as well––yet instead of looking to the principles of the Torah and developing further rules, the Sadducees simply chose to follow what they could follow and wait to rebuild the temple. While the Pharisees added to the Torah, the Sadducees subtracted from the word of God. Instead of accepting the entire corpus of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Sadducees only considered the Torah divine. They did not believe in a resurrection (Matthew 22:23; Mark 12:18; Luke 20:27) but taught that at death, the soul died entirely, never to be revived.4 Not only did they nix any kind of afterlife, but they also rejected providence. The Torah taught one how to live a good life, but God didn’t actually work in one’s life.

If one sought to become a Pharisee, they simply needed to acknowledge Pharisaic teaching. This, however, wasn’t an option with the Sadducees. The Sadducees were connected to the priesthood (Acts 4:1; 5:17). Most Sadducees were therefore born as Sadducees. In terms of size, the Pharisees continued to grow and exercise influence among the people, whereas the Sadducees remained a small but influential elite.

How, though, did the Sadducees remain influential if the people followed the Pharisees? Because they were the priests. Therefore, if anyone wanted to worship, they had to approach a Saddusaic system. Further, the high priest was the final decision-maker in the Jewish community. Though they were small, the Sadducees wielded immense power.

Conclusion

Nevertheless, when the second temple was destroyed in AD 70, the Sadducees lost their power and eventually faded away into obscurity. The Pharisees, on the other hand, were somewhat prepared—they had their Oral Torah and a previous history of adapting the law to their circumstances. Thus, even though the temple, the focal point of their religion, disappeared, they continued their influence on the people and eventually developed into rabbinic Judaism.

While this history creates a context for the New Testament, it also underscores the loss of the gospel in the first century. When the Lord Jesus came, both the Pharisees and the Sadducees had lost the good news. Though the Pharisees still held onto the hope of a resurrection, they burdened this hope with teaching about demons and additional invented words of God. The Sadducees abandoned hope altogether.

Ultimately, perhaps this survey of Judaism between the Testaments really shows how easily humanity can miss the point. God didn’t want additional laws, nor did He want those who continued to follow the Torah without any hope. God wanted a relationship. He wanted His people to know Him. And thus, the Lord Jesus was sent in the first century to groups of Judaism that had forgotten who God really was–so that he might make Him known (John 14:7).

Therefore, the questions remain for us. Centuries have passed since the Lord Jesus walked in Jerusalem. Have we built up additional laws? Have we allowed the culture around us to change what we believe? Have we lost sight of hope? Or have we devoted ourselves to really coming to know Him?

Jason Hensley,
Associate Editor