Sadducees Versus Pharisees –

Who Really Controlled Temple Services in the Time of Christ?

When did the Sadducees lose control of the Temple and the

religious leadership of the Jews in ancient Judaea? When did

the Pharisees gain control, and keep it, even when the high

priest was a Sadducee? This may not seem like a very impor-

tant question -- but on it depends the solution to the problem

of on what day should Pentecost be celebrated! Here is historical and Biblical evidence which provides the FINAL SOLUTION

to this crucial question!

William F. Dankenbring

Believe it nor not, the question of when God’s people should observe the Feast of Pentecost is really not all that difficult to answer – if we have sincere, unprejudiced, and open minds, and are willing to seriously consider the historical evidence!

A number of churches which believe in celebrating God’s Festivals, however, insist that Pentecost – what the Jews call the Festival of “Shavuot” – must be celebrated on a Sunday every year. They claim that the ancient Jewish sect of the Sadducees were correct in counting the fifty days till Pentecost from the Sunday which falls during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In some years, however, when the Passover falls on the weekly Sabbath, then churches who follow this reasoning have a serious problem – do they count from that first Sunday, which begins the Feast of Unleavened Bread, or from the last Sunday, following the weekly Sabbath which occurs as the final day of the Feast?

Apparently, since there are no Biblical guidelines to answer this question, different churches come to different conclusions on this matter! Some do it one way, and others the other way, thus celebrating Pentecost a week apart!

But God says in His Word, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Prov.14:12). Surely none of us wants to be mistaken, and pay for our error at the cost of our life! God’s commandments are SURE – and “in keeping them there is great reward” (Psalm 19:11). But in breaking them, there is the penalty of death – the “wages of sin” (Rom.6:23).

Furthermore, why should we follow the example of the Sadducees? Just who were they? Were they really the religious leaders during the time of Christ? Were Temple services performed according to their beliefs and dictates during that time? Or were they actually subject to the religious power and authority of the Pharisees, who taught that Pentecost should be counted from the day after the Passover Sabbath – that is, the First Day of Unleavened Bread?

Jesus Christ – Yeshua the Messiah – on one occasion severely rebuked the Sadducees. They as a religious body did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. They tried to trip Christ up in His teaching of the resurrection by presenting a story of a man who married a woman, and then died, having no children. Then his six brothers married her, and each died in order, from the first to the last, none of them having any children. So, they asked Him, figuring He was “cornered” – whose wife would she be in the resurrection?

“You are mistaken,” He said, “not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). He plainly said of this religious body that they did not KNOW the Scriptures! That is, they were Biblically IGNORANT!

Just who were they, anyway, and what did the teach? What kind of power did they exercise in Jewish religious daily worship?

Alexander the Great and Hellenisms

After Alexander the Great conquered the known world in 333 B.C., and spread the teachings of Hellenism throughout the Eastern Mediterranean region, many reformist intellectuals and politically minded Jews and Greek sought to bridge the gap between Judaism and Grecian Hellenism. The reformers found the Torah or Law of the Jews to be full of “fables” and impossible moral demands and countless prohibitions. Reformers did not want to abolish all the Law, but to “purge” it of all the elements which prohibited its mergence with Hellenism.

Writes Paul Johnson, in A History of the Jews, “To promote their ultimate aim of a world religion, they wanted an immediate marriage between the Greek polis and the Jewish moral God” (A History of the Jews, p.101). Johnson goes on:

“Unfortunately, this was a contradiction in terms. The Greeks were not mono-

theists but polytheists, and in Egypt they learned syncretism, that is the rational-

ization of innumerable overlapping deities by hanging them together into synthetic polygods. One such mutant was Apollo-Helio-Hermes, the sun-god. They blended their own Dionysiac rites with the Egyptian Isis-cult. Their god of healing, Asclepios, was conflated with the Egyptian Imhotep. Zeus, the senior god, was the same as the Egyptian Ammon, the Persian Ahura-Mazda and, for all they

cared, the Jewish Yahweh. That, needless to say, was not how the pious Jews saw it” (p.102).

After the death of Alexander the Great, Judea was caught between the struggle for power and conquest between the Syrians and the Egyptians. Palestine passed from Egyptian to Syrian domination during the reign of Seleucus IV (187-175). His successor was Antiochus IV, Epiphanes, “whose reckless determination to exterminate Judaism, and in its place to substitute Hellenism, led to the Maccabean uprising,” says Alfred Edersheim (The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, appendix IV, page 667).

The succession of high priests in Jerusalem is given in Nehemiah 12:10-22, culminating in Johanan and Jaddua, the contemporary of Alexander the Great. Josephus brings the list of high priests down to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes (Antiquities of the Jews, XI, 8, 7).

Antiochus Epiphanes -- the Monster

Antiochus Epiphanes was in many respects a forerunner of the “Antichrist,” the “Beast” of the book of Revelation. Says Alfred Edersheim, “cruelty and recklessness of tyranny were as prominently his characteristics as revengefulness and unbounded devotion to superstition” (Life and Times, p.669).

The movement into Hellenistic idolatry and syncretism got a big boost in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, in 175 B.C. He was anxious to speed up the Hellenization of his dominions, and since Judaea was under his control, he replaced the orthodox high priest Onias by the “reform” liberal minded Jason, whose name itself was a Hellenization of the Hebrew Joshua. Says Paul Johnson:

“Jason began the transformation of Jerusalem into a polis, renamed Antiochia, by constructing a gymnasium at the foot of the Temple Mount. The Second Book of Maccabees furiously records that the Temple priests ‘ceased to show any interest in the service of the altar; scorning the Temple and neglecting the sacrifices, they would hurry to take part in the unlawful exercises [in the nude] on the training- ground’” (p.102).

In 167 B.C. the conflict came to a head. A decree was published which in effect abolished the Mosaic Law, replacing it with secular law.

Says Alfred Edersheim,

“All sacrifices, the service of the Temple, and the observance of the Sabbath and

of feast days were prohibited; the Temple at Jerusalem was dedicated to Jupiter

Olympus; the Holy Scriptures were searched for and destroyed; the Jews forced

to take part in heathen rites; a small heathen altar was reared on the great altar

of burnt offering – in short, every insult was heaped on the religion of the Jews,

and its every trace was to be swept away” (Life and Times, p.670).

The Temple was reduced to an “ecumenical” place of interdenominational worship, and as such, the statue of the pagan god called the Olympian Zeus was placed within its precincts. This act was probably inspired by Menelaus, who thought a drastic move was needed to end, once and for all, the Jewish Temple worship and Law. His acts divided the priests, aroused the people, and led to further escalation of conflict. Opposed to him were the scribes, the orthodox priests, and the most pious Jews or hasidim. To them, there was no difference between the new “universalism” and the old Baal-worship, condemned in the Scriptures. They refused to sacrifice in the “new” way and to bow down before the “new” altars, and revolted against the government of Antiochus, leading to civil war.

By December 164 B.C. the revolution brought success to the Maccabees, and they drove the Greeks out of Jerusalem and its surroundings, and cleansed the Temple and reinstituted the prescribed sacrifices. In 152 B.C. the Greeks abandoned their attempt to Hellenize the Jews by force, and recognized Jonathan, son of Matthias Hasmon, as the new high priest. The Hasmoneans held the office for the next 115 years. Simon Maccabee succeeded his brother as high priest, and Judaea became independent once again.

Birth of the Pharisees and Sadducees

Says Paul Johnson, the assault against the Law of God was met by a corresponding zeal for the Law. Henceforth talk of “reform” was denounced as “nothing less than total apostasy and collaboration with the foreign oppression” (p.105). Pious Jews began to develop a national system of schools where Jewish boys were taught the Torah. This led to the development and spread of the synagogue, and “the birth of Pharisaism as a movement rooted in popular education, and eventually in the rise of the rabbinate” (A History of the Jews, p.106). They taught, in addition to the written Law, the Oral Law, “by which learned elders could interpret and supplement the sacred commands. The practice of the Oral Law made it possible for the Mosaic code to be adapted to changing conditions and administered in a realistic manner” (ibid.).

“By contrast,” says Johnson, “the Temple priests, dominated by the Sadducees, or descendants of Zadok . . . insisted that all law must be written and unchanged. They had their own additional text, called the Book of Decrees, which laid down a system of punishment: who were to be stoned, who burned, who beheaded, who strangled. . . . The Sadducees soon became identified with Hasmonean rule in a rigid system of Temple administration, in which the hereditary high priest performed the functions of a secular ruler, and a committee of elders, the Sanhedrin, discharged his religious-legal duties” (ibid.).

Alexander Jannaeus – Enemy of the Pharisees

Simon’s third son, John Hyrcanus, succeeded him and ruled from 134-104 B.C. His son, Alexander Jannaeus, ruled from 103-76 B.C., calling himself “Jonathan the king” on the coins produced in his realm. Says Johnson of the Hasmoneans, “They began as the avengers of martyrs, they ended as religious oppressors themselves. They came to power at the head of an eager guerrilla band; they ended surrounded by mercenaries. Their kingdom, founded on faith, dissolved in impiety” (p.107).

Alexander Jannaeus became a “despot and a monster” and persecuted the religious Jews. He was drawn to Greek Hellenism and came to despise the “barbarous” aspects of the Jewish religion, the Torah, and its requirements.

As high priest, leading the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, he refused to perform the libation ceremony, according to the custom, and as a result pious Jews pelted him with lemons. Outraged by their behavior, he proceeded to slay about 6,000 of them, according to the history of Josephus. As a result, civil war once again erupted, and in the following six years some 50,000 Jews lost their lives. Says Johnson:

“It is from this time we first hear of the Perushim or Pharisees, ‘those who separated themselves,’ a religious party which repudiated the royal religious establishment, with its high-priest, Sadducee aristocrats and the Sanhedrin, and placed religious observance before Jewish nationalism.

“Rabbinic sources record the struggle between the monarch and this group, which was a social and economic as well as a religious clash. As Josephus noted, ‘the Sadducees draw their following only from the rich, and the people do not support them, whereas the Pharisees have popular allies’” (p.108).

This was the low point of the Pharisees. Their leaders killed, or banished, their influence fell. The Sadducees reigned supreme, and began to inaugurate their own Temple practices and do things their way. Pentecost was counted from the Sunday which occurred during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Alexander Jannaeus returned to Jerusalem, victorious over his enemies, and as he feasted with his concubines, he ordered 800 of his enemies to be crucified, and while they yet lived, had their children’s and wives’ throats cut before their very eyes. But civil war continued to rage, and to seek peace Jannaeus recalled the Pharisees and began a period of reconciliation. He himself died in 76 B.C. after a bout of hard drinking leading to what Josephus called a “distemper.”

Queen Salome and Pharisee Power

Before Janneuas died, in his fiftieth year, he bequeathed the throne to his wife Salome. He told her, “Be not afraid of the Pharisees, nor of those who are not Pharisees, but beware of the painted ones” (that is, the hypocrites who had ulterior motives). Alexander’s widow, Salome, saw that his policies were leading to disaster, and sought to change matters and restore national unity. Salome then brought the Pharisees back into the Sanhedrin and made their Oral Law acceptable in royal justice. She died in 67 B.C. Says Afred Edersheim of this period of the rule of Salome:

“The nine years of Queen Alexandra’s (in Hebrew Salome) reign were the GOLDEN AGE OF THE PHARISEES, when heaven itself smiled on a land that was WHOLLY SUBJECT TO THEIR RELIGIOUS SWAY” (Life and Times, p.677).

Edersheim continues:

“Queen Salome had appointed her eldest son, Hyrcanus II, a weak prince, to the Pontificate. But, as Josephus puts it (Ant. XIII, 16, 2), although Salome had the title, THE PHARISEES HELD THE REAL RULE OF THE COUNTRY, and they administered it with the harshness, insolence and recklessness of a fanatical religious party which suddenly obtained unlimited power. . . . First of all, all who were suspected of Sadduccean leanings were removed by intrigue or violence from the Sanhedrin. Next, previous orders DIFFERING FROM PHAR-

ISAICAL VIEWS WERE ABROGATED, and others breathing their spirit substituted. SO SWEEPING AND THOROUGH WAS THE CHANGE WROUGHT, THAT THE SADDUCEES NEVER RECOVERED THE BLOW, AND WHATEVER THEY MIGHT TEACH, YET THOSE IN OFFICE WERE OBLIGED IN ALL TIME COMING TO CONFORM TO PHARISAIC

PRACTICE” (ibid., p.678).

Those are very plain words! In other words, from the time of Queen Salome, 78-69 B.C., the Pharisees held exclusive religious dominion in ancient Judea! The Sadducees were compelled to do everything as the ruling and dominant Pharisees told them – all rituals, worship and religious practices and Temple services!

From that time forward, the PHARISEES exercised religious domination and rule in the land of Palestine! The Sadducees were forced to be utterly subservient to them, and held their offices only at the pleasure of the Pharisees!

Enter the Herods

After her death, Salome’s sons fell out fighting over the succession, and Hyrcanus, one of them, had a powerful chief minister, Antipater, who was Idumean. He brokered a deal with Rome in 63 B.C. and Judaea became a Roman client-state. His son became Herod the Great, who ruled from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C., when he died. Herod was a paranoid megalomaniac. Says Paul Johnson:

“His first act on assuming power in Jerusalem in 37 B.C. was to execute forty- six leading members of the Sanhedrin who, in his own case and others, had sought to uphold the Mosaic law in secular matters. Henceforth, it became a religious court only. He did not even attempt to become high priest himself and divorced it from the crown by turning it into an official post, appointing and dismissing high-priests as acts of his prerogative, and picking them mainly from

the Egyptian and Babylonian diaspora” (p.111).

During his reign, Herod was exceptionally generous to the Temple, which he began rebuilding and restoring. He built huge supporting walls, filled in the gaps with rubble, doubled the area of the Temple Mount, extending it toward the south, and erected porticos around the vast forecourt. The platform was 35 acres in size and a mile in circumference, and more than twice the height of the present Temple Mount as seen today. Some of the building blocks were 110 feet long, 25 feet high, 15 feet wide. On top of the platform were the cloisters with hundreds of Corinthian pillars, 27 feet high and so huge that three men extending their arms could hardly reach around them.

Nevertheless, Herod down-graded the importance of the high priest, who was usually a hated Sadducee. In so doing, Paul Johnson points out:

“Herod automatically raised in importance his deputy, the segan, a Pharisee, who

got control over all the regular Temple functions and ensured that even the Sadducee

high-priests performed the liturgy in a Pharisaical manner. Since Herod was on reasonable terms with the Pharisees, he avoided conflict between the Temple and his government, as a rule” (p.118).

Who Controlled the Temple Functions?

Let’s review that last quotation from Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, once again. Notice! By the time of Herod, who ruled from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C., the position of high priest -- usually held by one of the aristocratic Sadducees, who was himself appointed to the office at the whim and discretion and pleasure of the king, Herod himself -- was down-graded in importance. The actual power to rule and regulate and control all the normal Temple functions, including holy day observances, dates, and liturgies, rested with the office of the “segan” -- who was a PHARISEE appointed to “assist” and “ensure” that the Sadducee high priest did everything according to the prescribed manner. Thus the Pharisees had control over all the Temple functions during the time of king Herod, from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C.!

Josephus, the first century Jewish historian, was himself a priest and a Pharisee. In his Antiquities of the Jews, he informs us that the Pharisees were the dominant religious party in Judaea during the time of Christ, and says that they controlled the worship services.

A New Look at the Sadducees and Pharisees

Josephus himself was a Pharisee, but he did not endorse everything they taught and did. He wrote very objectively about them, and some of his language was very unflattering. He declared of them:

“For there was a certain sect of men that were Jews, who valued themselves highly

upon the exact skill they had in the law of their fathers, and made men believe they

were highly favored by God, by whom this set of women were inveigled. These are

those that are called the sect of the Pharisees, who were in a capacity of greatly

opposing kings. A cunning sect they were, and soon elevated to a pitch of open

fighting and doing mischief” (Ant., XVII, 2, 4).

Again, giving further insight into this religious body, Josephus writes:

“Now, for the Pharisees, they live meanly, and despise delicacies in diet; and they

follow the conduct of reason; and what that prescribes to them as good for them,

they do; and they think they ought earnestly to strive to observe reason’s dictates

for practice. They also pay a respect to such as are in years . . . . on account of

which doctrines, THEY ARE ABLE TO GREATLY PERSUADE THE BODY

OF THE PEOPLE; AND WHATEVER THEY DO ABOUT DIVINE

WORSHIP, PRAYERS, AND SACRIFICES, THEY PERFORM THEM

ACCODING TO THEIR DIRECTION . . .” (Ant., XVIII, 1,3).

What about the Sadducees? H. H.. Ben-Sasson writes that they “held only the written Torah holy and did not concede to the Pharisee hakhamim authority . . . In many matters that were connected with the Temple service, with legal affairs and with daily life, they differed from the Pharisees. In matters of faith and philosophy, they believed in free will and rejected many of the popular beliefs of the time, including the resurrection of the dead and the important functions of angels. Socially, they formed the upper stratum of the Jewish community, the aristocracy and plutocracy and above all the senior priestly families” (p.236, A History of the Jewish People, published by Harvard University Press, 1976; translated from the Hebrew version published by Dvir Publishing House, Tel Aviv, 1969).

Ben-Sasson points out that the Hasmoneans were natural leaders of those circles influenced by the Pharisees “and, until the last years of John Hyrcanus, Pharisaic halakhah OFFICIALLY DETERMINED the rules of procedure and law that were binding throughout the kingdom. Under John Hyrcanus the rift between the Hasmonean rulers and the Pharisees became apparent for the first time. It widened under John’s sons, until the Hasmonean dynasty ONCE AGAIN came to terms with the Pharisees. The latter’s standing improved vastly under Queen Alexandra [Salome]” (p.237).

How powerful did the Pharisees become? Says Ben-Sasson, the Pharisees in the Sanhedrin formed a consolidated group which “became increasingly important and influential through the whole-hearted support that it received from the people. Their opinion usually carried the day. The chiefs of the priesthood who were of Sadducean persuasion, RARELY DARED take actions against the express wishes of the Pharisaic hakhamim [representatives] in the Sanhedrin” (p.250).

Ben-Sasson declares that

“Because of the decisive influence of their Pharisaic opponents . . . the Sadducees

had NO CHOICE, EVEN WHILE THEY HELD THE HIGHEST OFFICES, BUT

TO MAKE MANY CONCESSIONS TO THE PHARISEES. Only on rare occasions

did they attempt to enforce their own views in various areas of public life and

religious ceremonial” (p.271).

The Talmud records such an instance, when a Sadducee attempted to circumvent a procedural ruling of the Pharisees concerning the high priest entering the Holy of Holies and offering incense. The Talmud shows that the Pharisees came to require that a sitting high priest who was a Sadducee give an OATH that he would perform the ceremony according to Pharisaical teaching.

Says the Talmud:

“And why do they require an oath of him? Because of the Boethusians [leading

family of Sadducees], who said: let him cense from outside and let him enter

from inside. We are told of one who did so, and when he came out, someone

said to his father: ‘Though ye have taught this all your lives, ye have never done

so until this man came and did it.’ The other replied: ‘Though we have taught

so all our lives, we have done as the hakhamim [Pharisees] willed and I wonder

if this man will live long.’ It is said that there were no easy days until he died;

and some said that worms came out of his nose” (Jerusalem Talmud, Yoma

I, 39a, quoted on page 272).

In another passage, illustrating the power of the Pharisees over Temple rituals and service, we read in the Mishnah the following rules relating to the function of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement:

“1. l. Seven days before the Day of Atonement the High Priest was taken apart

from his own house unto the Counsellors’ Chamber . . .

“3. They delivered unto him elders from among the elders of the Court, and they

read before him out of the [prescribed] rite for the day; and they said to him, ‘My

lord High Priest, do thou thyself recite with thine own mouth, lest thou hast

forgotten or lest thou hast never learnt’ . . .

“5. The elders of the Court delivered him to the elders of the priesthood and they

brought him up to the upper chamber of the House of Abtinas. They ADJURED

him [made him to swear an oath] and took their leave and went away having said

to him, ‘My lord High Priest, we are delegates of the Court [Sanhedrin], and

thou art OUR delegate and the delegate of the Court. We ADJURE thee by Him

that made His name to dwell in this house that THOU CHANGE NAUGHT OF

WHAT WE HAVE SAID UNTO THEE. He turned aside and wept and they turned

aside and wept” (Mishnah, Yoma 1:1-5, pages 162-163, translated by Herbert

Danby, Oxford University Press).

How clear! Even the High Priest himself was totally under the authority and supervision of the Pharisees and was rigorously taught and trained and required to perform every act of worship according to the dictates of the Pharisees. This was very important. The people feared that if the High Priest offended the Most High in any way, while in the Holy of Holies, he might never come out again alive! Therefore a rope was tied to his ankle, so that just in case something went wrong, and he stayed in the Holy of Holies much too long, they could pull him out with the rope!

Writes Alfred Edersheim regarding the High Priest’s duties and training:

“Seven days before the Day of Atonement the high priest left his own house in

Jerusalem, and took up his abode in his chambers in the Temple. . . During the

whole of that week, he had to practice the various priestly rites, such as sprinkling

the blood, burning the incense, lighting the lamp, offering the daily sacrifice, etc.

For, as already stated, every part of that day’s service devolved on the high priest,

and he must not commit any mistake. Some of the elders of the Sanhedrin were

appointed to see it, that the high priest fully understood, and knew the meaning of

the service, otherwise they were to instruct him in it. On the eve of the Day of

Atonement the various sacrifices were brought before him, that there might be

nothing strange about the services of the morrow. Finally they bound him with

A SOLEMN OATH not to change anything in the rites of the day. This was

chiefly for fear of the SADDUCEAN NOTION, that the incense should be lighted

before the high priest actually entered into the Most Holy Place; while the

Pharisees held that this was to be done only within the Most Holy Place itself”

(Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services, p.245).

The rituals of the Day of Atonement were regarded as of the most serious consequences. If the High Priest failed to perform every duty properly, He could invoke the wrath of God upon not only himself but the entire nation! Therefore, it was considered most important that the High Priest be carefully tutored and rehearsed the duties he would be required to perform on that most holy day. The Pharisees saw to it that he even had to swear before Almighty God that he would change nothing in the established rituals and service.

Says Ben-Sasson, “The whole Second Temple period was dominated by the leadership of the Pharisees. . . . As a matter of course, the Pharisees were led by the most famous hakhamim of the time. In the Sanhedrin itself the Pharisees were represented by a united faction of Torah authorities whose influence on Sanhedrin decisions was enormous. The Pharisaic camp also included many priests, some of whom were from respected families, such as the historian Josephus” (p.272).

Pharisees’ Incredible Religious Authority

During the time of Christ, the Pharisees were the religious powerhouse in ancient Judea. Everything in religious matters was done according to their dictates. The Sadducees, their religious opponents, were completely subservient to them in all religious duties and practices.

Writes Alfred Edersheim in Sketches of Jewish Social Life,

“Pharisaism . . . had not only become the leading direction of theological thought,

but its principles were solemnly proclaimed, and UNIVERSALLY ACTED UPON –

AND THE LATTER, EVEN BY THEIR OPPONENTS THE SADDUCEES. A Sad-

ducee in the Temple or on the seat of judgment would be obliged to act and decide

PRECISELY LIKE A PHARISEE. Not that the party had not attempted to give

dominance to their peculiar views. But they were fairly VANQUISHED, and it

is said that they themselves destroyed the book of Sadducean ordinances, which

they had at one time drawn up. And the Pharisees celebrated each dogmatic victory

by a feast!” (page 219).

What does the historian Josephus tell us directly about the Sadducees, and their relationship vis-à-vis the Pharisees?

Josephus discusses “the sect of the Sadducees, whose notions are quite contrary to those of the Pharisees” (Antiquities, 13, 10, 6). He continues:

“. . . the Sadducees are able to persuade none but the rich, AND HAVE NOT

THE POPULACE OBSEQUIOUS TO THEM, BUT THE PHARISEES HAVE

THE MULTITUDE ON THEIR SIDE” (Ant., 13, 10, 6).

Says Josephus, their doctrine

“is received but by a few, yet by those still of the greatest dignity; but they are

able to do almost nothing of themselves; for when they become magistrates,

as they are unwilling and by force sometimes obliged to be, THEY

ADDICT THEMSELVES TO THE NOTIONS OF THE PHARISEES,

because the multitude would not otherwise bear them” (Ant., XVIII, 1, 4).

So it should be obvious that the real holders of power and religious sway in ancient Judea were the Pharisees – not the Sadducees. Even the Sadducees had to bow to the authority of the Pharisees in all matters religious. They performed all religious rites, ceremonies, and rituals according to “the notions of the Pharisees,” and “their direction.”

What could be plainer than that?

Writes H. H. Ben-Sasson in A H