Sadducee

Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:

(disciples of Zadok). A Jewish sect, supposedly Zadokites (1 Kings 1:32-4532And king David said, Call me Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada. And they came before the king. 33The king also said unto them, Take with you the servants of your lord, and cause Solomon my son to ride upon mine own mule, and bring him down to Gihon: 34And let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him there king over Israel: and blow ye with the trumpet, and say, God save king Solomon. 35Then ye shall come up after him, that he may come and sit upon my throne; for he shall be king in my stead: and I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and over Judah. 36And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada answered the king, and said, Amen: the Lord God of my lord the king say so too. 37As the Lord hath been with my lord the king, even so be he with Solomon, and make his throne greater than the throne of my lord king David. 38So Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites, and the Pelethites, went down, and caused Solomon to ride upon king David's mule, and brought him to Gihon. 39And Zadok the priest took an horn of oil out of the tabernacle, and anointed Solomon. And they blew the trumpet; and all the people said, God save king Solomon. 40And all the people came up after him, and the people piped with pipes, and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth rent with the sound of them. 41And Adonijah and all the guests that were with him heard it as they had made an end of eating. And when Joab heard the sound of the trumpet, he said, Wherefore is this noise of the city being in an uproar? 42And while he yet spake, behold, Jonathan the son of Abiathar the priest came: and Adonijah said unto him, Come in; for thou art a valiant man, and bringest good tidings. 43And Jonathan answered and said to Adonijah, Verily our lord king David hath made Solomon king. 44And the king hath sent with him Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Cherethites, and the Pelethites, and they have caused him to ride upon the king's mule: 45And Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king in Gihon: and they are come up from thence rejoicing, so that the city rang again. This is the noise that ye have heard. (1 Kings 1:32‑45)), whose chief tenets were (1) rejection of the divinity of the Mosaic oral law and traditions; (2) rejection of the later O. T. books, but acceptance of the Mosaic teachings; (3) denial of angel and spiritual existence, and consequent immortality of the soul; (4) belief in the absolute moral freedom of man. Their hatred of Christianity was as bitter as that of the Pharisees (Matt. 3:77But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? (Matthew 3:7); Mark 12:1818Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying, (Mark 12:18); Luke 20:2727Then came to him certain of the Sadducees, which deny that there is any resurrection; and they asked him, (Luke 20:27); Acts 4:1; 5:17; 23:6-101And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them, (Acts 4:1)
17Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation, (Acts 5:17)
6But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question. 7And when he had so said, there arose a dissension between the Pharisees and the Sadducees: and the multitude was divided. 8For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both. 9And there arose a great cry: and the scribes that were of the Pharisees' part arose, and strove, saying, We find no evil in this man: but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God. 10And when there arose a great dissension, the chief captain, fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to take him by force from among them, and to bring him into the castle. (Acts 23:6‑10)). Though composed of men of position, the sect was never very numerous nor influential, and it disappeared from history after the first century of the Christian era.

Concise Bible Dictionary:

Next to the Pharisees, the Sadducees were the most prominent sect of the Jews. The Pharisees made proselytes, but the Sadducees were much more exclusive, and therefore remained fewer in number. They did not believe in the resurrection, nor in angels, nor in spirits: they held that the soul perished with the body (Matt. 22:2323The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, (Matthew 22:23); Acts 4:1-21And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them, 2Being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. (Acts 4:1‑2); Acts 23:88For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both. (Acts 23:8)). Though strict in regard to the written law of Moses, they repudiated the traditions of the elders, or what is called the oral law. They believed that God punished a man’s sins during his life, and that man’s will was free, and he had power to restrain his passions. In consequence of this they were severe judges. The Lord Jesus warned His disciples against their doctrines, and denounced them as the “offspring of vipers.” The tenets of the modern rationalists have much in common with the Sadducees.

Strong’s Dictionary of Greek Words:

Number:
4523 (find all occurrences in KJV Bible)
Greek:
Σαδδουκαῖος
Transliteration:
Saddoukaios
Phonic:
sad-doo-kah’-yos
Meaning:
probably from 4524; a Sadducaean (i.e. Tsadokian), or follower of a certain heretical Israelite
KJV Usage:
Sadducee

Jackson’s Dictionary of Scripture Proper Names:

the righteous

Potts’ Bible Proper Names:

He cut; righteousness:―a religious sect [ZADOK], Matt. 3:7. {Scidit}

From Manners and Customs of the Bible:

The time when the Sadducees appeared as a party among the Jews is unknown. It is generally supposed that they had their origin about the same time as the Pharisees. The derivation of the name is a matter of dispute. Some derive it from the Hebrew tsedek, “righteousness,” and suppose that the name was given because of their piety. Others say that the Sadducees were organized by Zadoc, a scholar of Antigonus Socho, president of the Sanhedrim, and a disciple of Simon the Just. This Zadoc died B.C. 263, and from him the name Sadducee is thought to be derived. Others seek a derivation from Zadok the priest, who lived in the time of David. See I Kings 1:32.
The vital point of difference between the Pharisees and the Sadducees was in their opinion of the Law. The Sadducees rejected the traditionary interpretations of the law, to which the Pharisees attached so much importance. They did not believe in any Oral Law as a supplement to the Written Law, but they took the Hebrew Scriptures, with the authoritative explanations which were developed in tilt, course of time, as the only rule c’ faith and practice. They sculpted those, traditional explanations of the law which could be deduced from the Scriptures, but rejected all which the Pharisees, without authority, had added. In some respects they were more rigid interpreters of the law than the Pharisees. A number of illustrations of this are given by Dr. Ginsburg, in his article on “Sadducees,” in Kim's Cyclopedia.
The Sadducees denied the doctrine of the resurrection because they considered there was no proof of it in the Hebrew Scriptures. Whether they also denied the soul’s immortality, as is commonly represented, is a point on which critics are not agreed. The statement in Acts 23:88For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both. (Acts 23:8), is sometimes adduced as proof of this denial: “For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.” It is claimed, however, that this does not show that the Sadducees did not believe in angelic or spiritual existence, but that they did not believe in any manifestation of the angels or spirits to human beings in their own day. Reuss, in Herzog's Real-Encyklopadie, s., v. Sadducaer, suggests that the ninth verse gives a key to the interpretation of the eighth. The Pharisaic scribes there admit the possibility of a spirit or an angel having spoken to Paul. The Sadducees might easily deny the reality of such appearances in their day without denying the actual existence of such beings, or the accounts of their appearances which are given in the Old Testament. This opinion is adopted by Twistleton in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, and also by Dr. Milligan in Fairbairn's Imperial Bible Dictionary.
The Sadducees were not so numerous as the Pharisees, nor were their doctrines so acceptable to the people. They were an ancient priestly to aristocracy, having considerable wealth and great political power. From Acts 5:1717Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation, (Acts 5:17), compared with 4:6, it has been inferred that many of the kindred of the high priest at that time, as well as himself, were of the Sadducean party, and that probably the priestly families in general belonged to them. They were too cold and austere in their manners to make many converts, and disappeared from history about the close of the First Century of the Christian era.

Related Books and Articles:

695. The Sadducees
Narrator: Chris Genthree
Duration: 4min