My Dear People, 

Some Sadducees now enter into the controversy with Jesus. It is not surprising to encounter them in the temple area, since the group included leading priests and often the high priest himself (Acts 4:1-2; 5:17). In contrast to Jesus (Luke 14:14) and some of the Pharisees, they deny that there is a resurrection (Acts:23:6-8). Both Sadducees and Pharisees originated in the second century BC. At the time, belief in the resurrection was becoming more widespread among the Jews after the experience of the Maccabean martyrs (2Mac. 7:9,11,14,23,29). However, the Sadducees were opposed to this trend. In matters of belief, they accepted only those teachings clearly written down in the Torah, the law of Moses, regardless of the other passages in the Old Testament that lent support to such a belief. 

In their view, Moses teaches against the resurrection. The law of levirate marriage (Deut. 25:5-6) states that the brother of a man who dies leaving a wife, but no child should marry the widow and thus raise up descendants for the deceased. So, the Sadducees present a test case, taking inspiration from Tobit (Tobit 3:8-9,15) and (2 Maccabees 7): seven brothers successively married a woman, but all seven died childless; then the woman also died. The question about the hereafter—whose wife is she? —makes the resurrection look absurd and therefore false. 

Jesus gives a two-part answer. First, he rebuts their argument by pointing out that life in the coming age is not the same as life now, as they are assuming. It does not involve marriage. The purpose of the levirate law, besides providing for the widow, was that “the name of the deceased” would continue through a descendant (Deut.  25:6). However, in the resurrection of the dead, people are like angels in that they can no longer die, so there is no need for marriage to perpetuate one's' own name. So, whereas the children of this age marry (Luke 17:27), those in “eternal life” (18:30) are characterized above all by their relationship with God—they are children of God. The further description that they are the ones who will rise is more literally translated “they are children of the resurrection.” Jesus’ words also imply that not all attain this blessing, so people, including the Sadducees questioning him, should focus on doing what is necessary to be deemed worthy by God to receive it. 

Second, Jesus shows that the resurrection of the dead is indeed taught by the law of Moses, thus arguing it is based on the authority the Sadducees accept.  At the burning bush, the Lord revealed himself to Moses as the God of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exodus 3:6, 15-16). Though they died centuries before Moses, to God they are living. He is not God of the dead, which means that belief in the resurrection is necessary for having a proper understanding of God. 

But how are they alive? The resurrection of the body has not yet taken place, as the Sadducees could point out by referring to the cave of Machpelah in Hebron, where the patriarchs were buried (Gen 49:31; 50:13), for which Herod the Great had constructed a massive enclosure that still stands. Hence if Abraham is alive, as the parable about Lazarus also assumes (Luke 16:19-31), there must be some “intermediate state,” as Christian teaching has affirmed with respect to the immortal soul.

Some of the scribes (see Acts 23:9) acknowledge that Jesus has answered the Sadducees well. However, the Sadducees will later take up the issue again with Jesus’ disciples, who are proclaiming the resurrection of the dead in Jesus (Acts 4:1-2), who is “the first to rise from the dead” (Acts 26:23). 

As a result of Jesus’ skill in fending off these questions (Luke 20:2; 21-22. 28-33), his opponents no longer dared to ask him anything. 

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Vincent Clemente