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converse way by Josephus’ description of the sectarian life of Judea in the first century. Josephus was saved from death by Vespacian and so became his client. All his writings were meant to explain Judaism to the educated Roman audience. As apologetic as Philo, Josephus used philosophical terminology in a more popular way to make Jewish notions of the afterlife understandable to his educated pagan Roman audience. In the process he also confirmed that notions of immortality of the soul emanate from the client classes of Judea while resurrection was featured among those opposed to Roman rule.

Josephus described the social classes of first-century CE Judea by mentioning the three most important sects and a “fourth philosophy.” He called them “heresies” (haireseis) by which he meant only “sects.” The Greek had no implication of unacceptable religious views. But neither did he mean “sects” in a technical sociological sense: the groups may have been anything from a technical religious sect to a denomination, even an occupation or voluntary society.

He tells us whom the sects were: There were Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes (J.W. 2.119; Ant. 18.11-12). The Sadducees were closer to an occupational group or a social class; the Pharisees were something like a voluntary association; and the Essenes were a sect in the technical sense. The “fourth philosophy” were the Zealots or political revolutionaries. Josephus considered them “bandits” or perhaps in our idiom, “terrorists.”

The Sadducees appeared to be the traditional aristocracy, priestly in nature. On the other hand, their philosophy, which denied life after death, did not appeal to many, according to Josephus (J.W. 2.164-65). One doubts whether one could enter this group merely by adopting its philosophy because they were wealthy and priestly. For Josephus, the Sadducees were not merely a social and political grouping; they had clear religious views as well. Or, as we have been noticing throughout the ancient Near East and the classical world, their social position inclined them to a certain disposition toward life after death. “The Sadducees hold that the soul perishes along with body” (Ant. 18.16). The Sadducees did not believe in fate, feeling that God is distant from human beings and that we must take responsibility for what we will: “All things lie within our own power so that we ourselves are responsible for our well-being, while we suffer misfortune through our own thoughtlessness” (Ant. 13.173). Josephus clearly saw that such a doctrine favored the wealthy. The Sadducees suggested that their wealth was deserved and was just payment for their superior morality. Josephus likely was born into the group, as he was himself descended from a priestly family. But he called them “boorish.” In Josephus’ organization of the issues, belief in life after death and the issue of justice in this world are intimately connected.21 Furthermore, Josephus’ portrayal of Sadducees is paralleled in the Gospels, where Jesus and Sadducees argue over resurrection (Matt 22:23-33; Mark 12:18-27; Luke 20:27-40).

It was the Sadducees who raised the issue of afterlife because they did not accept it. Jesus demonstrated the concept of resurrection by quoting two different Scriptures and assuming that there can be no contradiction between them. Since Scripture says that YHWH is God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and he is also called “the living God,” (actually “God of the living” in Greek), then the patriarchs must still be alive. This was not only an effective argument in the first century CE, the Gospels are especially impressed with it.

The Sadducean Bible would not have contained the visions in Daniel that indubitably propound the notion of resurrection. Although we have no identifiably Sadducean text—that is, no writing that we can identify as specifically Sadducean in a sectarian sense—many Biblical and intertestamental books actually reflect their perspective. Ecclesiastes and Job would be favorite texts of the Sadducees. The Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus as it it is called in Greek),