Historical Background
In Jesus’s day, Judaism was in a time of significant change and upheaval. Second Temple religion and politics were a struggle between three major factions. The Sadducees represented the priestly Temple cult; the Pharisees advocated for a legalistic or scribal cult born in the Babylonian exile; and the Zealots were a military faction intent on Judean independence from Rome.
The Maccabees
Judea’s location on the Mediterranean coast and between Egypt and Asia Minor make it militarily and economically valuable. Following the death of Alexander the Great, his successors competed for control of the region. The various ruling classes of Judea invariably sided with different Hellenistic factions, seeing political and economic advantages. As a result, Hellenism became increasingly appealing to Judean aristocrats. Greek replaced Hebrew, kosher laws were ignored, a hymnasium was built in which Jews competed in Hellenistic athletic games nude, and circumcisions were either not performed or reversed.
While the ruling classes were in support of Hellenization, the common farmers and laborers were loathe to surrender the god and traditions of their fathers. Tensions came to a head when Antiochus looted the Temple in Jerusalem in 170 BCE. A faction of guerilla rebel fighters formed under Mattathias, and later his son, Judas Maccabee, who “tore down altars, circumcised Jewish children that had been left uncircumcised, and exhorted Jews everywhere to join in the revolt” (Buttrick, 1962).
The Maccabean Revolt was successful. The Temple was cleansed, all remnants of unclean or idolatrous practices were purged, and proper sacrifices were resumed in 165 BCE. Judas Maccabees, seeing Rome’s policy of relative self-governance as the most favorable to ensure Judean religion’s long-term survival, allied Judea with Rome, making Judea a Roman vassal state.
The priestly line, disrupted by Hellenization, had to be reinstated. Judas’s own descendant, Simon Maccabeus, would take control of the Temple and priestly duties, establishing the Hasmonean Dynasty.
The Sadducees
There is much debate, both today and in conflicting historical sources, over the niche the Sadducees occupied. What we can say with relativve certainty is that the Sadducees were supporters of the Hasmonean priestly line and were primarily concerned with maintaining the Temple cult.
When defining the Sadducees, it is helpful to consider them in the frameworks of political and economic class. In contrast with the more apolitical Pharisees, the Sadducees saw the continuation of the Temple cult as dependent on politics. Thus, they engaged in poligical negotiations with Rome in order to protect priestly interests, earning them a reputation as Roman collaborators. Economically, they represented the aristocratic class, maintaining their position through crude power. The Pharisees, by contrast, represented the more mild-mannered and charismatic mercantile class. In essence, the Sadducees were preservers of the status quo.
The Pharisees
Prior to the destruction of the First Temple in 587 BCE, Judean religious practice was centered on the Temple cult. Sacrifices and festivals were centralized at the Temple in Jerusalem and were under the purview of a heriditary priestly class, the descendants of Aaron and Levi.
During the Babylonian Exile, the period of time between Babylon’s conquest of Judea and the restoration of the Temple under Cyrus the Great in 516 BCE, Temple sacrifices were impossible. In order to maintain their identity as a distinct people and maintain their devotion to Yahweh, a new form of Judean religion, centered instead around the Book of the Law, was developed. Temple sacrifice was replaced by prayer, priestly duties by individual observance of the mitzvot, or commandments. This “portable Judaism” became the basis of Pharisaism, and the sect gained momentum as the power of the Hasmonean priests waned.
Another characteristic of the Pharisees was their insistence on separateness. They took very seriously the Levitical purity codes, a series of rules and prohibitions related to ritual purity. In order to live in strict alignment with the Book of the Law, the Pharisees saw it necessary to separate themselves from Gentiles, and even from non-Pharisees. This ensured that they would not come into contact with unclean foods, substances, or practices.
The Zealots
The militaristic zeal which the Maccabees inspired did not vanish with the establishment of the Hasmonean Dynasty. Guerilla bands continued to occupy the Judean Hill Country, carrying out small-scale raids against what they considered Rome and her collaborators. This militaristic trend culminated in a rebellion against Rome in 66 BCE, and the total destruction of the Second Temple and the Judean state in 70 CE.
What Jesus Said
Now that we have an idea of what Judaism looked like in the time of Jesus, we can make sense of some of the things Jesus said about his contemporaries in the Gospel accounts.
The Sadducees
The Gospels reference the Sadducees independently of the Pharisees only in regards to one incident, in which the Sadducees ask a weirdly specific legal question about marriage post-resurrection. The question is pretty clearly a trap to try to get Jesus to say something stupid, which is a common motif in the Gospel narratives (Matt 22:23, Mark 12:18, Luke 20:27). It’s not terribly helpful to answer our question. Instead, we have to infer his attitude indirectly.
One incident which puts Jesus somewhat directly at odds with the Sadducees is the famous Temple table-flipping.
And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves;
And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple.
And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.
And the scribes and chief priests heard it, and sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was astonished at his doctrine.
— Mark 11:15-18, KJV
Jesus is critical of the Sadducees’ relegation of spiritual matters to economic and political concerns. This incident, which emphasizes prayer over strict adherence to the Temple cult, does suggest that Jesus is at least somewhat more aligned with the Pharisees than the Sadducees. There is no evidence that the type of commerce occuring here is anything but commerce related to the Temple cult. It would have been normal for a now-international Judean community to require moneychangers in order to purchase doves for Temple sacrifices. Therefore, it seems unlikely that Jesus is objecting to commerce or profit in and of itself. He may be objecting to the Temple cult in general, or to the fact that such an industry exists in the first place when the poor, the widow, and the orphan continue to go uncared for.
The Pharisees
The Pharisees get a pretty bad rap among modern Christians. Indeed, Jesus was pretty hard on them, in the same way that Christians are generally more critical of other denominations of Christianity than they are of, say, Buddhists or Hindus. We argue most fiercely with family, and Jesus was theologically much closer to the Pharisees than the Sadducees.
In the famous Temple of the Mount (Matt 5), Jesus backs up the Pharisaic emphasis on Law and personal responsibility. However, he takes his doctrine one surprising step forward, declaring that the Pharisees are not even righteous enough to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and that obedience to an even deeper law is required. Jesus draws from the writings of the Prophets, rather than the writings of the Torah alone, to make his arguments. He declares that not only is killing wrong, but the anger, resentment, and hatred that result in killing are just as wrong.
Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.
Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.
Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.
Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?
Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward.
Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;
And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day:
And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
— Isaiah 58, KJV
The Prophetic tradition scoffs at Judea’s fasts and sacrifices as empty husks. The “true fast” is to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and liberate the captive. What meaning is there to religious observance if you ignore the human suffering in your midst? The Prophetic literature envisions a future in which the Judeans’ hardened hearts will be replaced altogether, spiritually transformed: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 32:26, KJV).
Jesus is so critical of the Pharisaic tendency toward legalism sans social justice that he compares them to tombs: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness” (Matt 23:27, KJV), mirroring the language of Ezekiel.
Nor did Jesus agree with the Pharisees’ ideals of separateness.
And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.
And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?
But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.
But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
— Matt 9:10-13, KJV
Jesus takes social justice several steps out of the Pharisees’ comfort zone and willingly, even flagrantly, violates the purity codes in order to raise up sinners and tax collectors (short-hand for Roman collaborators).
The Zealots
Jesus rather clearly does not support armed resistance against Rome.
And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch him in his words.
And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?
Shall we give, or shall we not give? But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny, that I may see it.
And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar’s.
And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him.
— Mark 12:13-17, KJV
This is another trap question, rather clearly intended to try to get Jesus to say something explicitly anti-Rome to get him into trouble. He completely subverts their expectations, as though Platonic dualism was not a well-known principle in Hellenistic Judea.
The Sermon on the Mount is full of little anti-violence tidbits, like turning the other cheek. John, which is drastically different from the other Gospels in many ways, also attests to his policy of nonviolence: “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence” (John 18:36).
Conclusion
Jesus was a Jew, and the early Jesus movement was likely not an attempt to start a new religion but an attempt to reform Judaism. Jesus rejected pure ritual and pure legalism, arguing, in the Prophetic tradition, that social justice, caring for the most vulnerable segments of the population, were more important.
References
- Buttrick, G. (1962). The interpreter’s dictionary of the Bible …: Supplement. Abingdon.
Revision History
- 2025-07-01: Original posting.