as PROMISEd

More on the Sadducees: The Jewish Encyclopedia.com suggest that the root word for the Sadducee is, "Zadduki", meaning a follower of Zadok, the chief priest at the time of David and Solomon; his immediate successors established the Temple hierarchy. This line went all the way through the first and second Temples, but by that time they were so Hellenized, that."to be a follower of the priestly hierarchy was tantamount to being a worldly-minded Epicurean." Only the highest patrician families intermarried with the priests at Jerusalem, and this group was regarded as a "haughty" aristocracy by Josephus and the Pharisees. The Sadducees "have none but the rich on their side."
Also: "They had centered their interests in political life, of which they were the chief rulers...they took the people's destiny in their own hands, fighting or negotiating with the heathen nations just as they thought best, while having as their aim their own temporary welfare and worldly success." (To be sure, they evolved into a rather strict anti-supernaturalism, finding that such an approach favored the pleasure principle and personal and group aggrandizement.)

Yet they favored detailed and literal applications of selected OT portions when it suited their purposes, while some Pharisees interpreted them figuratively, such as Deu 22:17.

Subsequent to the destruction of Herod's temple the Sadducees lost everything but the "Zaddukim" seem to have had spinoffs, such as gnosticism, and dualism of the Manicheans; "So it is said of Adam that he was a Zadduki, that is, a gnostic who did not believe in God as the Giver of the Law."

Tune in tommorrow and we will look at at least one contemporary representative of this group--names change but the format of convenient formalism--and populism--remain steadily in place; Caiphas was correct in his prophecy that his group would lose "both their place and their nation" if Jesus of Nazareth were allowed to live. "It is expedient that one man should die for the people." Or rather than the welfare of the people they lost their pleomorphic leadership and the hegemony of the oligarchy. If they believed in anything, it was their absolute rights to rule
and reign--having had certainly the most practice time!

Does "practice make perfect"? Let's see....