Sadducees: held to a “Torah only” view/scheme/belief/system. To me, this is like the Protestants tossing the Deuteros. I imagine that the Sadducees thought they adhered to a “purer scripture” by leaving out scrolls that were under some dispute. Again, echoes of Protestantism.
Again, it’s a common opinion but we don’t know for sure. Repeating my earlier reply:
Two cents: we don’t really know for sure whether the Sadducees indeed held a ‘Torah-only’ view. For one the very few sources which say or imply that they do (some of the ECFs) are rather late, and it seems possible that they have confused the (by then extinct) Sadducees with Samaritans. Some point to a quote by Josephus (
Antiquities 13.297), but a close reading shows that all he talks about there is how the Sadducees do not accept Pharisaic traditions.
Here is the quote:
What I would now explain is this, that the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the laws of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them, and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers.
The “
tradition of our forefathers” that Josephus talks about here seems to be the same as the “
observances…from their fathers which are not written in the laws of Moses,” which the Pharisees promulgated. The quote doesn’t imply anything about canons of Scripture, but is talking about Sadducean rejection of traditions held by Pharisees.
Stephen B. Chapman writes in
The Law and the Prophets: A Study in Old Testament Canon Formation:
The evidence that the Sadducees did not accept the prophetic books has long rested upon meager references by Origen and Jerome (Origen, Against Celsus, 1.49; Jerome, Commentary on Matthew, on 22:31), the nature of which might just as well indicate a later confusion (second or third century A.D.) of the Sadducees with the Samaritans (For references, LeMoyne, Sadducéen, 142-44. Cf. Sundberg, Church 77-78. The confusion may have arisen from the actual fusion of these two groups in this period).
Building on the work of J. Maier (J. Maier, Auseinandersetzung), Carr has concluded that despite this possible confusion, and the complete absence of any confirmatory evidence in the writings of Josephus, early Mishnaic regulations indicate that priestly circles including the Sadducees ‘revered the Torah alone.’ (Carr, Canonization, 36 n. 39. Carr terms this absence ‘conspicuous’, but explains it away as the consequence of Josephus’ own goal of presenting a unified Judaism with a single canon.
Contra Carr, it would seem a rather weak point for Josephus to make if it was so patently untrue.)
However, it is clear in Josephus’ work that the issue of contention between the Pharisees and the Sadducees did not have to do with a different scriptural canon, but with the authority of oral law, which the Pharisees championed. (Josephus, Antiquities 18.16; cf. Antiquities 13.297. Carr admits this point (Canonization, 36 n. 39), which then provides another example of interpreting ‘the law’ too narrowly. Cf. the sound judgments of Beckwith, Formation, 74; and Bruce, Canon, 40-41.)
Thus, to argue that Josephus overlooked the disagreement between the two groups over the scriptural canon is also to argue that he created a controversy over the oral law where none existed, and that he retreated from his effort to present a unified Judaism in one instance, but not in the other. Surely it is more likely that Josephus simply meant what he said.
I haven’t really looked into the matter, but I imagine that all faith systems/denominations rely on traditions to some extent, even the “sola” types, regardless of claims to the contrary.
Which is exactly the case.
