the modern Saduccees?

I have to say that if it is relevant to the OP then you should be the one to make the connection. If it is not then it is off-topic.And I would add that I do not necessarily agree with Jesus. If you wish to claim that the Saducees erred in this respect and it is relevant to the OP then you should support the claim. At this point I have no firm opinion on the matter and do not see it as relevant to the topic of the thread.

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I am a little puzzled at why you, jar and Paulk, have trouble with the idea of comparing ideas of groups then to ideas of groups now considering I suspect that both of you have no trouble at all connecting the doctrine of the Pharisees to some biblical literalists today, although I think connecting that doctrine to all is unwarranted.

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I don't have a problem with genuine and honest comparisons of beliefs. My objection is to trying to label a group as "Modern Saducees" based on one single belief and trying to link that to Biblical passages which do not reference that belief and equally condemn another group which does not even share that group.

Ramoss, It should not be so amusing. Every age has its modern fashion.The Saducees were skeptical of the things written in the Hebrew Bible. Resurrection was a joke to them. They did not believe in spirits.They considered themselves to be more down to earth and pragmatic. The miraculous things written in the Hebrew Scriptures were not the everyday occurences of common folk. So, yes, they were the ancient modernists.They would remind us of today's Scientologist perhaps much more than today's Amish.

But scientologists do believe in the mystical or at least what I would call a mystical equivalent.I mean Common! Zenu!?

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

PaulK, I have firmly established the biblical basis for depicting Saduccean doctrine; that Jesus said to beware of it, and that he said they erred greatly. Nothing you have stated changes any of that. I have tried to be nice and say we will just have to disagree and then move on to discussing Saduccean beliefs and the extent those beliefs mirror beliefs of some today.If you do not wish to participate in that discussion, then please do not, but pretending the discussion is off-topic when it is the topic is absurd.

You consider them "splinter groups"? The high priest was a Saduccee. They were not a splinter group, and the Bible specifies the areas they disagree with Jesus, areas not so dissimilar to some things you have stated such as claiming the moral message is all that really matters, not whether things such as the spiritual world are real, downplaying the necessity of faith in such areas.

whatever randman.AbE:Why don't you try sticking to talking about what YOU believe and stop making assertions about whatI believe? For reference, please read all of Message 1.This message has been edited by jar, 01-11-2006 10:51 PM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

What was it about the Saduccees approach to the Bible that made Jesus say they "err greatly not knowing the scriptures"? Imo, the scriptures cannot be properly understood by man alone without faith in God and without the aid of the Spirit of God.To illustrate this phenomena of perception, imagine a group of people that believe the world consists of 2 dimensions and most everything they can measure or see in their everyday life verifies that. Some people experience a quarter in 3-D. One describes it as having a face of George Washington, and another says he saw it, and it had the face of an eagle.The skeptic insists the 2 claims are mutually exclusive; that such things cannot exist. Maybe he even claims it is scientifically not possible for the coin to have 2 different sides. To him, the whole idea is worthy of mocking and ridicule and is not helpful for people.But the reality would be the mocker is wrong because his perspective is so limited. He has no faith that something he cannot easily see could be true, that there is an extra dimension, and only by moving into that extra dimension by faith can he really understand and perceive the truth of the 3rd dimension.God is multi-faceted and multi-dimensional and from our perspective, can be paradoxical. Without believing what He says, it's difficult to even properly imagine one of the perspectives within God. Faith is really just learning to see things God's way and believe them, but if you start out rejecting things based on human rationalism, you may not even be able to perceive the truth of something in the Bible. Believers all over understand this. The Bible opens up to them, as if there was a code, and to some extent there is.As the Spirit of God enters someone, the mind and heart is more easily able to sense a part of a perspective or the perspective of the Spirit and through that mind-opening experience with God, the truth of God's word comes alive and real.The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.The Bible and the many pictures of God's dealing with man do not and cannot make sense to the mind closed to spiritual things. Only by the mind seeing things from a spiritual perspective do many parts of the Bible make sense at all. Jesus understood this, and that's why he condemns the rationalism of the Saduccees. Such disbelief alienates people from the presence, understanding and fellowship with God just as not loving does. Both faith and love are vital ingredients of the gospel message. You cannot downplay one and think you are promoting the other.This message has been edited by randman, 01-12-2006 12:15 AM

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PaulK, I have firmly established the biblical basis for depicting Saduccean doctrine; that Jesus said to beware of it, and that he said they erred greatly. Nothing you have stated changes any of that.

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For the simple reason that nothing I said disputed any of it. Nor is any of it relevant to the OP.

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I have tried to be nice and say we will just have to disagree and then move on to discussing Saduccean beliefs and the extent those beliefs mirror beliefs of some today.

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The OP - even in it's edited form - represented an attempt to stir up hostility amongst Christians against people who disagreed with them on the issue of the immortality of the soul. It did so by attempting to unjustly fix the label of "Sadducee" on your targets. And it misrepresented the Bible to do so. That is not "nice".So basically your offer is, that if we ignore the actual points I raised and instead pretend that I was arguing against points that I didn't dispute you won't turn even nastier. That's an offer too contemptible to be worth consideration.

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If you do not wish to participate in that discussion, then please do not, but pretending the discussion is off-topic when it is the topic is
absurd.

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Let me quote what I said in the message you are replying to:

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I have to say that if it is relevant to the OP then you should be the one to make the connection. If it is not then it is off-topic.

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So I did not "pretend" that it was off-topic. I asked you to show that it was on-topic. And you did not. In fact it seems that you beleive that it is the topic and that it is unrelated to the OP. And that really is absurd.

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What was it about the Saduccees approach to the Bible that made Jesus say they "err greatly not knowing the scriptures"? Imo, the scriptures cannot be properly understood by man alone without faith in God and without the aid of the Spirit of God.

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What is the basis of this opinion ?

but Jesus did not single out the Saduccees. Waht you have done is exactly the kind of actions that created the current negative picture of the Saduccees, you have selectively chosen which parts you will address and igoresd the context of what was being said.In every one of the chapters you quoted from the Bible, both the Pharisees and Saduccees and even the Herodians come in for equal criticism.Jesus was speaking about all of the Conservative, Literalist Church of the day.To try and make those passages specific to the Saduccees is to miss the import of what was happening and what was being said.AbE:To really understand what Jesus was talking about in these passages, I believe we need to look for what was common between the Pharisees and Saduccees, not what was different. Both goups came in for equal criticism in all three of the chapters you mentioned.The lesson to be learned from this part of the Bible revolves around commonality of belief rather than differencs in belief.What was the thread common to both Pharisee and Saduccee?This message has been edited by jar, 01-12-2006 09:59 AM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Just got a minute, but you are grossly mistaken. The Saduccees were not the conservative literalists of the time. The Pharisees were, but then again Jesus was a literalist as well. The Pharisees problem was they added to the literal word, making it more stricter, thinking that increased the chances of obedience, but they were missing the heart of God, and hypocritical too.I agree there are a lot of Pharisees in conservative, biblical circles. if you want to start a thread discussing that, you are welcome.This thread is about the Saduccees, and the Bible depicts them as rejecting spirit, angels, and resurrection of the dead. I think anyone with a brain can tell which camp today most represents saducceean thought in their approach to truth and the Bible. To try to make them equivalent to the Pharisees is absurd since the passage where Jesus says they greatly err deals with the resurrection which the Pharisees believed in.No, what we have are different seductive belief systems that believers need to "beware of" in order to stay on track. But the context of one of those passages deals with Jesus condemning the specific belief and approach of the Saduccees, and that belief and approach differs from the Pharisees. What you are saying makes no sense at all since the Pharisees believed like Jesus in the resurrection of the dead.

Jesus said they "err greatly not knowing the scriptures." The specific occasion of mentioning their error dealt with their rejection of a belief that both Jesus and the Pharisees held. Both the Pharisees and Saduccees erred in different ways, and to pretend otherwise is frankly just ignoring the scriptures.This message has been edited by randman, 01-12-2006 02:25 PM

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Jesus said they "err greatly not knowing the scriptures." The specific occasion of mentioning their error dealt with their rejection of a belief that both Jesus and the Pharisees held.

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So where does the scripture (OT) say that "when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven"?How does th book of Moses explain the dead rising?Saying that God is the God of the living, doesn't make the question of the Sadducees obviously stupid.

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There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. -Edith Wharton

Yes they were. Ecclesiatics is skeptical about a ressurection too.For that matter, in the first 39 books of the tanakh, resurrection was only hinted at 3 times.. Two of those references are in Isaiah, and one is at the end of the book of Daniel. Altought Eziekel does mention it, it is meant metaphorically. Resurrection is not mentioned at all in the Torah, so it is a later introduction in to the Jewish religion, rather than an older one.The Sadducees were actually representing the conservative, orthodox thought on that. The concept probably came into Judaism via Persia, and the Zorasterians