The Sadducees צדוקים
The nobility and part of the priesthood, who acknowledged only the written text in its literal sense and denied recompense after death. With the destruction of the Temple they vanished—there was nothing left for them to stand on.
The name is derived from Zadok—by tradition the high priest in Solomon's time, from whom the priestly line ran.
What they rejected. The Oral Torah. From that followed all the rest: a literal reading of the written text, refusal of the sages' ordinances, and denial of the resurrection of the dead and the world to come—not stated outright in the written text.
Where it showed. The dispute was not over views but over acts, and therefore irreconcilable. The calendar: when the omer is counted, and so on what day Shavuot falls. The Yom Kippur service: when the high priest puts on the incense—before entering the Holy of Holies or within; the Mishnah (Yoma 1:5) preserves how the elders adjured the high priest not to alter the order. The laws of purity. Every such dispute was a dispute about how the service is performed in the Temple before everyone's eyes.
Who they were. Men of the upper layer: the priestly nobility and the families tied to it. The people did not follow them, and their power rested on position rather than acknowledgement.
How they ended. In 70 CE, with the Temple. Their whole structure stood on the service and the priesthood; when the service ceased, so did they. They left no books of their own—what is known of them comes from those who disagreed with them, and that must be remembered in reading any account of them, including this one.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Mishnah Yoma 1:5 — the adjuration of the high priest not to alter the order of the incense
- Mishnah Menachot 10:3 — the reaping of the omer deliberately in public — against their reckoning
Basis: documents and evidence.