Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Luke 20:27-40, The Sadducees and the woman with seven husbands
Sadducees, who deny the resurrection, ask whose wife a woman married to seven brothers will be. Jesus answers that the risen do not marry and are like the angels, and argues from the burning bush.
Luke 20:27-40, in every translation this tool compares.
The Sadducees, who deny any resurrection, test Jesus with a riddle built on the law requiring a man to marry his dead brother's childless widow: seven brothers wed the same woman in turn, so whose wife will she be? Jesus answers that marriage belongs to the present age, while those raised in the age to come no longer die or marry and are like angels. He argues from the burning bush, where God names himself the God of the patriarchs, that God is God of the living, and even some legal experts approve while no one risks another question.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/chief-priests-and-council\/","n":"Chief priests, elders and the council","s":"The Jerusalem aristocracy of priestly families and elders who ran the temple and the Sanhedrin and dealt with Rome.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/widows\/","n":"Widows","s":"A woman whose husband died usually lost her income with him and depended on a son, relatives or charity. A widow who stayed faithful to her husband's memory and did not remarry was honored.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/resurrection-of-the-dead\/","n":"The resurrection of the dead","s":"Most Jews, with the Pharisees, expected God to raise the dead to bodily life at the end of the age. The Sadducees denied it. Nobody expected one man to rise ahead of everyone else.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/angels\/","n":"Angels","s":"God's messengers and his heavenly army. Jews of Jesus' day spoke of guardian angels, of the greatest angels standing before God's face, and of angels coming with God at the judgment.","r":""}
The case rests on levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5-6), which protected widows in a world where women could not earn wages, and many men assumed that a woman widowed again and again was cursed (Keener and his notes). The story line borrows from Tobit, where a demon killed Sarah's first seven husbands (Keener and his notes), and rabbinic literature is full of such mocking questions from Sadducees and other opponents (Keener). Most Jews agreed that angels, being immortal, did not marry or have children (Keener and his notes). Against the Sadducees, Pharisees tried to prove the resurrection from the books of Moses, which is why the teachers of the law approve (Keener and his notes). Wright explains the Sadducees' position by their place in society: "They denied it because they were the conservatives." A hope of resurrection, he adds, was revolutionary, and the people in power had reason to fear it. The Sadducees probably came from priestly families that had backed the Hasmonean kings, accepted only the books of Moses as fully binding, and stressed free will against the Pharisees and Essenes (Strauss, in the Zondervan backgrounds commentary).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Luke 20:27, 20:28, 20:29-32, 20:33, 20:34-36 and 20:37-38
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Luke 20:28, 20:29-31, 20:33, 20:36, 20:37 and 20:39
- N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, ch. 4, section 2, No Future Life, or None to Speak of: The Sadducees
- N. T. Wright, Luke for Everyone, comment on Luke 20:27-40
- Mark L. Strauss, Luke, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Luke 20:28, 20:29, 20:36, 20:37 and 20:38 and sidebar The Sadducees
