But he or his immediate associates in Jerusalem seem also to have had close links with the Sadducean hierarchy, to whom the Qumran community, settled at their desert site at the time of Jesus and John the Baptist, cannot have been close.
Furthermore, the association of the Beloved Disciple or figures very close to him with both the Baptist and the Sadducean hierarchy is surprising.
The Beloved Disciple therefore stands as a linking figure in a three-pointed configuration of associations between the Baptist (and later Jesus), the Sadducean hierarchy, and an Essenism close to that of Qumran.
THE ASSOCIATION OF THE ASCETIC QUARTER WITH THE SADDUCEAN HIGH PRIESTLY ARISTOCRACY
The ascetic quarter in Jerusalem was a point where influences from Qumran met with the powerful high priestly Sadducean families.
The Egyptian origins of the dominant Sadducean families after Herod's time confirms that Herod had turned to the clans of Leontopolis.
Typical of such controversies, which in extreme cases could even lead to executions or lynch murders,(16) is that which led to the stoning of James the Lord's brother and other Jewish Christians under the Sadducean high priest Ananus II, son of the Ananus (Annas) of the passion story.
Gamaliel, two enterprising Sadducean high priests, namely Ananus (Annas) II, the 'murderer' of James, and Jesus b.
The Sadducean interpretation of the law focused on the literal wording of the Torah and therefore naturally required a much lower expenditure of scholarly effort than the interpretation of the Pharisaic scribes.
Change proved more disruptive for the Sadducean nobility, who were often severely shaken during this period, and whose leadership was repeatedly the target of deportations and mass executions (see below, pp.
The Sadducean leadership never completely recovered from this blow.
Such a man would be ignorant of
Sadducean learning as well as of Pharisaic teaching.