Did the Sadducees Have a Different Old Testament Canon than the Rest of Judaism?
It has been argued that the one of the religious group that Jesus confronted – the Sadducees – were like the Samaritans, in that they only accepted the Law of Moses as divinely authoritative and rejected the remainder of the Hebrew Scripture. If this is true, it may show that the canon of the Old Testament was not settled during the time of Christ. There Was A Misunderstanding Of Josephus However this does not seem to be the case. The problem seemingly arose out of a misunderstanding by the early church father Origen of a statement by first century Jewish author Flavius Josephus. In his commentary on Matthew, Origen said that the Sadducees accepted only the five books of Moses as divinely inspired. He based this on a statement by first century writer Flavius Josephus. Josephus wrote of the Sadducees. [They] admit no observance at all apart from the laws (Antiquities 18:16). Origen took this to mean that they accepted only the Law of Moses as Scripture. However, Josephus was not referri
