A politico-religious sect of the Jews during the late post-Exile
and New-Testament period. The old derivation of the name from
tsaddiqim, i.e. the righteous; with assumed reference to the
adherence of the Sadducees to the letter of the Law as opposed
to the pharasaic attention to the superadded "traditions of the
elders", is now generally discredited mainly on philological
grounds and the term is associated with the proper name "Sadoc",
Sadducee being equivalent to Sadokite. They became the dominant
priestly party during the Greek and Roman period of Jewish
history, and the name, whether bestowed seriously or in irony,
originated doubtless in their pretensions to the descendants of
Sadoc, the high-priest prominent in the times of David and
Solomon (1 Kings 1:8, 26, 32; 2:35; 1 Chronicles 29:22; cf.
Ezekiel 40:46; 42:19; etc.). As a prominent political party they
first appear in the reign of John Hyrcanus (135-105 B.C.). They
espoused the hellenizing tendencies of the Asmonean princes in
which they were strong