Floyd Parker, «The Terms "Angel" and "Spirit" in Acts 23,8», Vol. 84 (2003) 344-365
In any discussion of the Sadducees, there will always remain a certain amount of doubt due to the paucity of sources about them. Based on what data has survived, the older theory that the Sadducees rejected the extravagant beliefs about angels and spirits provides the most convincing solution to the problem of Acts 23,8. The Sadducees’ reasons for rejecting these views were twofold: 1) angels were integrated into the apocalyptic world view that they rejected; and 2) angels often served as God’s servants to administer predestination or providence. Thus, when Paul claimed that a heavenly being had appeared to him in a manner and with a message that appeared to be predestinarian in nature, the Sadducees were unwilling to entertain the idea that an angel or spirit had appeared to him. Certainly new theories will arise in an attempt to grapple with this issue, but to re-appropriate the words of Jesus in Luke 5,39, "the old is good enough".
not the existence of angels and spirits3; 3) belief in the existence of the righteous dead in the form of an angel or spirit in the interim between death and resurrection4; and 4) belief that humans would be resurrected in the form of either an angel or a spirit5. The first portion of this paper will critique each of the theories proposed above, while the second part will offer some new perspectives.
I. Review and Evaluation of the Theories
1. Sadducean Rejection of the Existence of Angels and Spirits
A few scholars believe that Acts 23,8 indicates a wholesale rejection of angels and spirits on the part of the Sadducees. Although scholars within this group are in agreement that "angel" refers to a supernatural heavenly being, they sometimes differ over whether the word "spirit" refers to preternatural beings or to the disembodied souls of human beings6. The strength of this theory, as Meier puts it, is that "the natural sense of the statement is the denial of any angel or spirit whatsoever"7.
Despite the simplicity of this theory, the consensus of scholarship is that the Sadducees could not have entirely rejected the existence of these supernatural beings. Several weighty objections that seriously call this view into question are: 1) the singular is used to describe these beings