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".
resurrection of Jesus?42. This is highly unlikely, since conceding his resurrection would also entail the possibility that Jesus had actually been right about such matters as the Sabbath and purity laws.
The second problem with this theory has to do with the time of the resurrection. The "hope and resurrection of the dead" (Acts 23,6), which both Paul and the Pharisees affirmed43 and the Sadducees denied44, was expected to be an eschatological event in biblical and extra-biblical literature45. More important for the interpretation of this passage, the resurrection is also an eschatological event in the theology of Luke-Acts. Paul’s defense in a later passage makes more explicit the belief in a future resurrection that both he and the Pharisees held in common: "I have a hope in God — a hope that they themselves also accept — that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous" (Acts 24,15).
Having established the eschatological nature of the resurrection,