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".
These authors correctly observe that Palestinian and Diaspora Judaism had quite diverse views on afterlife, but "life after death" is not the equivalent of "resurrection". Resurrection was just one form of life after death and seems to include a body of some sort in the majority of cases. N.T. Wright’s assessment of first century Judaism seems more accurate:
though there was a range of belief about life after death, the word resurrection was only used to describe reembodiment, not the state of disembodied bliss. Resurrection was not a general word for "life after death" or for "going to be with God" in some general sense. It was the word for what happened when God created newly embodied human beings after whatever sort of intermediate state there might be49.
Wright’s comments are representative of the views of many modern writers who maintain a distinction between spiritual immortality and resurrection in their classification of Jewish beliefs about afterlife. Although the terminology employed to classify various types of afterlife may vary somewhat, "resurrection" is usually reserved for embodied afterlife (in either tangible or less tangible form), whereas disembodied afterlife is usually referred to by terms such as the "immortality of the soul alone" or "spiritual immortality"50.
These distinctions are not a modern construct, for many in the ancient world used similar categories. Josephus distinguishes between those who believe in no afterlife (i.e. Sadducees; BJ 2.165), in the immortality of the soul apart from the body (i.e. Essenes; BJ 2.154-158), and in the immortality of the soul in a body (i.e. Pharisees; BJ 2.163). The early church fathers also distinguished between the immortality of the soul and resurrection of the body51. Justin Martyr mentions those "who say that there is no resurrection from the dead,