The gospel reading for Sunday, November 6th comes from Luke 20:27-38. But I take the option of extending the passage two more verses to include the scribes’ response (vv. 39-40).
Luke 20:27-40
There came to [Jesus] some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. And the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterward the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”
And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.”
Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” For they no longer dared to ask him any question.
It helps to know
Who the Sadducees are. In the third century B.C., the Pharisaic scholar Antigonus Sochaeus taught a famous lesson: “do not be like servants who serve the master in the expectation of receiving a reward, but be like servants who serve the master without the expectation of receiving a reward, and let the fear of Heaven be upon you” (Pirkei Avot 1:3). A star student, Saduk, argued that this meant that there is no future reward or punishment—that is, no resurrection.
From Saduk came the “Sadducees,” a sect of Israelites characterized in Scripture by their rejection of the Jewish doctrine of the resurrection. Josephus describes the sect as (a) wealthy; (b) high in social standing, and regularly appointed by Romans to serve in political and bureaucratic posts, like “high priest” (cf. Acts 5:17); (c) rude, even amongst themselves; and (d) harsh in their administration of justice. (Here’s a short piece of scholarship.)
What characterizes their doctrine. Scripture says that they reject the resurrection (Matt 22:23; Mark 12:18; Luke 20:27; Acts 23:8). We also know that this sect rejected a specific set of doctrines taught by the Pharisees: (a) that human history is ruled by divine providence and unfolds according to Yahweh’s plans; (b) that angels and demons exist and interact with God and humanity; (c) that prophetic history and rabbinic tradition are authoritative for religious teaching.
The Sadducees protected the simple notion that God made humans free (from Fate or providence; from angels and demons; from an “otherworldly” system of reward and punishment like Heaven and Hell; and from human tradition) to do good or evil. Their religion was commonsense, and they mocked the extraneity and particularity of Jewish tradition.
The Jewish doctrine of the resurrection. Moses mentions Sheol, but says little about life after death. It is the later prophets—like Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel—who would develop a more robust doctrine of resurrection: that not even death can frustrate Yahweh’s plan to restore his people; that Yahweh will reward men according to their deeds; and that the just will stand again and enjoy new life in the new creation. (Here’s a dissertation on this.)
By the time of Jesus, scholars say, this doctrine of the resurrection was a common and uncontroversial teaching in Israel. The Sadducees, however, don’t find this doctrine in Moses, and they denounce it as an “innovation.”
Where the Sadducees’ question comes from. It’s not a question; it’s an old game. And it’s an old game Sadducees used to mock the doctrine of the resurrection: The game is based on the law concerning Levirate marriage in Deuteronomy 25:5-10:
“If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband's brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her.”
The Pharisees, affirming the resurrection, had to give an account for Levirate marriage in the new world. One said that the second (and third, etc.) marriage would be dissolved in the new world (Bekhor. i.7), and wives would be reunited with their first husbands. Another said that it was enough to keep the “spirit” of the Law, providing goods and honor, but not a biological son (Yebam. 39b). The Sadducees took “wife” to mean “betrothed”, and only applied the law to cases of marriage that had not been consummated.
The point is, the Pharisees tried to take the law in such a way that accommodated their doctrine of the resurrection; and, even though the Sadducees didn’t uphold the letter of the law, they used it to make their point.
Who the scribes are. The main thing to know is that scribes were lawyers, employed by the Sanhedrin. The Sadducees were often bureaucrats, priests, and officers; and Pharisees were often land-owners and businessmen; but scribes, as lawyers, had a particular profession. Much of their work consisted of drafting legal documents on behalf of the villages in which they served, including contracts for marriage and divorce. That explains their inclusion in this passage, which is a discussion about marriage law.
What I noticed
When the Sadducees approach Jesus to ask him a Bible question, we get to see how they talk about Scripture and how Jesus talks about Scripture.
The Sadducees start strong by bringing up the levirate marriage law in Deuteronomy 25:5-10, “Moses,” they say, wrote these words “for us”. So, despite being a game, their question invites Jesus to answer a fundamental question: “How do we read these words as for us?” People still ask questions this way—both mockingly and sincerely—stopping at a seemingly problematic verse from the Old Testament and asking what makes it a good word from God for us.
Jesus doesn’t answer their literal question—“whose wife?”—but he addresses three of their assumptions.
First, he addresses their understanding of marriage. For the Sadducees, marriage is “taking.” They talk about a man who “must take (lambanō) the widow,” the first who “took (lambanō) a wife,” and the second and third who “took (lambanō) her,” and all seven having “had her” as wife. Their question is about a man’s possession: “whose wife?”
Jesus doesn’t talk about marriage in terms of possession, but describes “marrying” (gamizō) and “being married” (ekgamiskō) as contingencies of mortal life relevant only to an age in which people die. Their failure to consider seriously the coming age of immortality leads them fixate on marriage as a “taking.”
If you don’t understand the resurrection, you’ll never understand marriage.
Second, he addresses their understanding of resurrection. The sons of the resurrection don’t marry. Why not? One reason: “They cannot die anymore” (v. 36). Why can’t they die? Two reasons: Being “sons of the resurrection” means that “they are equal to the angels”—notably, something else the Sadducees don’t believe in (v. 36).
Jesus says, in short, “Your failure to acknowledge the resurrection and the angels has disqualified you from understanding even the most mundane of the laws.”
Third, he addresses their assumption that Moses doesn’t teach a doctrine of the resurrection. Says Jesus, “That the dead are raised, even Moses showed” (v. 37). “Show” is mēnuō, which has the connotation not of explaining or demonstrating an idea, but of acting as an informant giving a report. (See, for example, Acts 23:30: “I was informed (mēnuō) that there would be a plot against the man.”)
By Jesus’ reading, Moses is a whistleblower of the resurrection. By calling God the God of Abraham, who had died, Moses is calling God a God of resurrection.
The Sadducees also fail to notice Moses reporting the resurrection in Deuteronomy 25:5-10. Paraphrasing the law, they say that “the man must take the widow and raise up (exanistēmi, root: anesti) offspring for his brother” (Lk. 20:28). Their use of anesti shows that they know this law is about raising sons. Jesus uses the word resurrection—anastasis; root: anesti—twice, in vv. 35 and 36.
Resurrection language also shows up in the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 25. In Hebrew, it is not the man’s brother, but the firstborn child who will “raise up” (qum) their father’s name (v. 6).
Whoever raises whom, this marriage law is given by a God of resurrection who commands men to give hope through the work of raising.
The letter of the law only makes sense when it is understood in its spirit.
The law is about Adam and Eve, the mother of all the living. Adam sins and dies, as do Eve and Cain and Abel, leaving no living heir. Jesus is the brother who comes to Eve in the way that a man comes to a widowed woman (Eph. 5:32), raising her by making her a mother of many children (Gal. 4:21-31). Jesus dutifully and joyfully raises children to establish Eve’s family on the earth.
First marriages and levirate marriages are both about raising and establishing families in this mortal age. And we who are not only sons of Adam, but born again sons of God are “sons of the resurrection,” and the Deathless Age, like the angels.
We keep this law every time we believing in God’s power to raise and establish the families of the earth, honoring our brothers’ names, establishing the households of widows, and by raising children (i.e. Ruth 1-4; 1 Cor. 15:50-58; Jas. 1:27).
The Sadducees know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God (Matt. 22:29). And Jesus’ answer knocks the courage out of them: “From then on, no one dared to ask him any question” (Luke 20:40).
They knew that Jesus wins all Bible games.
They also knew that Jesus teaches Scriptures coherently, as bearing a unified witness to the coming kingdom of the God who raises the dead.
They knew they could never again ask Jesus a question that would open him up, like a peer, to reconsider his views. Jesus is the Truth (John 14:6) and the Wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:30), and he dialogues with them as one who teaches, not as one who is taught.
Losing the courage to learn is bad, because courage is what you need in order to strive, like Zaccheus, to enter the narrow door: running, climbing, hurrying.
I think that the moral of the story is that you don’t believe that God is a God of resurrection, you’re not going to understand the Scriptures, and you’re not going to appreciate the way that Jesus answers any of your questions.
Lectionary resonances
Job uses the same word, qum, that Deuteronomy uses to talk about raising sons: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand (qum) upon the earth.” (Job 19:25) Like Moses, Job testifies to the resurrection.
The psalmist uses the word, too. He begins, “Hear a just cause, O Yahweh” (Ps. 17:1), and then exhorts God: “Arise (qum), O Yahweh! Confront him, subdue him! Deliver my soul… from men of the world whose portion is in this life” (vv. 13-14). This psalm sets, in a prayer, (a) the Biblical notion that the doctrine of the resurrection is concerned with justice and restoration, and (b) the notion that God rises and raises. Sadducees wouldn’t get it.
Those who have been raised with Christ already participate in resurrection life. That’s why Paul can tell the Thessalonians, who have been raised, to stay standing: “stand firm,” he says. “Hold to the traditions” instead of mocking them like the Sadducees. He can also pray that God would both “comfort” their hearts and “establish” them in every good work and word (vv. 15-17). The psalmist gives us words to exhort God to arise and to raise us; Paul gives us words that exhort us to stay standing.