Throughout the Bible they are variously depicted as wicked and evil.

Their name in Hebrew was tsedduqim, a name they chose to indicate that they claimed to followers of the teachings of the High Priest Zadok, who anointed Solomon king during the First Temple era.

However, Rabbinic (Pharisee) tradition suggests that they were not named after the High Priest Zadok, but rather another Zadok (who may still have been a priest), who rebelled against the teachings of Antigonus of Soko, a government official of Judea in the 3rd century BCE and a predecessor of the Rabbinic tradition.

Yet the Sadducees were famous for denying the salvation of the human soul, in their obsession in the pleasures of life, power and sex and in black magic.

As a result, many scholars believe the claim of the Sadducees being followers of Zadok are false and refer to their following “some other” teacher who falsely claimed themselves to be a Zadok.

But if this is not controversial enough, the Sadducees, like the Essenes are reputed to have considered the Bible largely a Persian fabrication, a myth sold to “the sheep”.

Sadducees rejected the existence of an afterlife, thus denied the Pharisaic doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead.

The Sadducees were pro-Greek, aristocratic priests, whose interests were centered in the temple and the cultic rites. Their name was probably derived from Zadok, the famous priest of the time of David and Solomon (II Sam. 8:17;. 15:24; I Kings 1:34).

Because the offices of high priest and governor were combined, the Sadducees tended to be deeply involved in high-level politics. Politically, they were committed to independence and to the concept of the theocratic state, as were most Jews.

When confronted by situations not covered in the Torah, they enacted new laws. They rejected the Pharisaic doctrine of a resurrection and a future life and held to the older Jewish belief in Sheol. Nor did they accept the belief in angels.

Then, there is the enigmatic situation that the bloodlines of the ancient kings of Israel are by definition Sadducees. That in coming from the “line of David”, the father of Jesus was a crown prince and therefore an elder of the Sadducees.

Then there are the confusion claims by the successors to the Pharisees, the Rabbinical Jews who claim the Sadducees were merely a group formed around the 2nd Century BCE. Controversially, this point is supported by Christian scholars without much contest.

Finally, there is the seeming complete absence, willing acknowledgment of the black magic pedigree of the Sadducees. Their religious “wickedness” is reduced to absurd trivial events, such as spilling water the wrong way, as if sneezing accidentally was a cause to go to war.

Unfortunately for most Christians and Jews today, this line of antagonism between the sects being based on pedantry, on matters of a supremely superficial nature is what most believe.

Few people can even make the direct and logical connection between black magic, the symbols of Solomon and David in satanic worship and the Sadducees.

Why? Why are these facts hushed up and never spoken? What is so terrible that two religions have worked long and hard together to reduce as much history as possible from public view, even when the Bible is littered with clues?