The Sadducees were the liberals.

They rejected everything supernatural. God is a nice thought, but it has nothing directly to do with life. Religion is a beautiful tradition that needs to be preserved. But it all ends with death.

We find an indication of this in Acts 23:8, where it says: “For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.”

Josephus, a Jewish historian, writes in “Antiquities” (ant. XVIII 1,4): “The doctrine of the Sadducees allows the soul to perish with the body and recognises no other regulations than the law” (Five Books of Moses).

In the dispute with the Sadducees, Jesus said in Matthew 22:31-32: “As for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”

It is a hint from Jesus that not everything ends with death.