The second more general consideration concerns the Pharisaic belief-system. Josephus’ account of this gives prominence to the idea of resurrection.164 This belief, however, is not merely to do with speculation about a future life after death. As we can see from some of the early texts which articulate it, it is bound up with the desire for a reconstituted and restored Israel.165 This, as we shall see later, is probably the real reason why the Sadducees rejected it.166 The last thing they wanted was a major upheaval which might well snatch away their precarious power.
