Acts 23:6-8 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

But when Paul perceived Γνους δε ο Παυλος, Paul knowing, in consequence of his being personally acquainted with many whom he saw sitting round; that one part of the council were Pharisees, and the other Sadducees, cried out, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee I am such both by birth and education, as also by my own free choice, having voluntarily attached myself to that sect: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question Meaning, that he was brought before them as a criminal for preaching the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, as a proof of the resurrection of all the dead at the last day. Certainly this was a principal part (though not the whole) of the truth, since the chief thing which enraged the Sadducees against Christianity, was the demonstration it gave to the doctrine of a resurrection, which they so eagerly opposed. When he had so said, there arose a dissension A disagreement and contention producing a separation between the Pharisees and Sadducees, several persons of each sect becoming warm in the debate. For the Sadducees say there is no resurrection Of the dead. See on Matthew 22:23. Neither angel nor separate spirit It seems strange that the Sadducees should deny that there were angels, considering that they acknowledged the authority of the five books of Moses, in which mention is frequently made of angels; but it seems they either understood the passages that speak of angels, in those books, allegorically, or, as Dr. Whitby observes, supposed that when they are said to appear, they were framed at that particular time for that purpose, and afterward ceased to have any being: so that, after the giving of the law, at least, no angel existed. And with regard to their denying the existence of spirits, the meaning probably is, not that they denied God to be a spirit, or that there was any spirit in man, but, as Josephus testifies, they denied, της ψυχης την διαμονην, the permanency of the soul after death, or, that any spirits existed in a state of separation from men's bodies. But the Pharisees confess both Both the resurrection and the existence of angels and separate spirits.