zadokitehttp://www.oed.com/dictionary/zadokite_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_useZadokite, n. & adj.
First published 1986; not fully revised

Zadokitenoun & adjective

  1. noun
    1. 1910–
      A member of a Jewish sect which seceded from orthodox Judaism in the second century b.c., and traced its authority back to Zadok.
      1. 1910
        It is the Zadokites from which the Sect derived its spiritual pedigree.
        S. Schechter, Fragments of Zadokite Work p. xxi
      2. 1920
        The Sadducees were thus not a religious party at all, but simply a body of people bound together by a common interest to maintain the existing régime. The name is explained as meaning ‘Zadokites’, and was given to them by their opponents, the Pharisees, who borrowed it from an earlier age..when the descendants of Zadok, who then filled the high-priestly office, identified themselves with Hellenism in its most dangerous forms.
        Encyclopaedia of Religion & Ethics vol. XI. 43/2
      3. 1960
        It may also be that..some deported Zadokites returned to Jerusalem.
        translation of Noth's Hist. Israel iii. ii. 316
      4. 1974
        The Zadokites may have constituted the survival of an ancient Jebusite (Canaanite) royal priesthood.
        Encyclopædia Britannica Macropædia vol. XIV. 190/1
  2. adjective
    1. 1910–
      Of, pertaining to, or designating the members of this sect; spec. applied to fragments of sectarian texts discovered in Cairo in 1896–7 and later traced back to the Dead Sea Scrolls.
      1. 1910
        Fragments of a Zadokite work.
        S. Schechter (title)
      2. 1912
        There is no question as to the genuineness of the orders of the Zadokite Priests and Levites.
        R. H. Charles, Fragm. of Zadokite Wk. p. vii
      3. 1912
        The Zadokite Party represents an attempt at reform beginning within the ranks of the priesthood and extending outwards so as to embrace a strong lay element.
        R. H. Charles, Fragm. of Zadokite Wk. p. x
      4. 1921
        In the so called Zadokite document of Jewish piety, just before the days of Jesus, the idea of a new covenant, a covenant of repentance, began to be linked to the expectation of a messiah.
        J. Moffatt, Approach to New Testament i. 60
      5. 1954
        Represented..is a fragment of the ‘Zadokite work’. This document, long an enigma to scholars, had been recognized as related to the Qumran sectarian works as soon as the finds of 1947 became known.
        Biblical Archaeologist vol. 17 8
      6. 1974
        Another sectarian book of ordinances is the Damascus Document (the Zadokite Fragments). The work was already known from two medieval copies before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but fragments of it also were found in Qumrān.
        Encyclopædia Britannica Macropædia vol. II. 938/2

Zadokite, n. & adj. was first published in 1986; not fully revised.

Zadokite, n. & adj. was last modified in December 2024.