One day, some people who were Sadducees came to Jesus with story problem.

“Teacher,” they said. “We want to understand how to apply something that Moses taught.”

According to an interpretation of the law Moses handed down from God, if a man and woman were married and he died without any children, the man’s brother could marry the woman, and the first male child would have all the status and inheritance than the first brother’s son would have received.

In a culture where wealth was at...