The belief in the resurrection of the dead was largely a fairly recent innovation in ancient Jewish thought, and Jesus defends the belief against the Sadducees, who consider it to be a false innovation. He quotes God's statement to Moses on Mount Sinai made in the present tense about the patriarchs to show that God states them to be still in existence after their death, and thus that the doctrine of resurrection is present in the scripture from the beginning. Jesus concludes that the Sadducees greatly err. Protestant theologian Heinrich Meyer notes that the short pithy words of this assertion, (polu planasthe), do not need the additional words in the Textus Receptus, , humeis oun, you therefore).