What do you do when the hounds are baying for your blood, when the angry mob has you cornered and wants to see you lynched? One way to try to get them off your track is to throw them a lump of fresh meat. Then hopefully they will concentrate on the meat and start fighting each other over it, and forget about you. That was essentially the approach taken by Paul in Acts chapter 23 as he was being examined before the Jewish high council, the Sanhedrin.
Paul could see that some of the members of the Sanhedrin were Pharisees and some were Sadducees. These were essentially opposing political parties, but they were also groups which held differing theological views. The Sadducees emphasised the importance of the temple, whereas the Pharisees emphasised the importance of the laws of Moses. The Pharisees believed in the existence of angels and demons and life after death, whereas Sadducees did not.
So Paul decided to apply a “divide and conquer” strategy. He shouted out, “Men and brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. I am on trial because of the hope and resurrection of the dead!” This suddenly made the Pharisees see things in a different light. They naturally had to argue against the Sadducees who were asserting that there is no resurrection, and as a consequence many of them started thinking that perhaps there was nothing wrong with Paul after all.