12:20a
Now there were seven brothers: In this verse the Sadducees began to tell Jesus a story that described a situation that might have happened. It was not a true story about actual people. The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Now introduces their story. It is not a time word here. Use a natural way in your language to begin a story that did not actually happen and to introduce the participants. For example:
Once there were seven brothers (Good News Bible)
-or-
Well, suppose there were seven brothers (New Living Translation)
seven brothers: The number seven was a favorite number with the Jews. The Sadducees probably used this number of brothers to make the story more interesting and to emphasize their point. They thought that if God caused all people to live again, the woman could not be married to all seven husbands at the same time. Therefore, they implied that God’s law which said that a man should marry his brother’s widow showed that people would not live again after they died.
12:20b
The first one married: The first one in this context implies the oldest brother, who would normally be the first one to marry.
Here are some other ways to translate this:
The first brother married/took a wife/woman
-or-
the oldest got married (Good News Bible)
died, leaving no children: The husband died and his wife had no children by him. (Again here, and in 12:21b and 12:22a, the Greek term that the Berean Standard Bible translates as children is literally “seed.”) He died without fathering a child. There is nothing in the story that suggests why the man died. So your translation should not imply that the woman caused the husband to die.
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