Sanhedrin
The Sanhedrin (Hebrew and Middle Aramaic סַנְהֶדְרִין, a loanword from Koinē Greek: Συνέδριον, romanized: synedrion,[1] 'assembly,' 'sitting together,' hence 'assembly' or 'council') was a Jewish legislative and judicial assembly of either 23 or 70 elders, existing at both a local and central level in the ancient Land of Israel.
After the destruction of the Second Temple and the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt, the Great Sanhedrin moved to Galilee, which became part of the Roman province of Syria Palaestina.
In the late 200s CE, to avoid persecution, the name Sanhedrin was dropped and its decisions were issued under the name of Beit HaMidrash (house of learning).
[3] When Moses declared that the task of leading the people was too difficult for him, God had him appoint 70 elders (zekenim) to share the burden of leadership with him.
[7] The 23 judges of the "Lesser Sanhedrin" are derived from the following exegesis: it must be possible for a "community" to vote for both conviction and exoneration (Numbers 35:24–5).
The Hasmonean court in Judea, presided over by Alexander Jannaeus, until 76 BCE, followed by his wife, Queen Salome Alexandra, was called Synhedrion or Sanhedrin.
[15] After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Sanhedrin was re-established in Yavneh, with reduced authority, by agreement between Yochanan ben Zakai and Roman Emperor Vespasian.
During the presidency of Gamaliel IV (270–290), due to Roman persecution, it dropped the name Sanhedrin; and its authoritative decisions were subsequently issued under the name of Beth HaMidrash.
[citation needed] In the year 363, the emperor Julian (r. 355–363 CE), an apostate from Christianity, ordered the Temple rebuilt.
[18] As a reaction against Julian's pro-Jewish stance, the later emperor Theodosius I (r. 379–395 CE) forbade the Sanhedrin to assemble and declared ordination illegal.
[19] The exact reason for the abrogation of the patriarchate is not clear,[20] though Gamaliel VI, the last holder of the office who had been for a time elevated by the emperor to the rank of prefect,[21] may have fallen out with the imperial authorities.
The uneven numbers of judges were predicated on eliminating the possibility of a tie, and the last to cast his vote was the head of the court.
Moreover, the lesser Sanhedrin of 23 judges was the only juridical body in Israel having the statutory and constitutional authority and power to render a verdict of capital punishment to would-be offenders,[24] and the greater Sanhedrin of 71 judges was solely authorized to send forth the people to a battle waged of free choice.
The name presumably arises to distinguish it from the buildings in the Temple complex used for ritual purposes, which could not be constructed of stones hewn by any iron implement.
[28] By the end of the Second Temple period, the Sanhedrin reached its pinnacle of importance, legislating all aspects of Jewish religious and political life within parameters laid down by Biblical and Rabbinic tradition.
Levine:[29] Up to the middle of the fourth century, the Patriarchate retained the prerogative of determining the Hebrew calendar and guarded the intricacies of the needed calculations, in an effort to constrain interference by the Babylonian community.
[31] In 2004, excavations in Tiberias conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority uncovered a structure dating to the 3rd century CE that may have been the seat of the Sanhedrin when it convened in that city.
Being a member of the house of Hillel and thus a descendant of King David, the Nasi (prince), who was the chairman of the assembly, enjoyed almost royal authority.
[21] The "Grand Sanhedrin" was a Jewish high court convened by Napoleon I to give legal sanction to the principles expressed by the Assembly of Notables in answer to the twelve questions submitted to it by the government.
This proclamation, written in Hebrew, French, German, and Italian, speaks in extravagant terms of the importance of this revived institution and of the greatness of its imperial protector.
While the action of Napoleon aroused in many Jews of Germany the hope that, influenced by it, their governments also would grant them the rights of citizenship, others looked upon it as a political contrivance.
When in the war against Prussia (1806–07) the emperor invaded Poland and the Jews rendered great services to his army, he remarked, laughing, "The sanhedrin is at least useful to me.
