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sanhedrin
 Encyclopædia
Britannica Article |
also spelled sanhedrim any
of several official Jewish councils in Palestine under Roman rule, to
which various political, religious, and judicial functions have been
attributed. Taken from the Greek word for council (synedrion),
the term was apparently applied to various bodies but became especially
the designation for the supreme Jewish legislative and judicial
court—the
Great Sanhedrin, or simply the Sanhedrin, in Jerusalem. There
were also local or provincial sanhedrins of lesser jurisdiction and
authority. A council of elders, or senate, called the
gerousia, which existed under Persian and Syrian rule (333–165
BC), is considered by some scholars the
forerunner of the Great Sanhedrin.
Although eminent sources—the
Hellenistic-Jewish historian Josephus, the New Testament, and the
Talmud—have mentioned the Sanhedrin, their accounts are fragmentary,
apparently contradictory, and often obscure. Hence, its exact nature,
composition, and function remain a subject of scholarly investigation
and controversy. In the writings of Josephus and the Gospels, for
example, the Sanhedrin is presented as a political and judicial council
headed by the high priest (in his role as civil ruler); in the Talmud it
is described as primarily a religious legislative body headed by sages,
though with certain political and judicial functions. Some scholars have
accepted the first view as authentic, others the second, while a third
school holds that there were two Sanhedrins, one a purely political
council, the other a religious court and legislature. Moreover, some
scholars attest that the Sanhedrin was a single body, combining
political, religious, and judicial functions in a community where these
aspects were inseparable.
According to the Talmudic
sources, including the tractate Sanhedrin, the Great Sanhedrin
was a court of 71 sages that met on fixed occasions in the Lishkat La-Gazit
(“Chamber of the Hewn Stones”) in the Jerusalem Temple and that was
presided over by two officials (zugot, or “pair”), the
nasi and the av bet din. It was a religious legislative
body “whence the law [Halakha] goes out to all Israel.” Politically, it
could appoint the king and the high priest, declare war, and expand the
territory of Jerusalem and the Temple. Judicially, it could try a high
priest, a false prophet, a rebellious elder, or an errant tribe.
Religiously, it supervised certain rituals, including the Yom Kippur
(Day of Atonement) liturgy. The Great Sanhedrin also supervised the
smaller, local sanhedrins and was the court of last resort. Again,
however, there is a scholarly dispute as to whether the aforementioned
specifications are merely an ideal or an actual description. Also,
according to one interpretation, the Talmudic sources seem to ascribe to
the past a state of affairs that existed only after the fall of the
Temple (AD 70).
The composition of the
Sanhedrin is also in much dispute, the controversy involving the
participation of the two major parties of the day, the
Sadducees and the
Pharisees. Some say the Sanhedrin was made up of Sadducees; some, of
Pharisees; others, of an alternation or mixture of the two groups. In
the trials of Jesus, the Gospels of Mark and Luke speak of the assembly
of the chief priests, elders, and scribes under the high priest,
referring to “the whole council [synedrion]” or “their council,”
and the Gospel According to John speaks of the chief priests and
Pharisees convening the council. The Gospel accounts have been subjected
to critical scrutiny and questioning because of the extreme theological
and historical significance of the issue, but none of the theories
evolved has won scholarly consensus. It is still uncertain, for example,
whether the Sanhedrin had the power to hand down a death sentence in a
case such as that of Jesus. The Book of Acts gives an account of the
trials of Peter and John before “the council and all the senate”
(apparently one and the same), pointing to a split between the Pharisaic
and Sadducean members of the Sanhedrin.
The Great Sanhedrin ceased
to exist at Jerusalem after the disastrous rebellion against Rome in
AD 66–70. However, a sanhedrin was assembled at
Jabneh, and later in other localities in Palestine, that is considered
by some scholars to be the continuation of the Jerusalem council-court (see
yeshiva). Composed of leading scholars, it functioned as the supreme
religious, legislative, and educational body of Palestinian Jews; it
also had a political aspect, since its head, the nasi, was
recognized by the Romans as the political leader of the Jews (patriarch,
or ethnarch). This sanhedrin ceased with the end of the patriarchate in
AD 425, although there have been abortive or
short-lived attempts to reinstitute the sanhedrin in modern times.
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