Sanhedrin סנהדרין
The supreme court of seventy-one sages—the highest authority in law, calendar and interpretation of the Torah.
The Sanhedrin's prototype is the seventy elders Moshe appointed on Yitro's advice and God's instruction; with him they number seventy-one. The Great Sanhedrin sat in the Chamber of Hewn Stone on the Temple Mount, in a semicircle so that all could see one another. Lesser courts of twenty-three sat in every town.
Its powers were wide: interpreting the Torah, fixing new moons and leap years, resolving disputed law, trying a tribe, a false prophet or a high priest. It could impose capital punishment, but the Mishna calls a Sanhedrin that executed once in seventy years "bloody".
Forty years before the destruction it left the Chamber and ceased to try capital cases. It then wandered—Yavne, Usha, Tzippori, Tiberias—where it ended in the fourth century.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Tanakh
- Bamidbar 11:16 — the seventy elders with Moshe
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Mishnah Sanhedrin 1:6 — the composition: seventy-one
- Mishnah Makkot 1:10 — an execution once in seven years — a “destructive” court
- Sanhedrin 41a — the court left the Chamber forty years before the destruction
- Avodah Zarah 8b — the moves of the court and the end of capital cases
Rishonim
- Rambam, Hilchot Sanhedrin — the laws of the supreme court
Basis: tradition.