CENTRAL AUTHORITY IN SECOND-TEMPLE JUDAISM AND SUBSEQUENTLY: FROM SYNEDRION TO SANHEDRIN Howard Clark Kee (University of Pennsylvania) 1 The Traditional Understanding of the Nature and Role of the Sanhedrin Based on the contents of Mishnah Tractate Sanhedrin and the asso- ciated Tosefta, many New Testament scholars have interpreted the New Testament historically and exegetically on the assumption of the existence and function in the time of Jesus of an official Jewish body, known as the Sanhedrin, whose task was to interpret the Law of Moses and to enforce it in the ongoing life of the Jewish people. Accordingly, the execution of Jesus and the opposition to the apostles and their work depicted in the New Testament are widely perceived to have been the direct result of official opposition of the Jewish religious leaders who constituted the Sanhedrin. Rabbinic sources depict the Sanhedrin as a legislative and judicial scholarly body, headed by the two leading Pharisaic scholars of the time. But in the Greek Jewish sources of the Hellenistic and Roman periods synedrion is a political council-court, presided over by the po- litical head of state, who in the latter days of the Second Temple was either a king or a Sadducean high priest, or both. Buechlerl claimed, however, that both co-existed: (1) bet din ha-gadol is said to have met in the Great Court in the Hall of Gazlit and was the supreme religious body; (2) the Great Sanhedrin was a criminal court with something of a political character, dominated by the priestly aristocracy. Presided over by the High Priest, it met in an inner court in the Temple, had been created by the procurators, and came to an end with the de- struction of the Temple. Scholars differ on details of numbers and special roles of each. Mantel2 also concluded that there were two ' A. Buechler, Das Synhedrionin Jerusalemund das GrosseBeth-Din in der Qyaderkammer des jerusalemischenTempels (Vienna, 1902); Studies in Jewish History (London and New York, 1956). 2 Hugo Mantel, Studiesin the Historyof the Sanhedrin(Cambridge, MA, 1961), pp. 54-101.. 52 sanhedrins: (1) an aristocratic agency presided over by the high = priests, dealing with political issues (as in Josephus, Ant. 20,10,5.251 Small Sanhedrin; no record of numbers); (2) the Great Sanhedrin, a legislative body, which was in some cases a judicial court. In the early days of the Hasmoneans, Mantel infers, the Great Sanhedrin was "the supreme political and religious body of the land." The nature and extent of its power varied, but under Herod it lost all political authority and never regained it during the days of the Temple.3 "In theory at least, the high priest was in a position to insist at all times on his scriptural prerogative to act as the president of the most authori- tative religious tribunal."4 According to Josephus, Herod and most of the high priests gave the Pharisaic teachers a free hand. It was to them that the people looked for guidance: "Even when they speak against a king or high priest, they immediately gain credence" (Ant. XII. 10, 5, 288). Mantel concludes that the leading Pharisaic scholars wielded supreme religious authority in the Great Bet Din.5 These assumptions are operative in many analyses and historical reconstruc- tions of the Second Temple period. But careful examination of the relevant evidence points in a different direction. 2 Evidence concerning synedrion in Greek and Jewish sources from the Hellenistic and early Roman period It is essential to examine the range of meanings of the term synedrion as it appears in the wider Greek literature and especially in that of the two centuries before and the two after the beginning of the Common Era. In classical Greek, the term is used with reference to consulta- tions of a variety of kinds. For example, Plato, Protagoras (317d), de- scribes Socrates in conversation with this sophist proposing that an informal gathering-a synedrion-of philosophical scholars and inquir- ers be convened. Xenophon uses it with reference to a council of war.6 In Herodotus it is a place of meeting or a council chamber (8.79). Later, the term is given more specific meaning, as when the second century B.c.E. historian Polybius uses it for the senates of Rome and Carthage? The term Synedrion tes gerousias makes explicit 3 Mantel, 96, 100. 4 pp. Mantel, 100. 5 p. Mantel, p. 101. 6 Historia Graeca1. 1. 3 1 ff. Polybius, 1.11.1 and 1.31.8. .