SYNEDRIUM, a Rabbinic or legal body in Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin : the form Sanliedrim is based on false etymology, suggesting a Hebrew masc. plural ending -im added to a non existent noun Sanheder. The Oxford English Dictionary (cited in H. W. Fowler's Mod. Eng. Usage, 1926, p. 512) makes the following erroneous statement : "the incorrect form Sanhedrin . . . has always been in England (from the 17th cent.) the only form in popular use." As no Hebrew noun ending in M occurs, the only correct equivalent to must be Sanhedrin. The existence of a court at Jerusalem is indicated in II Chron. xix., 8. An aristocratic Council of Elders and priests is men tioned both before and during the Maccabaean age (e.g., Josephus, Ant., xii, 3, 3). Probably the High Priest presided from early times.
The accounts in the Mishnah do not entirely agree with those of Josephus and with New Testament references but the amount of divergence is a matter of dispute. There are two lines of thought among modern scholars, some supporting the Mishnah, others maintaining that its information is an "academic recon struction," hence unhistorical. That the Jewish court early lost its power is generally admitted (cf. John xviii., 31). Forty years before the fall of the Temple it could no longer inflict capital punishment (Jer. Sanh. i8a) and the right of deciding financial cases had been abrogated during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (cf., T. B. Sanh. 41a). Nevertheless legal tradition was well preserved and the evidence of authorities such as Jose b. Halafta cannot easily be brushed aside. Bilchler (cit. infr.)
reconciles the conflicting evidence by assuming that there were two bodies, one, that of Josephus and the Gospels, pOssessing civil authority and one, that of the Mishnah, with purely religious functions, e.g., the fixing of the calendar or the purity of priests.
The former sat in the town or on the west edge of the Temple hill; the latter, called "the great Sanh.," sat in the Xystus or Lishkath hag-adzith (chamber of hewn stone) and was com posed of 71 members, mostly Pharisees, over whom the Nasi' and Ab Beth Din (Rabbis) presided. The lesser Sanhedrin of 23 members, mostly Sadducees and priests, was under the leader ship of the High Priest.
Enc. Sanhedrin: Hastings E.R.E.: Crimes and Punishments. A. Biichler's views:—Das Synhedrion in Jer. (Vienna, 1902) : on his side, W. Bacher, Hasting's D.N.B., iv., 398; J. Z. Lauter bach, Jew. Enc. xi., 42 ; I. Abrahams, Hastings' E.R.E. xi., s.v. San hedrin: against, A. Kuenen, Verslagen . . . Amsterdam Academy (1866), pp. 131: Schiirer, Gesch. d. jiid. Volk., 4th ed., § 23: G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, I. pp. 419 sqq. (19o7) ; Montefiore, Synoptic Gos pels (1927), I. pp. 35o sqq• (see lit. there given) ; H. Danby (I) Mish nah and Tosefta Sanhedrin (S.P.C.K.) and (2) art. on trial of Jesus in Journal of Theol. Stud., xxi. (Oct. 1919), pp. 51-76 which is criti cized by I. Abrahams, Studies II., xv. (1924).