The
history of human societies is a story about power struggles – one uses power to get what it wants from someone
else who wants to keep what it has. In societies, power is exercised in two
ways – persuasion by authority or through
the use of force. The Bible, from the first book to the last, is full of
stories about power. Today, I will focus on the Second Temple as a center of power.
In
the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, the Temple was to be operated
under the laws of the Torah by priests
who were Levites. However, the highest office of authority in the nation
for most of the Second Temple Period was the
High Priest (a descendant of Aaron the brother of Moses).
The
building of the Second Temple began with
a decree of Cyrus the Great King Persia. Interestingly, the first Torah scroll --
like the one we have today -- was taken by Ezra, a Jewish priest and scribe to
Jerusalem from Babylon – along with a
scroll of laws of the Persian King Artaxerxes I. Ezra was also an
authorized agent of the Persian King. Both scrolls influenced how the Second
Temple operated.
Almost
exactly 400 years later, the Jewish homeland came under the rule of the Roman Empire and they established
a new institution at the Temple -- the Sanhedrin.
The earliest record of a Sanhedrin is
by Josephus who wrote of a Sanhedrin
convened by the Romans in 57 BCE. It
is generally depicted as a judicial council headed by the country’s ruler.
Later
sources describe the Great Sanhedrin
as an assembly of 71 judges/sages who met in the Chamber of Hewn Stones in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Great
Sanhedrin met daily during the daytime, and did not meet on the Sabbath, festivals
or festival eves. It was the final authority on Jewish law and any sage/scholar
who went against its decisions was put to death as a zaken mamre (rebellious
elder). The Sanhedrin was led by
a president called the nasi (lit.
"prince") and a vice president called the av bet din (lit. "father of the court"). The other 69
judges/sages sat in a semicircle facing the leaders. It is unclear whether the
leaders included the high priest, but the high priest needed the support of the Sanhedrin to be effective -- and the Sanhedrin needed the support of the high
priest.
The
Great Sanhedrin dealt with legal and
ritualistic Temple matters, criminal matters appertaining to the secular court,
proceedings in connection with the discovery of a corpse, trials of adulterous
wives, tithes, preparation of Torah Scrolls
for the king and the Temple, drawing
up the calendar and
the solving of difficulties relating to ritual law.
The Sanhedrin judged
accused lawbreakers, but could not initiate arrests. It required a minimum of two witnesses to convict a
suspect. There were no attorneys. Instead, the accusing witness stated
the offense in the presence of the accused and the accused could call witnesses
on his own behalf. The court questioned the accused, the accusers and the
defense witnesses. In about 30 CE, the
Great Sanhedrin lost its authority to inflict capital punishment.
In
addition to the Great Sanhedrin there
were two types of local Sanhedrins
that consisted of different numbers of sages/scholars, depending on the nature
of the offenses it dealt with – one
with 23 judges and another with 3 judges for civil or lesser
criminal cases. The smaller Sanhedrins
were located in every town in the Land of Israel,
as well as a civil political-democratic Sanhedrin. These Sanhedrins existed until the abolishment of the rabbinic
patriarchate in about 425 CE.*
Yeshua, the Jewish
Jesus,
used the Jewish court system as an example in a teaching on anger. Sadly, we
can’t see it in our English translations. We have to put his words back into his
Hebrew language. He began saying something the no doubt immediately caught the
attention of his audience:
Anyone angry with a brother will be tried in court as a
murderer!
The
phrase he used for court was “bet din,”
which means “house of judgment.” In
this case, it was a reference to the Sanhedrin
with 23 judges. Next, he elevates the seriousness of the crime by
changing the court:
Anyone angry with a brother who says “raqa”
will be tried in the Great Sanhedrin by 71 judges!
Lastly,
elevates the crime by making the court the highest one of all:
Anyone who angry with a brother who says “You fool!”
will be in danger of being judged by God!
By
using a system of courts everyone in that place at that time understood very well
he able to teach a lesson on anger management they clearly understood. Of
course the fact that everyone in synagogue also heard the story of “angry Cain”
murdering “his brother Abel,” also helped. The point Yeshua wanted to make was
this – when you become angry guard your tongue and do no say things that can move
you closer to acting like Cain. If you would like to read the complete lesson
on anger that Yeshua taught -- Click
here.
I
hope you found this informative and thank you for reading it.
Shalom,
Jim
Myers
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