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Sanhedrin is the name given in the mishna to the body of seventy-one sages who constituted the supreme court and legislative body in Judea during the Roman period. The make-up of the seventy-one sages included a president, vice president, and sixty-nine general members who all sat in the form of a semi-circle when in session.
The Sanhedrin traced its lineage back to its formation in the time of Moses, although the Greek root for the word suggests that the institution may have developed during the Hellenistic period. The Sanhedrin ceased to exist some time after the destruction of the Second Temple.
One of the requirements of being a member of the Sanhedrin is having received semicha. According to Rabbinic tradition, semicha was transmitted in an unbroken line extending back to Moses.
The Sanhedrin as a body claimed powers that other courts did not have. As such, they were the only ones who could try the king, extend the boundaries of the Temple and Jerusalem, and were the ones to whom all questions of law were finally put.
The Jewish anticipation for the arrival of the Messiah includes the reconstitution of this body of sages.
The Sanhedrin is mentioned frequently in the New Testament. According to the Gospels, the council conspired to have Jesus of Nazareth killed by paying one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, thirty pieces of silver in exchange for delivery of the rabbi into their hands. When the Sanhedrin was unable to provide evidence that Jesus had committed a capital crime, false witnesses came forward and accused the Nazarene of blasphemy. Because the council was deprived of the ability to condemn criminals to death circa 30 CE, Jesus was brought before the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, for a decision concerning his fate.
Some scholars believe that those passages of the New Testament that present a caricature of the Pharisees were not written during Jesus' lifetime but rather sometime after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, at a time when it had become clear that most Jews did not consider Jesus to be the messiah. At this time Christians sought most new converts from among the gentiles. They thus presented a story of Jesus that was more sympathetic to Romans than to Jews. Moreover, it was only after 70 that the Phariseeism emerged as the dominant form of Judaism. For Christian leaders at this time to present Christianity as the legitimate heir to the Old Testament Covenant, they had to devalue Rabbinic Judaism.
The apostles Peter, John, Stephen, and Paul were all brought before the Sanhedrin at one time or another for the crime of spreading the Gospel. Some consider this to be a contradiction as most gospels were not even written until after the destruction of the temple. However, the gospels and the acts of the apostles are accounts of events that happened well before the destruction in 70 CE.
The Sanhedrin was reestablished in a ceremony in Tiberias, where the original Sanhedrin was disbanded, on October, 2004 (Tishrei 5765). [1] (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=70349)
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