Binyomin
Joined: 09 Feb 2006
Posts: 879
Location: Bnei Brak
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 Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2010 4:50 pm Post subject: The Bes Din Hagadol |
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The name Sanhedrin is a later (Greek) term for an older institution.
The Bes Din Hagadol is derived form the shi'vim hazkeinim (seventy elders). The Beis Din in the Lishka was vested with the authority of Torah She'bal Peh (See Rambam's Yad Hil. Mamrim 1:1)
The Anshei Knesses Hagdolah is referred to at times as Ezra u'Veis Dino (Ezra and his house of judgment). Ezra instituted the Bes Din, it survived as Anshei Knesses Hagdolah for several generations. Ezra lived many years before Shimon Hatzaddik.
Why Ezra? Well he started Bayis Sheini. Therefore a Bes Din Hagadol in the lishka has to get off the ground somehow. Ezra probably appointed all 70. The Anshei Knesses hagedolah were 120. It is not clear how that worked exactly. After the first 70, there was {probably} turnover that included 50 successors. At some point there must have been a Bes Din Hagadol w/o Anshei Knesses hagedolah, because Shimon HaTzazddik was one of the last (circa 325 BCE when Alexander the Great came to Yerushalyaim). Yet Bes Din Hagadol continued.
The Greek term Sanhedrin, {like the term Senate and perhaps even
Soviet}, it is a term for a council that has authority. It is likely that the Sanhedrin in the lishka was a religious Sanehedrin and that there were civil or secular "Sanhedrins" in parallel. (source: Professor Reiner at BRGS)
Adapted from
http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/2010/02/rabbinic-authority-old-avodah-post.html |
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