Sanhedrin, ancient Jewish legal and religious institution in Jerusalem that appears to have exercised the functions of a court between c.63 B.C. and c.A.D. 68. The accounts of it in the Mishna do not correspond to those in Josephus or in the New Testament. Rabbinic sources generally portray it as a body of Torah scholars presided over by the leader of the Pharisees. Greek sources view it as an aristocratic council led by the high priest. Some sources describe a body of 71 members, others of 23 members. Some scholars maintain that there probably were two Sanhedrins—one political and civil, and the Great Sanhedrin, purely religious. In 1807, Napoleon appointed a "French Sanhedrin" of 71 members, made up of both rabbis and laymen, to consider the relationship between Jews and the state.

Jewish council that operated in Roman Palestine from the time of the Maccabees (circa 165 BC) to the end of the patriarchate (AD 425). While the term refers to the supreme Jewish court, the Sanhedrin's exact composition and powers—religious, judicial, and legislative—are reported variously in different sources. It is mentioned in various books of the Bible (Mark, Luke, Acts) as having taken part in or adjudicated the trials of Jesus, St. Peter the Apostle, and St. John the Baptist. According to Talmudic sources, the Great Sanhedrin was a court of 71 sages that met on fixed occasions in the Temple of Jerusalem, acting as a religious legislative body, trial court, and administrator of rituals.

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