Sanhe´drim, more properly Sanhedrin, the supreme judicial council of the Jews, especially for religious affairs. This council consisted of seventy members. To this number the high priest was added, 'provided he was a man endowed with wisdom.' According to Dr. Jost, the members of the council 'consisted of the most eminent priests, and of the scribes of the people, who were chosen for life, but each of whom had to look to his own industry for his support.' In the New Testament they are frequently termed Priests, Elders, and Scribes. By the first are to be understood, not such as had sustained the office of high-priest, but the chief men among the priests; probably the presidents of the twenty-four classes into which the priesthood was divided. By the second, we are probably to understand the select men of the people—persons whose rank or standing led to their being raised to this distinction. And by the last are designated those, whether of the Levitical family or not, who gave themselves to the pursuit of learning, especially to the interpretation of Scripture, and of the traditions of the fathers.
In the council the office of president belonged to the high-priest, if he was a member of it. Next in rank to him was the vice-president, who bore the title of Father of the House of Judgment; whose duty it was to supply the place of the president in case he should be prevented by any accidental cause from discharging his duties himself. The third grade of rank was that of the sage, whose business was to give counsel to the assembly. The assembly, when convened, sat in the form of a semicircle, or half-moon, the president occupying the center. At each extremity stood a scribe, whose duty it was to record the sentence pronounced by the council. The meetings of this council were usually held in the morning. Their place of meeting was a hall, close by the great gate of the temple, and leading from the outer court of the women to the holy place. In cases of urgency the Sanhedrim might be convened in the house of the high-priest ().
The functions of the Sanhedrim were, according to the Jewish writers, co-extensive with the civil and religious relations of the people. But in the notices of this body, contained in the New Testament, we find nothing which would lead us to infer that their powers extended beyond matters of a religious kind. Questions of blasphemy, of sabbath-breaking, of heresy, are those alone which we find referred to their judicature (comp.;;; , sq.; , sq., etc.). On those guilty of these crimes they could pronounce sentence of death; but under the Roman government, it was not competent for them to execute this sentence.
At what period in the history of the Jews the Sanhedrim arose, is involved in much uncertainty. The Jews trace this council to the times of Moses, and find the origin of it in the appointment of a body of elders as the assistants of Moses in the discharge of his judicial functions (). There is no evidence, however, that this was any other than a temporary arrangement for the benefit of Moses; nor do we, in the historical books of the Old Testament, detect any traces whatever of the existence of this council in the times preceding the Babylonish captivity, nor in those immediately succeeding the return of the Jews to their own land. The earliest mention of the existence of this council by Josephus, is in connection with the reign of Hyrcanus II, B.C. 69. It is probable, however, that it existed before this time—that it arose gradually after the cessation of the prophetic office in Judah, in consequence of the felt want of some supreme direction and judicial authority—that the number of its members was fixed so as to correspond with that of the council of elders appointed to assist Moses—and that it first assumed a formal and influential existence in the later years of the Macedo-Grecian dynasty.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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