“They took Jesus to the high priest’s home where the leading priests, the elders, and the teachers of religious law had gathered.” (Mark 14:53 NLT2)
Matthew tells us the high priest was Caiaphas, and his home was probably near the Upper Room. It must have been a large house befitting the high priest of the Jews.
This gathering of the Jewish high council of priests, elders and teachers was called the Sanhedrin. More precisely, it was composed of Sadducees, Elders and Pharisees.
The Sadducees made up the priestly class of the Sanhedrin. All high priests came from this group. They were the favored party to the Romans, highly political, and since they were satisfied with the way things were, did not look ahead to a future messianic age. They held strictly to the written law and rejected the traditions of the Pharisees. They did not believe in the resurrection of the body or any real kind of afterlife. They denied the existence of angels and demons. They were not particularly popular with the people and, strangely enough, were somewhat indifferent to religion.
The second group of the Sanhedrin was the Elders. The elders were the tribal and family heads of the people and the priesthood, mostly the secular nobility of Jerusalem.
The third and final group making up the Sanhedrin was the Pharisees. They were by far the most influential and popular of the three groups. They were highly legalistic and religious. They, along with the Scribes, protected and interpreted the Jewish Law and were the Jewish religious leaders. In fact, their interpretations of the Law took on equal or greater weight than the Law itself. They were sticklers for living out even the smallest details of the Law and traditions. They believed in the eternal soul and a spirit life. They looked forward to the coming of the Messiah and were the opposites in many ways to beliefs to the Sadducees. Jesus often opposed the Pharisees because of their legalistic emphasis on good works, their hypocrisies and their general lack of love.
The Sanhedrin evolved into existence in the years after the Jews returned from the Exile in Babylonia. They came into their own as the ruling body perhaps a century or more before the time of Jesus. The idea of the council is based on an event in the time of Moses, when he complained to God that he could not carry the full load of leading the Israelites in the wilderness.
“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Gather before me seventy men who are recognized as elders and leaders of Israel. Bring them to the Tabernacle to stand there with you. I will come down and talk to you there. I will take some of the Spirit that is upon you, and I will put the Spirit upon them also. They will bear the burden of the people along with you, so you will not have to carry it alone.’” (Numbers 11:16-17 NLT2)
The seventy-one members of the Sanhedrin represented the seventy elders plus Moses.
By the First Century these men had little authority over civil matters, since that was left largely to the Romans, but they completely ruled over the religious matters for the Jews. They controlled the Temple and surrounding areas and had some power to police religious affairs. They certainly did not have the authority to impose the death penalty on their own – they would need the Romans to do that.
The Sanhedrin could only meet during the day in the Temple courts, and never during religious feasts, and no decisions reached by this body outside their designated meeting place was considered valid. Evidence was taken from separate witnesses individually, and all testimony had to agree on every detail. Each member of the Sanhedrin was required to give their verdict separately, beginning with the youngest and proceeding to the oldest.
Yet, for the trial of Jesus, they were gathering not at the Temple but in Caiaphas’ home sometime after midnight on the Day of the Passover Feast. Clearly, the Sanhedrin was breaking several of their own rules in order to railroad Jesus, now that they had him in their hands, in the middle of the night, in secret, away from crowds who might oppose their arrest of him. Now, all they had to do was come up with evidence that Jesus was guilty of a crime that would bring from the Romans the death sentence. Yet even that was a challenge, until the high priest asked the crucial question...
“…Then the high priest asked him, ‘Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?’ Jesus said, ‘I AM. And you will see the Son of Man seated in the place of power at God’s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven.’” (Mark 14:61-62 NLT2)
