Sanhedrin סנהדרין
The supreme court of seventy-one sages — the highest authority in law, calendar and interpretation of the Torah.
The Sanhedrin's prototype is the seventy elders Moshe appointed on Yitro's advice and God's instruction; with him they number seventy-one. The Great Sanhedrin sat in the Chamber of Hewn Stone on the Temple Mount, in a semicircle so that all could see one another. Lesser courts of twenty-three sat in every town.
Its powers were wide: interpreting the Torah, fixing new moons and leap years, resolving disputed law, trying a tribe, a false prophet or a high priest. It could impose capital punishment, but the Mishna calls a Sanhedrin that executed once in seventy years «bloody».
Forty years before the destruction it left the Chamber and ceased to try capital cases. It then wandered — Yavne, Usha, Tzippori, Tiberias — where it ended in the fourth century.