Biblical Foundations of Jewish Jurisprudence in the Time of Jesus

Ruff, Tibor (2024) Biblical Foundations of Jewish Jurisprudence in the Time of Jesus. JOURNAL ON EUROPEAN HISTORY OF LAW, 15 (2). pp. 120-126. ISSN 2042-6402

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Abstract

God’s kingship is based on two important spiritual realities: the justice and legality. The Jewish legal practice in Jesus’ day rested on the Mosaic Law and its rabbinic interpretation. The Torah established a powerful court-system, which interweaved through the whole of society in ancient Israel; and at a later stage, the high priest and the president of the court surrounded themselves with a seventy-strong advisory council, which partly consisted of priests, partly of judges with the highest authority nationwide, and partly of the wise. This Supreme Court (which later called Sanhedrin) was the court of appeal of highest authority, which made decisions in cases not settled by the courts on lower grades. This paper, in addition to the above judicial bodies, also examines the basic rules of investigating the cases, the presence or absence of wilfulness, as well as the Rabbinic regulations concerning testimonies of witnesses.

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