The council of Jerusalem — Greek synedrion, literally a ‘sitting together’, the same word English borrowed for a synod. Under Roman rule it was the chief Jewish judicial and administrative body, chaired by the high priest and drawn from the chief priests, the elders (heads of leading families) and the scribes; the Gospels name all three groups. ⚠ How it actually operated at the time of Jesus is genuinely uncertain, and this matters for reading the trial narratives. The detailed procedural rules preserved in the Mishnah tractate Sanhedrin — no capital trial at night, none on the eve of a festival, a verdict of acquittal the same day but conviction only on the next — were written down around 200 CE, well after the council itself had ceased to exist, and describe an idealized court. Whether they held in the 30s is unknown. So the long-argued question of whether the hearing Matthew describes was ‘illegal’ is being asked against a rulebook that may be later than the event, and the library records that rather than joining the argument.