Priestly court

The priestly court is not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. According to the Sifrei, it is hinted to in Numbers 18:7 ("Therefore thou and thy sons with thee shall keep your priest's office for every thing of the altar, and within the veil..."); the Sifrei explains that "There was a place behind the veil where they would check priestly lineage".[8]

Several Biblical verses describe the priests specifically as teachers of the Torah. Priests were expected to function as judges (Deuteronomy 21:5); the absence of a priest who could teach was described as a national misfortune (2 Chronicles 15:3). The priest's authority to teach is not automatic, but depends on his having a thorough knowledge of Torah law as well as priestly ancestry.[9]

In Zechariah 3:7 the High Priest is expected to "judge [God's] house and guard [God's] courtyards".

Model of Second Temple Behind the tall structure (the hekhal) is the place where the priestly court would function.

The court performed its duties within the Temple complex, in the eleven ammoth located between the western wall of the Holy of Holies and the western wall of the azarah (Temple courtyard). This area was also known in Hebrew as achurei beit hakaporeth ("behind the Holy of Holies").[10] This is in accordance with the aforementioned Sifrei, specifying that the court operated "behind the veil" of the Holy of Holies.[8]

The term Beit Din shel kohanim is mentioned by name only twice in Tannaitic and once in Amoraic literature,[11] and this has caused confusion regarding its meaning.[12] The three mentions are as follows:

• The Mishnah records that the ketubah amount levied by this court was twice as high as the normal amount: "The priestly court used to levy 400 zuz for a virgin, and the Sages did not reprove them."[13]

• The Tosefta records that when a Jewish king would write a Torah scroll as commanded, the priestly court would store it (alternative text: edit it for correctness[11]).[14]

• The Babylonian Talmud records that this court remained in session as long as the Temple donations were not used up.[15]

These three tasks appear to be unrelated, which has led scholars to suspect that if a single court were responsible for these tasks, it would likely also have been responsible for many other tasks where the exact term Beit Din shel kohanim is not used.[11] Many passages which refer to the roles of "the sons of the high priests", "the elders of the priests", "the priests" (in a legal context), "the court" (in a Temple context), or "the Hasmonean court" have been suggested as referring to the court of priests, though these suggestions are not universally accepted.[11] One suggestion is that there was not a single priestly court, but rather any court convened for a specific purpose and composed of priests was called "a priestly court".[11]