Halakhah sobre Números 11:24

Jewish law provides for the application of criminal sanctions only upon the testimony of two qualified eyewitnesses and a guilty verdict rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction composed of adherents to Judaism and established in conformity with the relevant provisions of the statutes governing judicial bodies. Prior admonition as well as a court composed of twenty-three "ordained" judges are necessary conditions for imposition of either capital or corporal punishment. The "ordination" required is a form of licensure originating in the designation of elders by Moses as recorded in Numbers 11:24. These elders, in turn, transmitted this authority to their successors. That authority was then passed on from generation to generation in an unbroken chain of transmission over a span of centuries until it was forcibly interrupted during the period of Roman oppression subsequent to the destruction of the Second Commonwealth. The result is that, at present, there are no individuals qualified to sit on such courts and hence, as a practical matter, Jewish penal law no longer regards existing rabbinic courts as competent to impose either capital or corporal punishment.