[Avodah] Bavli Redux - Does it's authority stem from Sanhedrin?

[Zev Sero]

Richard Wolpoe wrote:
> Dear List,
> Someone [I don't recall who] suggesteds that there WAS a Sanhedrin 
> around [inEY] when the Bavli was completed. FWIW the Rambam in his 
> hkqdamah flatly rejects this notion. [I amp osting today because I jsut 
> reread it today]

I've never heard it suggested that there was a Sanhedrin after 425.
But this article argues that semicha and batei din of semuchim continued
right through the Rambam's day, and that the Rambam knew about it and
alludes to it, and that semicha didn't die out until the Damascus yeshivah
closed as a result of the Third Crusade.
http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/kitveyet/hatkufa/mishpat-4.htm

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas