Sanhedrin 14: Rabbi Yehudah ben Bava and Rabbinic Authority
More on semikhah - ordination -- both the process of whether laying on of hands is necessary and why 3 judges were essential. Including the promised story and Who's Who about Yehudah ben Bava. Ordination itself was grounds for a death sentence (during the Hadrian persecutions), and destruction of the places where it was being given, to eliminate Jewish authority. The discussion comes back to the position that 3 judges are not required for ordination, but a complicated route to get there with regard to rabbinic authority and Jewish continuity. Also, how 3 judges, or maybe 5, are required for a case of an "eglah arufah," the heifer whose neck is broken, when a murdered body is found outside city limits -- from the verses in the Torah on this case.