The Babylonian Talmud in Selection: Nezikin (Law): Oaths ...

This is a selection from the Babylonian Talmud — specifically from the tractate *Shevuot* (Oaths) — presented in Leo Auerbach's 1944 English anthology, following the classical two-part structure of Mishna (concise legal rulings) and Gemara (the rabbinical debate and commentary that unpacks them). The text works through a detailed taxonomy of oaths under Jewish law, categorizing them as "rash," "vain," "testimony," or "deposit" oaths, and carefully determining liability — including whether lashes or a sacrifice are owed — based on intent, tense (past vs. future), the presence of a court, and whether the oath was self-initiated or sworn in response to adjuration. A recurring analytical move is the question of authorship: the Gemara debates which Rabbi (Ishmael, Akiba, or the compiler Rabbi) authored a given Mishna, using apparent contradictions to triangulate the answer. One notably vivid passage uses a courtroom story — a debtor who hid repayment money inside a cane, handed it to his creditor, then swore he had returned the funds — to settle the jurisprudential question of whether an oath is judged by the swearer's private intent or by the court's understanding. Readers interested in the logic and texture of Talmudic legal reasoning, the interplay between scripture and case law, or the internal debates among Tannaitic authorities will find this a substantive and representative sample, though it assumes familiarity with basic concepts (Nazirite vows, ritual purity, the "Rising and Falling Offering") and reads as legal analysis rather than narrative.

The Babylonian Talmud in Selection: Nezikin (Law): Oaths ...

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