For the source text click/tap here: Ketubot 20
To download, click/tap here: PDF
In the next mishnah we continue the struggle with the validity of documents and signatories.
If a shtar is fundamentally testimony, then the laws of testimony will apply to it, including the rule of ‘if one of the witnesses was found to be a relative or invalid, their testimony is cancelled’;
while if a shtar is not testimony, but rather an obligation of one party to another, it seems that there is less to apply the rule of ‘if one of the witnesses was found to be a relative or invalid...,’
since this rule is embedded in the creation of a set of witnesses with the authority of testimony.
We explore the history of forged documents, paintings and antiquities including the talmud itself.