Fourth Order: Neziqin
The present volume is the eleventh in the series of the Jerusalem Talmud, the first in a three volume edition, translation, and commentary of the Fourth Order Neziqin.
The thirty chapters of Neziqin that deal with most aspects of Civil Law are usually divided into three parts, or “gates”, known as the First Gate, Bava qamma, the Middle Gate, Bava mesi‘a, and the Last Gate, Bava batra.
In contrast to the Babylonian Talmud, the treatment in the Jerusalem Talmud is fragmentary. The reason for this is a matter of controversy, discussed in the Introduction to the Tractate.
Volume 12 in the edition of the complete Jerusalem Talmud. Tractates Sanhedrin and Makkot belong together as one tractate, covering procedural law for panels of arbitration, communal rabbinic courts (in bare outline) and an elaborate construction of hypothetical criminal courts supposedly independent of the king’s administration. Tractate Horaiot, an elaboration of Lev. 4:1–26, defines the roles of High Priest, rabbinate, and prince in a Commonwealth strictly following biblical rules.
This is volume 13 of the edition of the complete Jerusalem Talmud. Within the Fourth Order Neziqin (“damages”), these two tractates deal with various types of oaths and their consequences (Ševu‛ot) and laws pertaining to Jews living amongst gentiles, including regulations about the interaction between Jews and “idolators” (‛Avodah Zarah).
