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The Mote and the Beam

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

George B. King
George B. King
Affiliation:
Islington, Ontario, Canada
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Extract

In illustration of Matt. 7, 3–5 the commentaries are accustomed to quote from Jewish sources the Talmudic treatises ‘Arakin 16b and Baba Batra 15b. Thus A. H. McNeile, The Gospel according to St. Matthew (1915), says with reference to Matt. 7, 3: “An illustration of the warning in v. 1. It was perhaps another current proverb. R. Tarphon (beg. 2d cent, A.D.) lamented that men in his day could not accept reproof; if one said to another, ‘Cast the mote out of thine eye,’ he would answer, ‘Cast the beam out of thine eye’ (Erach. 16b; cf. B. Bath. 15b); but this was possibly an attack on the New Testament words.” W. C. Allen, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to S. Matthew (1907), remarks on the same verse: “Cf. Arachin 16b, where R. Tarphon (end first cent. A.D.) says: ‘If one says, Take the mote from thy eye, he answers, Take the beam from thine eye.’” J. A. Broadus in his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (1886), says: “The illustration our Lord uses is found several times in the Talmud; e.g. ‘I wonder whether there is any one in this generation who is willing to receive reproof. Nay, if one says to another, Cast out the splinter from thine eye, he will reply, Cast out the beam from thine eye.’” The list could be continued at length.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , October 1924 , pp. 393 - 404
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1924

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References

1 See article by Moore, G. F., ‘Christian Writers on Judaism,’ in Harvard Theological Review, July, 1921.Google Scholar

2 “Von alters her war Rom eine Pflegestätte jüdischer Wissenschaft; halachische und haggadische, historische und exegetische Studien waren in den letzten Jahrhunderten des ersten Jahrtausends dort heimisch, auch die Poesie fand ihre Pflege.” Vogelstein und Rieger, Geschichte der Juden in Rom, vol. I, p. 350.

3 The most famous was one directed by Jacob b. Nissim to Sherira Gaon, which drew from the latter a letter in which he answered inquiries about the origin and transmission of the Mishnah, etc. The latest and best edition of this letter is that of Dr. B. Lewin, אנרח רכ שרירה נאון, published by the author, P. O. Box 120, Haifa, Palestine.

4 Editors of the Yalḳuṭ who had no perception of the critical value of the variants allowed themselves to correct its text into conformity with the printed texts of the Talmud and Midrashim. An example of this is the edition of the Yalḳuṭ printed at Zolkiew (by Berrl Lorje & Leib Matfes), 1858, which has עיניך for שיניך in the passage on Ruth 1, 1. Rabbi S. H. Glick, in his “En Jacob, Agada of the Babylonian Talmud” (New York, 5682), makes the translation of Baba Batra 15b read: “If the judge said to a person: ‘Remove the mote from thy eye,’ he answered, ‘Take the beam out of thine eyes,’” although curiously enough he has שיניך in his text.

5 Azariah de Rossi, Me’or ‘Enayim (1866), p. 230.

6 Rabbinowicz, , מאמר על הרפםח החלמור, Munich, 1877, p. 132.Google Scholar

7 See Strack, Einleitung in Talmud und Midraš, 5th edition, p. 82. The manuscript was copied in 1184.

8 See Strack, Einleitung in Talmud und Madraš, 6th edition, p. 81.

9 The only exception is Scheid (in Meuschen), who, in a learned discussion of both Talmudic passages, translates ‘ex oculis tuis.’

10 ‘Between the eyes’ is in the middle of the forehead, like the plate in the mitre of the high priest, Ḳiddushin 66a הקם להם כציין שכין עיניך, or the Ṭoṭafot (Tefillin) Deut. 11, 18.

11 R. Gershom (d. 1040 in Mayence) paraphrases the passage in Baba Batra thus: קורה שהוא נרול מוה אם יאמר לו השופמ מול קיםם שלך נוילה מחחח יריך היה משיכ הוא לשופמ מול, ‘If the judge said to a man, Remove the splinter which you have acquired by theft, he would reply to the judge. Remove the beam which is larger than this splinter,’ showing that, like Edels, he understood the proverbial expression to refer to theft.

12 Here the similarity in sound of קשש and קשמ is made the basis of the interpretation.

13 These words are not found in the manuscript on which Buber's text here is based, but they are in his other MSS. and the editions (see Buber's Tehillim, f. 144a, note 12).

14 The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (Leipzig, 1916) notes (on festuca) that the Itala (cod. e) represents κάρϕος in Luke 6, 41; 42 by ‘stipula,’ a synonym of ‘festuca.’Google Scholar

15 The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae defines ‘festuca’: “i. q. calamus, culmus, stipula, surculus sim.”

16 Stephanus, Thesaurus Graecae Linguae: Κάρϕος, τὸ, … ║ Κεραία ξύλου λεπτὴ, Hesychio, Apex tenuis a ligno fisso abscedens: …… ║ Festuca, i.e. Arida et crassior in foeno nondum demesso stipula, vel etiam Aridum et leve foenum.