"A Beam in the Eye" - How the Talmud Tractate Arachin is Influenced by Matthew 7

I learned quickly in my first course on classical Rabbinic literature that issues of dating the texts are problematic, unavoidable, but ultimately marginalized. Consider this in light of New Testament criticism in which the average age of the four gospels can be traced with a fair amount of certainty to within a 20 year to 30 year window after the actual events. Attempts at dating the tractates in the Talmud are simply not a project of Jewish scholarship. And given how many various individuals  redacted the Talmud with the addition of gemara, such efforts seem pointless.






So while an orthodox Jew would like to think that the Talmud would not borrow from the New Testament (and an ultra-Orthodox Jew might suppose this is because the Oral Tradition goes back to Moses), there are surely overlaps that are not only questionable, but at times, strangely duplicative.


Let's take a famous passage from the New Testament, which most Christians know by heart, and has been used, misused, and abused, throughout the religion's interpretative history:

Matthew 7:2-4

For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. "Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? "Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye?

Now compare this with


Tractate Arachin 16b:

It was taught in a Baraitha [a commentary]: Rabbi Tarfon said, I wonder whether there is any one in this generation who accepts reproof , for if one says to him: Remove the mote from between your eyes, he would answer: Remove the beam from between your eyes! Rabbi Eleazer ben Azariah said: I wonder if there is one in this generation who knows how to reprove! Rabbi Johanan ben Nuri said: I call heaven and earth to witness for myself that often was Akiba punished through me because I used to complain against him before our Rabban, Gamaliel Beribbi, and all the more he showered love upon me, to make true what has been said: Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee, reprove a wise man and he will love thee.





In all fairness, when I first studied this with my Rabbi professor, he did not seem to know Matthew 7:2-4 existed in the New Testament and how it was comparative similar to the Talmud. This is perhaps one reason certain Jews are averse to historical criticism and in favor of zakhor (a charge leveled by those like Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi); namely, because when the Talmud is forced into critical self-reflection, it breaks apart. Without the guidance of historical staging, tractates regularly reflect earlier trends, even as there is no method of validation, and in this case, the earlier influence is the New Testament.


It is interesting that the baraitha is unnamed and that it seems to be an editorial tradition, intentionally vague to avoid the question "where was it taught?" that might come as a result of the question that would inevitably arise had the passage began "it was taught..." Perhaps the anonymous writer thought that the Matthew 7 pericope was part of the Jewish oral tradition and simply did not realize he was blending traditions. This is not new. Maimonides regularly forgot his own sources and would recall vague language similarly. The oral tradition is of course extraordinarily important in any event, so it is possible that earlier influences, in this case Christian, congealed with Jewish Talmudic thought. In fact, I think it is a correct assumption, given the amount of overlap found in the Talmud.