רבי יהודה בן בתירא

Rabbi Yehuda ben Betera was a Tanna associated with Nusaybin (Nisibis). He is among the more frequently cited sages in the surviving talmudic literature, his opinions appearing across a wide range of tractates including Yevamot, Ketubot, Nedarim, Sotah, Shevuot, Sanhedrin, Bava Kamma, Avodah Zarah, Menachot, Chullin, and Arakhin.

The cited passages show him ruling on diverse areas of law. In matters of ritual purity he held a distinctive view that offerings to idolatry (תקרובת עבודת כוכבים) convey impurity through a tent (כאהל), deriving this from a verse in Psalms (Tehillim) that likens such sacrifices to the dead. In the law of homicide he taught that where several people strike a victim in succession, the last is liable “because he hastened the death.” He is recorded debating the law of oaths and the principle that one is liable for an oath to fulfill a commandment, ruling on vows concerning produce and its derivatives, on the division of property between spouses, on testimony permitting a widow to remarry, and on levirate cases—where Shmuel rules the law follows him. He also appears in aggadic and interpretive contexts, including a discussion of the fate of Korach’s company.