Eduyot (Talmud)

Tractate Eduyot (Hebrew: עדויות, lit. "testimonies") is the seventh tractate in the order Nezikin of the Mishnah.

When, after the destruction of the Temple, it became necessary, through the removal of R. Gamaliel II from the office of patriarch, to decide religious questions by the will of the majority, there was produced, as the groundwork of the treatise Eduyot, a collection of unassailable traditions. From time to time more material was added to this groundwork, until the treatise was concluded on the redaction of the whole Mishnah. There is no connection between the many subjects touched upon in the Eduyot; and an exhaustive discussion of each is not its purpose. Even the names of the sages responsible for the halakhot provide but a loose thread of union.