Note 55 — Chapter IV · THE JEW AND THE TALMUD
Reading edition
Our modern versions which use the word “ox” in such places lead to error. The Hebrews did not castrate their cattle, and similarly their mules and their eunuchs were imported from Egypt and elsewhere. Nothing of this is hinted at about the bull in the most popular modern books; so, for instance, the article “Ox” in Smith’s Concise Dictionary of the Bible. And here it may be noted that if a bull killed a slave the owner of the former paid a fine of thirty shekels to the owner (Josephus, Ant. Jud., IV. viii. 36); hence possibly the sum offered to and accepted by Judas as the value of a bought servant.