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About whether shluchim can also be edim. When there's money involved, basically not, after they invented the idea of taking a vow to say that you don't owe someone any money. The first reason is that if you have the choice of saying "we paid him" or "we gave it back to [the sender]", and if there is a vow attached to the second, you're biased towards taking the first option, hence your testimony isn't admitted.
The question arises, why can't you take the vow and then give your evidence? Tosafot said something, the details of which I don't remember precisely, but Zvi put a gloss on it that was suggesting that if you vow, you're somehow not good enough to be a witness. A bit like what Meir was saying ages ago about Y"K, automatic teshuva, and sacrifices. Too sociological for my taste.
Tosafot also say what if the sender is in court for non-payment of debt, and he exempts the messengers from taking the vow if they'll come and testify for him (then there isn't potential bias). They reject it - they seem to be saying that if your testimony ought to have a vow attached to it, it isn't sufficiently sturdy to be admitted as evidence.
The Ran suggested that if you exempt them from taking the vow, they'll be so grateful to you that they'll be biased in your favour, which is interesting.
The Rashba said that if you're in vow territory you're a litigant, and therefore anything you say isn't admissible as evidence. [Compare to systems where you swear witnesses in, by the way - according to this view that *always* makes your testimony invalid.] I forget exactly how he handled the case where you exempt the shluchim from taking the vow, though. But he pointed out that if you sent your messengers with something of nominal value, they could certainly be witnesses as to what happened to it afterwards, since there isn't a suspicion that they would have stolen it.
The question arises, why can't you take the vow and then give your evidence? Tosafot said something, the details of which I don't remember precisely, but Zvi put a gloss on it that was suggesting that if you vow, you're somehow not good enough to be a witness. A bit like what Meir was saying ages ago about Y"K, automatic teshuva, and sacrifices. Too sociological for my taste.
Tosafot also say what if the sender is in court for non-payment of debt, and he exempts the messengers from taking the vow if they'll come and testify for him (then there isn't potential bias). They reject it - they seem to be saying that if your testimony ought to have a vow attached to it, it isn't sufficiently sturdy to be admitted as evidence.
The Ran suggested that if you exempt them from taking the vow, they'll be so grateful to you that they'll be biased in your favour, which is interesting.
The Rashba said that if you're in vow territory you're a litigant, and therefore anything you say isn't admissible as evidence. [Compare to systems where you swear witnesses in, by the way - according to this view that *always* makes your testimony invalid.] I forget exactly how he handled the case where you exempt the shluchim from taking the vow, though. But he pointed out that if you sent your messengers with something of nominal value, they could certainly be witnesses as to what happened to it afterwards, since there isn't a suspicion that they would have stolen it.