I have been mulling over in my mind back and forth the subject of documents. It is something that at first seems like a direct contradiction that I must have seen plenty of times but never paid attention to the fact that these two statements directly contradict. One is עדים החתומים על השטר נעשה כמו נחקרה עדותן בבית דין (witnesses signed on a document are as if their testimony was already investigated and confirmed in court. ) and the another statement is מפיהם ולא מפי כתבם. (from their mouths, not from their writing.) I would never have noticed this if I did not see in the Avi Ezri this exact issue. [In Laws of Gitin] chapter I halacha 24.]
The law is that in a "get" (divorce) document there is time.
The sanhedrin there is a mishna that monetary laws need to be investigated and verified. The gemara right there asks if so why are loans OK if the time put on them is after the actual loan was made? The gemara answers so as to not shut the door in front of people that want to borrow money. [That is-to lessen the restrictions] The Nemukai Yoseph asks then want about a get or kidushin?
Rav Chaim of Brisk answers there are documents that cause an event.-like gitin or kidushin or a document of a present. This type is what the gemara refers to as עדים החתומים על השטר נעשה כמו נחקרה עדותן בבית דין (witnesses signed on a document are as if their testimony was already investigated and confirmed in court. The another type of document is simply a proof that an event happened--like a loan. For that we know that it needs to be verified by bringing in the witnesses. This seems to answer the question of the Nemukai Yoseph. However Nahmanides/ the Ramban however disagrees with this sort of division. To him documents of loans are also regular documents. You do not divide between them and documents of kidushin. So the whole answer of Rav Chaim falls off in this case.[]
Rav Shach answers a different answer. He notes that sometimes documents involve a court case that needs to be investigated.--a "din Torah". That can mean loans or documents of presents. These are cases where the doc. is a doc. but loans have the advantage that the sages lessened the requirements in order not to shut the door. But cases like kidushin do not need a court and so do not require verification in the first place in a court. So you would not even need to say "witnesses signed on a document are as if their testimony was already investigated and confirmed in court"--because you do not even need a court.
