Torah Compared With Previous Ancient Law Codes-Code of Hammurabi

[kudzu]

Torah Compared With Previous Ancient Law Codes

by MJKruebbe

Long before the Hebrews/Jews developed the stories preserved in the Old Testament, ancient Sumerians and Babylonians had developed their own law codes, for which they too had claimed divine inspiration. Indeed, the Hebrew writers borrowed many ideas from their neighbors, but they put these ideas into the mouths of literary characters like Moses and Yahweh in order to lend authority to their laws, inspiring people to obey them.

This technique, this "pious fraud," was quite common in the ancient world. Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, and others all claimed to derive their laws from divine sources and inspiration, but it should be obvious to modern investigators that these codes were all actually man-made.

The most famous ancient law code, in existence long before the biblical setting for the character of Moses, was the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1750 BCE). To compare the dates, even if there really had been a historical Moses (which could not have resembled the biblical story too much), the Bible does not say he existed until the 1400's BCE, 300 years after Hammurabi.

Furthermore, unlike the alleged stone tablets of the 10 commandments, at least one stele (giant stone monument) of Hammurabi's Code still survives and can be viewed in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.

The Code of Hammurabi was written in Akkadian, the language of the Babylonians, on an eight-foot stone stele and was set up in a public place so that all could see it (unlike the alleged 10 commandments, which were supposedly stored in the ark of the covenant).

The stele at the Louvre was once in Babylon, but was later plundered by the Elamites who took it to their capital, Susa, where it stayed until it was rediscovered in 1901. The code of Hammurabi contained 282 laws, written by scribes on 12 tablets.

Anyone can look up the Code of Hammurabi and read it for free on-line. Here is a copy of Hammurabi's Code posted by Yale Law School: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp.




Both Hammurabi's Code and the Torah/"Law of Moses" contain the following:
•They claim that the law is ultimately divine, not derived merely from the human lawgiver.

continued

https://sites.google.com/site/invest...e-law-of-moses

[Jack]

An excellant post, kudzu. (I didn't read the link, but ...)

1. I believe there are different punishments depending on your station in life.
2. One of the Codes was that if a House collapsed on the occupant, the Builder would be put to death. (for some reason I remember that ... and always add an extra nail when building stuff)

[Jack]

Epic of Gilgamesh

"Relationship to the Bible[edit]
Further information: Panbabylonism
Various themes, plot elements, and characters in the Epic of Gilgamesh have counterparts in the Hebrew Bible—notably, the accounts of the Garden of Eden, the advice from Ecclesiastes, and the Genesis flood narrative."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh

[kudzu]

An excellant post, kudzu. (I didn't read the link, but ...)

1. I believe there are different punishments depending on your station in life.
2. One of the Codes was that if a House collapsed on the occupant, the Builder would be put to death. (for some reason I remember that ... and always add an extra nail when building stuff)

That's great! Really.. I am impressed.

[kudzu]

Epic of Gilgamesh

"Relationship to the Bible[edit]
Further information: Panbabylonism
Various themes, plot elements, and characters in the Epic of Gilgamesh have counterparts in the Hebrew Bible—notably, the accounts of the Garden of Eden, the advice from Ecclesiastes, and the Genesis flood narrative."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh

The code of laws were written by King Hammurabi of Babylon who lived and died 300 years before Moses were adapted by the Hebrews.

[Jack]

The code of laws were written by King Hammurabi of Babylon who lived and died 300 years before Moses were adapted by the Hebrews.

I like the fact that they were installed in the town square where everybody knew what the Law was.

History is filled with one group 'borrowing' tradition and cultural stuff from their Conquerors or just neighbors and/or trading partners.

"Arabic numerals are the ten digits: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, one of several sets of ten glyphs used to write numbers in the Hindu–Arabic numeral system. This is the most common system for the symbolic representation of numbers in the world today."
Arabic numerals - Wikipedia

No one seems to be complaining about THIS! (I'm not even sure you can multiply fractions using Roman numerals?)