The Rape of the Unbetrothed Virgin in Torah and Assyrian Law

The text of these laws appears in Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (2nd ed; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 174–75.

In contrast to a legal code, which attempts to cover a whole legal system or a particular area of law, the legislative portions of the Torah are for the most part non-exhaustive collections of laws on various themes.

See Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “Virginity in the Bible,” in Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (ed. Victor H. Matthews, Bernard S. Levinson, and Tikva Frymer-Kensky; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 91–92.

David P. Wright, Inventing God’s Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 110–14.

It is something of a misnomer to speak of the “author of DC,” since the laws were redacted over time. However, many portions of DC, including these, show sufficient consistency in style and substance to be attributed to a single hand.

Measure-for-measure (talion) laws appear in Exodus 21:24–25 (CC); Lev 24:20; and Deut 19:21; as well as LH ¶¶ 196–97; 200; 209–10; 229–30. Some of these, including the famous eye-for-an-eye law, appear in LH as well as in multiple biblical collections. LH also includes vicarious measure-for-measure laws prescribing the death of a daughter for the death of a pregnant woman (¶¶ 109–10) and the death of a son for the death of a son (¶ 230).