Hammurabi, Laws

Long before the discovery of Hammurabi’s laws—whose stated purpose is to protect the weak from abuses of power—Ibn Ezra intuited a similar principle underlying the Covenant Collection.

The cuneiform Laws of Hazor, from the first half of the 2^nd millennium B.C.E., suggest that biblical laws had roots in Canaanite law. This challenges, for example, the idea that the Bible’s lex talionis was borrowed from Hammurabi’s laws. While some ancient Near Eastern laws draw distinctions between social classes, Leviticus later makes clear that all human lives are equally valuable.

What we know about abortion in the ancient world from legal and medical texts.

Upon a childless husband’s death, Deuteronomy states “his wife shall not marry a strange man outside.” This phrase originated as a contract clause, and the case was a practice exercise for scribes who were learning contract clauses.

Even before Israel receives laws at Sinai, Exodus tells how Jethro the Midianite advises Moses to establish judges, a unique origin story for the judicial system with no parallel in ancient Near Eastern law collections. Deuteronomy revises the story to credit Moses with this idea after the revelation at Horeb.

In 1902, Friedrich Delitzsch argued in his Babel und Bibel (Babylon and the Bible) lecture series that the biblical texts are dependent upon and inferior to those of Babylonia. A key piece of evidence was the Hammurabi Stele, discovered only months before, but traditional scholars responded by maintaining the ethical superiority of Mosaic law.

When a man accidentally kills a pregnant woman in a brawl, Exodus requires him to pay “life for a life.” This is generally understood as either capital punishment or monetary repayment. Its legal formulation in context, however, suggests substitution, i.e., the offender has to hand over a woman from his own family.

The author of the Covenant Collection in Exodus knew the Laws of Hammurabi and revised them to fit with Israelite legal and ethical conceptions. This is clear when we compare their laws of assault in each.

Leviticus 18 includes an extensive list of prohibited sexual relations, including incest, but it does not mention relations between a father and daughter. How can this glaring omission be explained?

In the 14^th century, R. Nissim of Marseilles suggested that God told Moses only the general command for the Tabernacle and the laws in the Torah, and Moses himself wrote the details and attributed them to God as a way of glorifying God. A close look at many passages in Deuteronomy suggests that this was an early conception of Moses’ role in commanding the mitzvot.

The designation ivri in the legal corpora of the Pentateuch is found only in the laws of slavery. So who is this ivri slave and why was he sold?

Ezekiel challenges the divine (in)justice of intergenerational punishment, even though it appears in the Decalogue.

Thoughts on Torah Min HaShamayim

An investigation of the ideology behind Deuteronomy 22:12-29.

A Comparative Analysis

The word שור in Hebrew can refer to an ox or a bull, but which animal is the protagonist of the celebrated law of שור נגח, “the goring bovine”? 

Jewish and Christian tradition ascribes authorship of the Pentateuch to Moses in the 13^th century B.C.E. Is this what the Pentateuch itself implies about who wrote it and when?

The anomalous and paradoxical nature of the twelfth curse – Deuteronomy 27:26.

How do the laws of Leviticus 18 compare to the laws and practices of the Babylonians, Hittites, and Egyptians, and to the rest of the Bible?