Hammurabi, Ur-Nammu, & Ancient Codes of Law
High School Essay #4
I wrote this in the fall of my senior year of high school. It was originally subtitled: In An Uninformative Manner. Enjoy!
Laws and the wish for justice and order have been around since just after the beginning of time, when God commanded Adam and Eve that they may eat all the fruit of the garden except the fruit of the tree of Good and Evil. Of course, they promptly disobeyed him, which led to the fall of Man and the loss of sinlessness in the world as we know it. However, God created us in His image. Through the fall that image was corrupted, but it is still there, and this is why we make laws and attempt justice. Since we are corrupted, we cannot follow even our own decrees perfectly, but as a cloudy mirror, we have an idea of happiness, and justice, and truth, but we live not as our ideas suggest, but somehow differently. Even when God is denied, man still unconsciously reflects his Creator. All men have a moral code, however twisted. If we are only sophisticated descendants of amoebas, where, exactly, did this spring from?
For example, Ur-Nammu’s code, one of the earliest known in the world, encouraged its subjects to think of the kingdom as a family and the laws as the rule of the home. Punishment for offenses was usually fines except in the case when the crime was so severe as to require a capital punishment. Even when the offense was as severe as the loss of an eye, the fine would be two minas of silver. A mina in those days was worth 60 shekels, or 1.25 pounds of silver. A pound of silver today is worth between 280 to 350 dollars. Compare this to Hammurabi’s code, which requires an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Which is more valuable, 500 dollars today or the other person’s eye? I think we can all admit that the merciful thing to do would be to take the $500, but mercy is not our nature. “And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” (Deuteronomy 19:21, King James Bible) “And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbor; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him.” (Leviticus 24:19, King James Bible) But though God is a merciful God, he is also a just God. These two go hand in hand. Though our desire for justice, life for life, is rooted in us as image-bearers of the Lord, the Bible also says, revenge belongs to the Lord. Generally, we wish for the other’s harm out of revenge for ourselves, as fallen creatures.
As far as we know, outside Christianity, the furthest back men have had a code of Law was the Code of Ur-Nammu, discovered in 1948 in Iraq, from around 2500 BC, and slightly younger, the Codes of Eshnunna and Lipit-Ishtar. An earlier code has been discovered, predating Ur-Nammu’s by about a century, but the actual text of the code has not been turned up. The content has been assumed from references to it elsewhere. Until the discoveries of these, the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, created around 1772 BC, was the oldest known code of Law, disregarding the Bible, though these codes I named claimed to have their origin from the gods. The code of Ur-Nammu predates Hammurabi’s by about three centuries. Hammurabi’s code was effective, as well. During the last five years of his reign there is no evidence of revolt or dissent, and that is significant, as he pulled his empire together from war.
Law made by God is good, but we are sinners and cannot even come close to keeping his law perfectly. Corrupted images of him: we make our own laws, but we can’t keep them any better than we can his, and ours are much more complicated and numerous. God offers only ten basic rules, and later reduces those to two; Love God; love your neighbor. We have seen that laws are intrinsic to the nature of Man; we have seen in some detail that laws have been around since the Fall of Man. Without God, however, all these laws can do is impress upon us our sinfulness and hopelessness. We must turn to him for redemption and to be able to truly obey.
References
“Code of Ur-Nammu” (2021). Code of Ur-Nammu - World History Encyclopedia
King James Bible (2012) Third Printing Hendrickson Publishers Edition (Original work published 1769)
Exodus 21:24
Deuteronomy 19:21
Leviticus 24:19,20
Romans 12:19
PASCAL, Blaise (1670). Pensees. Penguin Books Company.
“Mina (Unit)” (2023). Mina (unit) - Wikipedia
“Sterling Silver Price” (2009-2023). Sterling Silver Price | Price of Sterling Silver | Per Ounce or Gram (cointrackers.com)
“Code of Hammurabi” (2021). Code of Hammurabi - World History Encyclopedia
“Urukagina” (2023). Urukagina - Wikipedia
“List of ancient legal codes” (2023) List of ancient legal codes - Wikipedia
Note: Pensees was used only loosely as a thought-provoker. No direct material was used.
