11 February 2025
The third chapter covers law codes and related materials, and is easily the strongest showing among various Ancient Near Easter parallel sources. The introduction is brief, but the subject matter is pretty fat.
Start with Sumerian sources, we have the Reform of Uru'inimgina, circa 2350 BC. It was found in the collection of cuneiform cones discovered in the ruins of Lagash. The site itself dates from 1800s BC, so this was already ancient materials. The nature of the material is still debated, but the summary suggests that King Uru'inimgina wanted to reduce the bureaucratic hassles for common folks.
Also from Sumerian sources, the Law of Ur-nammu are better known. While it appears to be legislation sponsored by King Ur-nammu (Ur III Dynasty, 2064-2046 BC), some say it was actually his son. The prologue says there were 31 laws, but only 22 have been found in fragments. It appears to be family and tort liability law.
Finally we have the Sumerian Laws of Lipit-Ishtar, King of Isin (1875-1864 BC) found at the site of Nippur. It's largely civil law instead of criminal.
From the Old Babylonian Period (1894-1595 BC) we start with the Laws of Eshnunna, a place, not a person. Dating from the 1800s BC, 60 paragraphs cover both civil and criminal law.
The best known law code is that of King Hammurabi of Babylon, 1792-1750 BC. The primary copy is a crystal stele found in the ruins of Susa, well attested by numerous clay copies and stone fragments. Between the prologue and epilogue are 282 laws of both civil and criminal codes.
Less well known from Old Babylon is the Edict of Ammisaduqa, another King of Babylon (1646-1626 BC), of which all copies were found in the ruins of Sippar. Rather than a law code, it represents the known practice of royalty, upon accession to the throne, declaring a Jubilee from debts.
Middle Assyrian law codes are represented by the royal edicts collected by Tiglath-pileser I (1115-1077 BC). The archive covers two centuries, more than 100 laws on civil and criminal matters.
From the Old Hittite Period covering 1600s to 1400s BC we a couple of tablets announcing updates to civil and criminal legislation from those centuries -- two hundred laws.
Walton saves for last the various Old Testament codes recognized by scholars:
Keep in mind the dominance of secular scholars and liberals who view any recapitulation of established code to be a different thing entirely from any previous recorded code. They simply cannot accept the idea that God would rehash things in different words, which humans do all the time.
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