By The Rev. C. H. W. Johns, M.A., Litt.D. Master of St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge The Schweich Lectures 1912 London Published for the British Academy By Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press Amen Corner, E.C. 1914 OXFORD: HORACE HART PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY...

It has long been held that the laws of the Israelites, as revealed by God to Moses, by him embodied in the books of the Pentateuch and since preserved by the zealous care of the Jewish people, are incomparable. Accordingly they have been adopted professedly by most Christian nations and were early accepted by our own king Alfred 1 as the basis of the law system of this our land. We live in an age of devotion to comparative methods, when it is an article of faith to hold that the most fruitful me

The discovery of the principal record of the system of enactments now known by the name of the Code of Hammurabi was made in December 1901 and January 1902. At Susa, the ancient Persepolis, named ‘Shushan the Palace’ in the Book of Daniel, situated in Persia, once the ancient capital of Elam, the excavators, working under the direction of J. de Morgan for the French Ministry of Instruction, found three large pieces of black diorite, which when fitted together formed a monolith stela, about 2·25

In my first lecture I tried to set out in brief some of the most striking features of the Babylonian Code of Laws due to the famous king Hammurabi, especially such as were likely to be useful for our comparison with the laws of Israel. We must, however, have a precise idea of the laws of Israel before we can institute a comparison. Now this is by no means so easy to obtain as one might expect. It is indeed true that the laws of the Hebrew peoples, as set out in the so-called Books of Moses, have

In the first and second lectures we have dwelt upon the external features of the two codes of law to be compared, and pointed out some things remarkably similar. We have now to consider the various theories which have been propounded to account for them. The progress of the discussion has shown that the higher critics are as eager as the orthodox Jewish or Christian writers to repel the oft-repeated assertions of dependence. There are obviously many ways of treating the resemblances and accounti

In 1890, F. E. Peiser published in his thesis Iurisprudentiae Babylonicae quae supersunt (Cöthen, P. Schettler’s Erben) a number of fragments of Babylonian Codes of Laws, and aptly illustrated them by relevant legal documents. In 1902, Br. Meissner published what proved to be some fragments of the Code of Hammurabi, from copies made for Ashurbanipal’s Library at Nineveh, now preserved in the British Museum. These appeared in the Third Volume of the Beiträge zur Assyriologie (Leipzig, Hinrichs, 1

was first published by V. Scheil in the Fourth Volume of the Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse , pp. 11-162, with transcriptions, translation, and some notes (Paris, E. Leroux, 1902). Fragments of a second example of the Stele were also given by V. Scheil in the Tenth Volume of the Mémoires , pp. 81-84 (1908). All subsequent editions of the text are based upon this edition. The original monument being now in the Louvre at Paris and a superb cast of it in the Babylonian Room of the British Museu

Having published an important article on The Chirography of the Hammurabi Code in the American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures , vol. xx, pp. 137-48 (Chicago University Press, 1904), R. F. Harper proceeded to issue a revised edition of the cuneiform text, with a transcription, a new translation, vocabulary, indexes, and list of signs, under the title The Code of Hammurabi (Chicago University Press, 1904), which forms a most convenient student’s handbook for English readers. In 1909,

Many works appeared which took V. Scheil ’s transcription and translation as sufficient, only varying from it where the author was already possessed of independent knowledge, or had worked over the text with a view to improve the renderings. H. Winckler , in November, 1902, set out Die Gesetze Hammurabis, Königs von Babylon um 2250 v. Chr. as Part 4 of Volume IV of Der alte Orient (Leipzig, Hinrichs), a complete translation with valuable introduction and short useful notes. It was followed by a

Of translations there was early no lack. Scheil ’s appeared in October, 1902, Winckler ’s first, the following month. The Oldest Code of Laws in the World , a baldly literal translation of the Code alone, with a short introduction and index of subjects by C. H. W. Johns , appeared in February, 1903 (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh). Le leggi di Hammurabi re di Babilonia (a. 2285-2242 a. C.) con prefazione e note , by P. Bonfante (Milano, 1903), and Il codice di Hammurabi e la Bibbia , by Fr. Ma

All the above works contained more or less discussion of the Code from various points of view. In October, 1902, the present writer read a paper before the Cambridge Theological Society , an abstract of which appeared in the January number of the Journal of Theological Studies (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1903). The Code was here dealt with as material for comparison with the Laws of Moses , but no comparison was made. A. Ungnad wrote Zur Syntax der Gesetze Hammurabis in vol. xvii of the Zeitschrif

Many discussions arose as to the meaning of particular sections. Thus C F. Lehmann(-Haupt) wrote in Klio , vol. iii, pp. 32-41 (1904), on Ein missverstandenes Gesetz Hammurabis , which was also taken as the title of an article by F. E. Peiser in Orientalistische Litteraturzeitung , vol. vii, cols. 236-7 (1904). Neither of these scholars can be said to have quite settled the questions they had raised; but the subject of §§ 185-93 was greatly cleared by their thoughtful treatment. In 1908 M. Schor

Considerable weight may ultimately have to be laid on the grouping of the laws by ‘tens’ or ‘fives’. This aspect had been discussed by D. G. Lyon in the Journal of the American Oriental Society , vol. xxv, pp. 248-65, as The Structure of the Hammurabi Code (New Haven, Conn., 1904). C. F. Kent in his excellent work on Israel’s Laws and Legal Precedents (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1907) makes considerable use of a division of Hebrew laws into groups of five or ten, of which the Ten Comman

As early as October and November, 1902, there appeared Le Code Babylonien d’Hammourabi in the Journal des Savants (Paris, Hachette), by R. Dareste , giving a luminous account of the subject-matter of the Code, illustrating it by comparison with a number of ancient legislations. He, of course, based his conclusions entirely upon Scheil’s translation, but his work still remains most valuable. In 1903 appeared Schmersahl’s Das älteste Gesetzbuch der Welt: Die Gesetze Hammurabis in the Deutsche Juri

Most of the discussions and editions above referred to deal with points in the lexicography. The edition by Ungnad in his Band II, named on p. 68, gives the latest results of the investigations in this domain. A few other works deserving of note will be added here. The meaning of amêlu was elucidated by H. Winckler in his Altorientalische Forschungen , ii, pp. 312-15, 1901 (Leipzig, Pfeiffer). The difficult word mushkênu , rendered noble by Scheil and after him by Dareste and others, was given t

At all times the great temples of Assyria and Babylonia kept extensive accounts of even daily revenue and expenditure. These accounts were most carefully preserved, being written with special care on well selected clay, and have reached us as a rule in exceptionally fine condition. They give us an immense mass of information, largely consisting of dry and disconnected items, but helping to build up knowledge. The French explorations made by De Sarzec at Telloh resulted in the discovery of an eno

Many texts published in the above collections of Temple Accounts are bonds, deeds of sale, even legal decisions, &c., and really come under the head of contracts. But even among the collections of contracts some accounts have been published, and it is scarcely necessary here to quote the same book under both heads. Curiously enough the first contracts to attract attention were of an early date. Loftus found at Senkereh a number of most interesting case-tablets, the principal document bei

A very large number of letters have been preserved to us from all periods of Babylonian and Assyrian history. Many of them are addressed to private correspondents, and concern matters of everyday life. They are often most obscure, as they assume so much knowledge on the part of the recipient which is withheld from us. Where we can grasp their reference they furnish considerable light upon social conditions. A large number, however, are royal letters or dispatches from the king and his officers t

[1] This, at any rate, is usually stated on the authority of the monkish chroniclers. J. R. Green in A Short History of the English People (London, Macmillan, 1875), p. 46, records that the Ten Commandments and a portion of the Law of Moses were prefixed to the code drawn up by Alfred and so became part of the law of the land. Whether this ancient tradition will survive modern criticism remains to be seen. The tradition at any rate continues to command widespread credence. [2] It has been pointe