The code was written by King Hammurabi around 1750 BCE, a time when civilization was growing and changing rapidly (Jarus, 2022). A civilization under this dynamic prompted leaders who oversee these citizens, needed to take specific measures that would maintain peace and order in their community. Thus, the creation and implementation of the code of Hammurabi and its 282 laws.
The code and its laws were written in a cause-effect format. Each law was written in such a way that it gave clear description on the consequences that would happen should certain applicable acts and events take place and/or are committed. To point out, this format is also what this code is known for, “an eye for an eye”. The laws written in this code pioneered the concepts of being “guilty until proven innocent” and “retaliatory justice” (Andrews, 2018), which are still being used in modern law. Taking this concept into consideration, it made sense why the first few laws discussed the consequences of false accusation and the inability to prove a crime. If the claim cannot be proven or is proven to be false, then the punishment cannot take place. The rest of the laws went into specific punishments against known crimes such as theft, adultery, murder, etc.
One of the major concerns in these laws were how most of the punishments in them result to harsh penalties that inflict physical damage to the convicted, with some laws going straight for the extreme punishment of death. The harshness of the punishments implies how these laws were made to ensure that its citizens would follow it, even if it meant that they follow them out of fear. Laws were supposedly made to maintain peace and order, but these laws seemed to have been made to benefit people who belong in a better half of the society than the other.
Hammurabi the king and ruler of Babylon, he started his rain in 1792 BC ruling for 43 years. Some may call Hammurabi the founder of rules due to his idea of bringing most of the cities of Mesopotamia under one law with one set of rules being his. This can definitely be seen as a positive thing seeing as how before that each of the cities had their own set of rules and laws that people would unconsciously break and get in trouble for just for simply not knowing they even existed. Hammurabi created the Hammurabi’s code which were a set of laws adding up to a total of 282 and was written on an 8 foot stone stab. The main idea of the stone stab was to make sure everyone knew what the laws were and what the punishment for breaking them would be.
How is the Code organized?
The Code was organized by individual rights, property rights, trade, family offenses, and labor matters.
Why do you think some laws are first?
Thinking back to the stone stab, I would presume it’d only makes sense to put the most important laws first due to perhaps people not reading the full thing or getting lost in the middle somewhere. If the more important laws are places first they can be easier to see by the eye and therefor remembered more often making it more than likely not broken as likely as other laws.
What do the laws tell you about the nature of early urban life?
return you get a more structured and all in all successful society. Later on they do develop into laws we see today and become the “founding idea” if you will.
What seem to be major concerns?
Once again the major concern I saw was the eye for an eye part of the structure of the law being taken literal. The example of used of the house that the builder built getting destroyed and killing the son of the home owner due to supposed unproven a job done incorrectly therefor giving the homeowner permission to kill the builder’s son is a perfect example of my point. No where in that story is there any justice for anyone, all this does is kill off a young kid’s future that has done nothing wrong his whole life over an angry, lost, unrational decision of a father who lost his son.
Do the laws seem just? Why or why not?
A simple answer to this is no, at least in today’s society’s standards. However if we truly give it a moment’s thought and think about how the lifestyle was in the urban life, these set of laws and rules were as just as they could of been. It was definitely and improvement of the chaos spread among the people and the confusion that was there none stop, these laws helped bring order and a decent amount of justice. One can even say they had their heart in the right place but could not yet bring them to their full potential.
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