The Decalogue forbids patently reprehensible acts; but the prohibition against coveting is a potentially victimless offense and is the only one that exclusively addresses men. Moreover, this tenth commandment has no clear parallels in ancient Near Eastern law. An anecdote in a fourteenth-century Hittite text, however, suggests that its roots are in treaty tradition.
Hammurabi’s Laws and other ancient Near Eastern legal collections were sanctioned by the gods, but crafted by kings. How and why did the laws in the Torah become God’s 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 2nd 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.
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?
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.
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?
The anomalous and paradoxical nature of the twelfth curse – Deuteronomy 27:26.
Jewish and Christian tradition ascribes authorship of the Pentateuch to Moses in the 13th century B.C.E. Is this what the Pentateuch itself implies about who wrote it and when?
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?
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”?
Thoughts on Torah Min HaShamayim
In the 14th 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.
Ezekiel challenges the divine (in)justice of intergeneration
From the range of responses to women’s sexual offenses in ancient Near Eastern legal traditions, why does Deuteronomy select the harshest options? The scribes who composed these laws drew an analogy between women’s fidelity to their husbands and fathers and Israel’s fidelity to YHWH, viewing both forms of exclusive allegiance as essential to the wholeness of society.
A Comparative Analysis
