Hammurabi Quotes

Voltaire said about God that ‘there is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’. Hammurabi would have said the same about his principle of hierarchy, and Thomas Jefferson about human rights. Homo sapiens has no natural rights, just as spiders, hyenas and chimpanzees have no natural rights. But don’t tell that to our servants, lest they murder us at night.

The first duty of government is to protect the powerless from the powerful.

How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined. You always insist that the order sustaining society is an objective reality created by the great gods or by the laws of nature. People are unequal, not because Hammurabi said so, but because Enlil and Marduk decreed it. People are equal, not because Thomas Jefferson said so, but because God created them that way. Free markets are the best economic system, not because Adam Smith said so, but because these are the immutable laws of nature.

DEAR DI­ARY You are greater than the Bible And the Con­fer­ence of the Birds And the Up­an­ishads All put to­geth­er You are more se­vere Than the Scrip­tures And Ham­mura­bi’s Code More dan­ger­ous than Luther’s pa­per Nailed to the Cathe­dral door You are sweet­er Than the Song of Songs Might­ier by far Than the Epic of Gil­gamesh And braver Than the Sagas of Ice­land I bow my head in grat­itude To the ones who give their lives To keep the se­cret The dai­ly se­cret Un­der lock and key Dear Di­ary I mean no dis­re­spect But you are more sub­lime Than any Sa­cred Text Some­times just a list Of my events Is holi­er than the Bill of Rights And more in­tense

Creationists have also changed their name ... to intelligent design theorists who study 'irreducible complexity' and the 'abrupt appearance' of life—yet more jargon for 'God did it.' ... Notice that they have no interest in replacing evolution with native American creation myths or including the Code of Hammurabi alongside the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools.

Captain Kidd said, It has been said by authorities that the law should apply the same to the king and to the peasant both, it should be written out and placed in the city square for all to see, it should be written simply and in the language of the common people, lest the people grow weary of their burdens. The young man tipped his head toward the Captain with an odd look on his face, It was a kind of longing, a kind of hope. Who said that? Hammurabi.

But bankers used to be subjected to Hammurabi’s rule. The tradition in Catalonia was to behead bankers in front of their own banks

To bring about the rule of righteousness in the land so that the strong shall not harm the weak.

When Anu the Sublime, King of the Anunnaki, and Bel, the lord of Heaven and earth, who decreed the fate of the land assigned to Marduk, the over-ruling son of Ea, God of righteousness, dominion over earthly man, and made him great among the Igigi, they called Babylon by his illustrious name, made it great on earth, and founded an everlasting kingdom in it, whose foundations are laid so solidly as those of heaven and earth; then Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak, so that I should rule over the black-headed people like Shamash and enlighten the land, to further the well-being of mankind. ...When Marduk sent me to rule over men, to give the protection of right to the land, I did right and righteousness in . . . , and brought about the well-being of the oppressed. [The oldest known written code of laws from around 1772 BCE]

Then Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak.

If you notice, the moral law in the other legal codes separates people (the Laws of Manu, the caste system, the Code of Hammurabi with the slave/owner distinction). In Islam, the violator is inferior to the obedient one. By contrast, in the Hebrew-Christian tradition, the law unifies people. No one is made righteous before God by keeping the law. It is only following redemption that we can truly understand the moral law for what it is---a mirror that indicts and calls the heart to seek God's help. This makes moral reasoning the fruit of spiritual understanding and not the cause of it.

Sigmund Freud disse che non sapeva cosa vogliono le donne. Io sono così intelligente che non solo ho capito cosa c'è che non va nel mondo, il Codice di Hammurabi, ma anche cosa vogliono le donne. Le donne vogliono un sacco di persone con cui parlare. Di cosa vogliono parlare? Vogliono parlare di tutto

The Code of Hammurabi is a large, 7.5-foot-tall stele with cuneiform writing that describes 282 laws to follow for bringing stability and morality to mankind.

To us it may seem strange that the killer remains unharmed whereas his innocent daughter is killed, but to Hammurabi and the Babylonians this seemed perfectly just.

Tabla De Contenido Código de Hammurabi (1728) Ley 1: Si uno ha acusado y ha embrujado a otro y no puede justificarse, es pasible de muerte.

If these laws [in the Bible] belonged to any other ancient culture we would approach them very differently. We need not bother to reject the code of Hammurabi. Presumably it is because Moses is still felt to make some claim on us that this project of discrediting his law is persisted in with such energy. The unscholarly character of the project may derive from the supposed familiarity of the subject.

Hammurabi’s Code, for example, established a pecking order of superiors, commoners and slaves. Superiors got all the good things in life. Commoners got what was left. Slaves got a beating if they complained. Despite

In ancient Babylon King Hammurabi (the same bloke who decided barmaids could be drowned for serving short measures) decreed that the introduction of political debate into beer shops was an offence punishable by – you guessed it – death.

The famous Babylonian “Code of Hammurabi” states that tavern owners must always pour a sufficient amount of beer or face the death penalty. Trade and travel then brought beer to Egypt, where it was again associated with the work of the gods. Workers at the Giza Pyramids were given beer rations several times a day and over a hundred medicines recipes included the beverage. The Egyptians believed beer to be healthier than water and shared it with their fellow men of all ages, young and old.

El siclo de plata no era una moneda, sino 8,33 gramos de plata. Cuando el Código de Hammurabi declaraba que un hombre superior que matara a una mujer esclava tenía que pagar a su dueño 20 siclos de plata, esto significaba que debía pagar 166 gramos de plata, no 20 monedas. La mayor parte de los términos dinerarios en el Antiguo Testamento se dan en términos de plata y no de monedas. Los hermanos de José lo vendieron a los ismaelitas por veinte siclos de plata, o 166 gramos de plata (el mismo precio que una esclava; después de todo, era un joven). A

By 2200 B.C.E., five hundred years before Hammurabi issued his law code in Babylon, the civilization of the Indus Valley was a flourishing urban world of small brick houses and straight narrow streets, clean, efficient, and uniform, ruled by all-powerful theocrats whose temples were the very cities themselves.14

Voltaire said about God that ‘there is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’. Hammurabi would have said the same about his principle of hierarchy, and Thomas Jefferson about human rights. Homo sapiens has no natural rights, just as spiders, hyenas and chimpanzees have no natural rights.

It is easy to accept that Hammurabi’s Code was a myth, but we do not want to hear that human rights are also a myth. If people realise that human rights exist only in the imagination, isn’t there a danger that our society will collapse? Voltaire said about God that ‘There is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’.

Hammurabi and the American Founding Fathers alike imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens, and in the myths they invent and tell one another. These principles have no objective validity.

Let him see his judgement, let his heart become soothed.

Tanto Hammurabi como los Padres Fundadores americanos imaginaban una realidad regida por principios de justicia universales e inmutables, tales como la igualdad y la jerarquía. Pero el único lugar en el que tales principios existen es en la fértil imaginación de los sapiens, y en los mitos que inventan y se cuentan unos a otros. Estos principios no tienen validez objetiva.

It is easy for us to accept that the division of people into 'superiors' and 'commoners' is a figment of the imagination. Yet the idea that all humans are equal is also a myth. [...] Advocates and of equality and human rights may be outraged by this line of reasoning. Their response is likely to be 'We know that people are not equal biologically! But if we believe that we are all equal in essence, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society.' I have no argument with that. That is exactly what I mean by 'imagined order'. We believe in a particular order not because it is objectively true, but because believing in it enables us to cooperate effectively and forge a better society. Imagined orders are not evil conspiracies or useless mirages. Rather, they are the only way large numbers of humans can cooperate effectively. Bear in mind, though, that Hammurabi might have defended his principle of hierarchy using the same logic: 'I know that superiors, commoners and slaves are not inherently different kinds of people. But if we believe that they are, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society.

In fact, they are both wrong. Hammurabi and the American Founding Fathers alike imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens, and in the myths they invent and tell one another. These principles have no objective validity.

If Dann's dane, Ann's dirty, if he's plane she's purty, if he's fane, she's flirty, with her auburnt streams, and her coy cajoleries, and her dabblin drolleries, for to rouse his rudderup, or to drench his dreams. If hot Hammurabi, or cowld Clesiastes, could espy her pranklings, they'd burst bounds agin, and renounce their ruings, and denounce their doings, for river and iver, and a night. Amin !

Both the Code of Hammurabi and the American Declaration of Independence claim to outline universal and eternal principles of justice, but according to the Americans all people are equal, whereas according to the Babylonians people are decidedly unequal. The Americans would, of course, say that they are right, and that Hammurabi is wrong. Hammurabi, naturally, would retort that he is right, and that the Americans are wrong. In fact, they are both wrong. Hammurabi and the American Founding Fathers alike imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens, and in the myths they invent and tell one another. These principles have no objective validity.

Hammurabi’s Code was based on the premise that if the king’s subjects all accepted their positions in the hierarchy and acted accordingly, the empire’s million inhabitants would be able to cooperate effectively. Their society could then produce enough food for its members, distribute it efficiently, protect itself against its enemies, and expand its territory so as to acquire more wealth and better security.

How can myths sustain entire empires? We have already discussed one such example: Peugeot. Now let’s examine two of the best-known myths of history: the Code of Hammurabi of c.1776 BC, which served as a cooperation manual for hundreds of thousands of ancient Babylonians; and the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 AD, which today still serves as a cooperation manual for hundreds of millions of modern Americans.

Imagined orders are not evil conspiracies or useless mirages. Rather, they are the only way large numbers of humans can cooperate effectively. Bear in mind, though, that Hammurabi might have defended his principle of hierarchy using the same logic: ‘I know that superiors, commoners and slaves are not inherently different kinds of people. But if we believe that they are, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society.

If people realise that human rights exist only in the imagination, isn’t there a danger that our society will collapse? Voltaire said about God that ‘there is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’. Hammurabi would have said the same about his principle of hierarchy, and Thomas Jefferson about human rights. Homo sapiens has no natural rights, just as spiders, hyenas and chimpanzees have no natural rights. But don’t tell that to our servants, lest they murder us at night.

Watching the mirror lined walls as she made her way to the exit there was no joy no satisfaction as she watched the broken man that still sat at the table staring aimlessly into the nothingness that had become his life. Tonight he would go home not to a loving family but a room full of corpses. Corpses that she would add to if he didn’t do everything that she said. The rules that she had once lived by were gone. The honor that she once clung to even at her darkest was no more. There was no gods will, no man’s law there was only Hammurabi's Code. There was only an eye for an eye.

called state formation. One of the key turning points in many early societies is the rudimentary, usually very partial, codification of law. In ancient Athens, for example, the work of Draco in the seventh century BCE, though now a byword for harshness (‘draconian’), was notable as the first attempt there to put what had been oral rules into writing; a thousand years before that in Babylon, Hammurabi’s code did something similar. The Twelve Tables are much on that pattern. They are a long way from being a comprehensive legal code and may well never have been intended as such. Unless

according to the Americans all people are equal, whereas according to the Babylonians people are decidedly unequal. The Americans would, of course, say that they are right, and that Hammurabi is wrong. Hammurabi, naturally, would retort that he is right, and that the Americans are wrong. In fact, they are both wrong. Hammurabi and the American Founding Fathers alike imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens, and in the myths they invent and tell one another. These principles have no objective validity.

So the Sumerians worshipped Enki, and the Babylonians, who came after the Sumerians, worshipped Marduk, his son." "Yes, sir. And whenever Marduk got stuck, he would ask his father Enki for help. There is a representation of Marduk here on this stele -- the Code of Hammurabi. According to Hammurabi, the Code was given to him personally by Marduk." Hiro wanders over to the Code of Hammurabi and has a gander. The cuneiform means nothing to him, but the illustration on top is easy enough to understand. Especially the part in the middle: "Why, exactly, is Marduk handing Hammurabi a one and a zero in this picture?" Hiro asks. "They were emblems of royal power," the Librarian says. "Their origin is obscure.

The American Declaration of Independence asserts that: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Like Hammurabi’s Code, the American founding document promises that if humans act according to its sacred principles, millions of them would be able to cooperate effectively, living safely and peacefully in a just and prosperous society. Like the Code of Hammurabi, the American Declaration of Independence was not just a document of its time and place – it was accepted by future generations as well. For more than 200 years, American schoolchildren have been copying and learning it by heart. The two texts present us with an obvious dilemma. Both the Code of Hammurabi and the American Declaration of Independence claim to outline universal and eternal principles of justice, but according to the Americans all people are equal, whereas according to the Babylonians people are decidedly unequal. The Americans would, of course, say that they are right, and that Hammurabi is wrong. Hammurabi, naturally, would retort that he is right, and that the Americans are wrong. In fact, they are both wrong. Hammurabi and the American Founding Fathers alike imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens, and in the myths they invent and tell one another. These principles have no objective validity. It

How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined. You always insist that the order sustaining society is an objective reality created by the great gods or by the laws of nature. People are unequal, not because Hammurabi said so, but because Enlil and Marduk decreed it. People are equal, not because Thomas Jefferson said so, but because God created them that way. Free markets are the best economic system, not because Adam Smith said so, but because these are the immutable laws of nature. You also educate people thoroughly. From the moment they are born, you constantly remind them of the principles of the imagined order, which are incorporated into anything and everything. They are incorporated into fairy tales, dramas, paintings, songs, etiquette, political propaganda, architecture, recipes and fashions.

Advocates of equality and human rights may be outraged by this line of reasoning. Their response is likely to be, ‘We know that people are not equal biologically! But if we believe that we are all equal in essence, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society.’ I have no argument with that. This is exactly what I mean by ‘imagined order’. We believe in a particular order not because it is objectively true, but because believing in it enables us to cooperate effectively and forge a better society. Imagined orders are not evil conspiracies or useless mirages. Rather, they are the only way large numbers of humans can cooperate effectively. Bear in mind, though, that Hammurabi might have defended his principle of hierarchy using the same logic: ‘I know that superiors, commoners and slaves are not inherently different kinds of people. But if we believe that they are, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society.

Archaism, in the linguistic order, is not, in any event, synonymous with simplicity of structure, very much to the contrary. Languages generally grow poorer with the passing oftime by gradually losing the richness of their vocabulary, the ease with which they can diversify various aspects of one and the same idea, and their power of synthesis, which is the ability to express many things with few words. In order to make up for this impoverishment, modern languages have become more complicated on the rhetorical level; while perhaps gaining in surface precision, they have not done as as regards content. Language historians are astonished by the fact that Arabic was able to retain a morphology attested to as early as the Code of Hammurabi, for the nineteenth to the eighteenth century before the Christian era, and to retain a phonetic system which preserves, with the exception of a single sound, the extremly rich sound-range disclosed by the most ancient Semitic alphabets discovered, [...]

The two texts present us with an obvious dilemma. Both the Code of Hammurabi and the American Declaration of Independence claim to outline universal and eternal principles of justice, but according to the Americans all people are equal, whereas according to the Babylonians people are decidedly unequal. The Americans would, of course, say that they are right, and that Hammurabi is wrong. Hammurabi, naturally, would retort that he is right, and that the Americans are wrong. In fact, they are both wrong. Hammurabi and the American Found Fathers alike imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens, and in the myths they invent and tell one another. These principles have no objective validity. … Its likely that more than a few readers squired in their chairs while reading the preceding paragraphs. Most of us today are educated to react in such a way. It is easy to accept that Hammurabi’s Code was a myth, but we do not want to hear that human rights are also a myth. If people realise that human rights exist only in the imagination, isnt there a danger that our society will collapse? Voltaire said about God that ‘there is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’. Hammurabi would have said the same about his principle of hierarchy, and Thomas Jefferson about human rights.” -Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari (2011).

The text begins by saying that the gods Anu, Enlil and Marduk – the leading deities of the Mesopotamian pantheon – appointed Hammurabi ‘to make justice prevail in the land, to abolish the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak’.4 It then lists about 300 judgements, given in the set formula ‘If such and such a thing happens, such is the judgment.’ For example, judgements 196–9 and 209–14 read: 196. If a superior man should blind the eye of another superior man, they shall blind his eye. 197. If he should break the bone of another superior man, they shall break his bone. 198. If he should blind the eye of a commoner or break the bone of a commoner, he shall weigh and deliver 60 shekels of silver. 199. If he should blind the eye of a slave of a superior man or break the bone of a slave of a superior man, he shall weigh and deliver one-half of the slave’s value (in silver).5 209. If a superior man strikes a woman of superior class and thereby causes her to miscarry her fetus, he shall weigh and deliver ten shekels of silver for her fetus. 210. If that woman should die, they shall kill his daughter. 211. If he should cause a woman of commoner class to miscarry her fetus by the beating, he shall weigh and deliver five shekels of silver. 212. If that woman should die, he shall weigh and deliver thirty shekels of silver. 213. If he strikes a slave-woman of a superior man and thereby causes her to miscarry her fetus, he shall weigh and deliver two shekels of silver. 214. If that slave-woman should die, he shall weigh and deliver twenty shekels of silver.

Why, exactly, is Marduk handing Hammurabi a one and a zero in this picture?" Hiro asks. "They were emblems of royal power," the Librarian says. "Their origin is obscure." "Enki must have been responsible for that one," Hiro says. "Enki's most important role is as the creator and guardian of the me and the gis-hur, the 'key words' and 'patterns' that rule the universe." "Tell me more about the me." "To quote Kramer and Maier again, '[They believed in] the existence from time primordial of a fundamental, unalterable, comprehensive assortment of powers and duties, norms and standards, rules and regulations, known as me, relating to the cosmos and its components, to gods and humans, to cities and countries, and to the varied aspects of civilized life.'" "Kind of like the Torah." "Yes, but they have a kind of mystical or magical force. And they often deal with banal subjects -- not just religion." "Examples?" "In one myth, the goddess Inanna goes to Eridu and tricks Enki into giving her ninety-four me and brings them back to her home town of Uruk, where they are greeted with much commotion and rejoicing." "Inanna is the person that Juanita's obsessed with." "Yes, sir. She is hailed as a savior because 'she brought the perfect execution of the me.'" "Execution? Like executing a computer program?" "Yes. Apparently, they are like algorithms for carrying out certain activities essential to the society. Some of them have to do with the workings of priesthood and kingship. Some explain how to carry out religious ceremonies. Some relate to the arts of war and diplomacy. Many of them are about the arts and crafts: music, carpentry, smithing, tanning, building, farming, even such simple tasks as lighting fires." "The operating system of society." "I'm sorry?" "When you first turn on a computer, it is an inert collection of circuits that can't really do anything. To start up the machine, you have to infuse those circuits with a collection of rules that tell it how to function. How to be a computer. It sounds as though these me served as the operating system of the society, organizing an inert collection of people into a functioning system." "As you wish. In any case, Enki was the guardian of the me." "So he was a good guy, really." "He was the most beloved of the gods." "He sounds like kind of a hacker.

Biyoloji bilimine göre insanlar “yaratılmamış“, evrimleşmiştir. Ve evrim kesinlikle eşitlikçi değildir. Eşitlik fikri yaradılış inancıyla iç içe geçmiştir. Amerikalılar eşitlik fikrini Hıristiyanlıktan almışlardır, buna göre de her insanın ilahi şekilde yaratılmış bir ruhu vardır ve tüm ruhlar Tanrı önünde eşittir. Ancak eğer Hıristiyanların tanrı, yaradılış ve ruhlar hakkındaki mitlerine inanmıyorsak, tüm insanların “eşit” olması ne anlama gelmektedir? Evrim eşitlik değil farklılık üzerine kuruludur. Her insan diğerlerinden az da olsa farklı bir genetik kod taşır ve doğumundan itibaren farklı çevresel etkilere maruz kalır. Bu durum, insanların hayatta kalmaya farklı şekilde etki eden farklı özellikler geliştirmelerini sağlar. “Eşit yaratılmıştır” ifadesi bu yüzden aslında “farklı yönde evrilmiştir” olarak tercüme edilmelidir. İnsanlar yaratılmamış olduğu gibi, biyoloji bilimine göre ortada bu insanlara bir şeyler “bahşeden” bir “Yaratıcı” falan da yoktur. Ortada sadece hiçbir amacı olmayan son derece “körü körüne” ilerleyen bir evrimsel süreç var ve bu da insanların “doğmasını” sağlıyor. “Yaratıcı tarafından bahşedilmiş“, aslında “doğmuş” olarak tercüme edilmelidir. Benzer şekilde, biyolojide hak diye bir şey de yoktur. Sadece organlar, beceriler ve özellikler vardır. Kuşlar uçmaya hakkı olduğu için değil kanatları olduğu için uçar. Ayrıca bu organların, becerilerin ve özelliklerin kimsenin “elinden alınamaz” olması söz konusu değildir. Pek çoğu sürekli mutasyon halindedir ve zamanla yok olmaları da gayet mümkündür. Örneğin deve kuşu uçma becerisini kaybetmiş bir kuştur. Bu yüzden “kimsenin elinden alınamaz” haklar, “mutasyona uğrayabilen özellikler” olarak tercüme edilmelidir. İnsanların evrimleşmiş özellikleri nedir? Elbette öncelikle “hayat“tır. Peki ya “özgürlük“? Biyolojide özgürlük yoktur. Tıpkı eşitlik, haklar ve sınırlı sorumlu şirketler gibi özgürlük de insanların icat ettiği ve ancak hayal güçlerinde yaşattığı bir kavramdır. Biyolojik bakış açısıyla bakıldığında, insanların demokrasilerde özgür, diktatörlüklerde özgürlüklerinden mahrum yaşadıklarını söylemenin hiçbir anlamı yoktur. şitlik ve insan hakları savunucuları bu mantık yürütme karşısında çok tepkili olabilirler. Buna cevapları muhtemelen, “İnsanların biyolojik olarak eşit olmadığını biliyoruz! Fakat eğer özünde hepimizin eşit olduğuna inanırsak istikrarlı ve müreffeh bir toplum yaratabiliriz,” olacaktır. Benim buna bir itirazım yok. Benim de “hayali düzen“le kastettiğim tam olarak bu. Belirli bir düzene nesnel bir doğru olduğu için değil, buna inanmak etkili bir işbirliği yapmamızı ve daha iyi bir toplum kurmamızı sağlayacağı için inanıyoruz. Hayali düzenler kötü niyetli komplolar veya amaçsız seraplar değildir, aksine çok sayıda insanın etkin işbirliği yapabilmesinin tek yoludur. Bu arada unutmamak gerekir ki, Hammurabi de hiyerarşi ilkesini aynı mantıkla savunabilirdi: “Biliyorum ki, üstün insanlar, sıradan insanlar ve köleler özünde farklı insanlar değillerdir. Ama eğer onların farklı olduğuna inanırsak istikrarlı ve müreffeh bir toplum kurabiliriz.

The country to the north of Babylonia was known as Assyria at the time of the kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon, and the fact that Babylonian troops were stationed there by Hammurabi proved that the country formed an integral part of the Babylonian empire.

For the First Dynasty of Babylon, to which the famous Hammurabi belonged, was very probably of Arab origin, to judge by the forms of some of the royal names. It is by no means impossible that there was some connection between these two conquests, and that both Babylonia and Egypt fell, in the period before the year 2000 B.C. before some great migratory movement from Arabia, which overran Babylonia, Palestine, and even the Egyptian Delta.

One of Hammurabi's letters proves that the king regulated the calendar, and it is legitimate to suppose that he sought the advice of his astrologers as to the times when intercalary months were to be inserted.

Under the Sumerians the wife could not obtain a divorce at all, and the penalty for denying her husband was death. These regulations were modified in favour of the woman in Hammurabi's code; for under its provisions, if a man divorced his wife or his concubine, he was obliged to make proper provision for her maintenance.

I've been hearing about how good and kind and merciful that old boy is upstairs, but I've read the Old Testament. You just take a look at all the folks that Jehovah decreed needed to burned or sacked and smited out of their homes. That old fellow is a psychopathic serial killer, you just check the facts.

As noted, in ancient mythology, the Code of Hammurabi was provided to the Babylonian lawgiver by Shamash, in a similar manner in which Moses/Mosheh was said to receive the 10 Commandments from the solar Yahweh.

Voltaire said about God that ‘there is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’. Hammurabi would have said the same about his principle of hierarchy, and Thomas Jefferson about human rights.

The Code of Hammurabi Detailed legal pronouncements for numerous situations can be found also in the Code of Hammurabi, which dates to the 18th century BCE and in which four of the 10 biblical commandments appear repeatedly. For example, the ninth of the Ten Commandments or Decalogue is, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” whereas in the Code of Hammurabi, we read: “1. If a man bring an accusation against a man, and charge him with a (capital) crime, but cannot prove it, he, the accuser, shall be put to death…. 3. If a man, in a case (pending judgment), bear false (threatening) witness, or do not establish the testimony that he has given, if that case be a case involving life, that man shall be put to death.”833

Pero la suerte le acosó a él, volviéndolo sin fortuna en sus empresas, desde el momento mismo en que, en 1828, comunicó a los invasores peruanos que los aguardaría en Pasto para acompañarlos hasta Bogotá. En el poder no duró sino un año; lo demás, resúmese en éxitos fugaces, sublevaciones, prisión, huida, destierro, desesperada autodefensa constante en vista de las acusaciones que se le hacen del crimen de Berruecos, en un lapso de treinta años duros, tormentosos. La vieja ley del talión, constante en el Código de Hammurabi y en el libro bíblico del Éxodo, lo persiguió tenazmente. Las sospechas de responsabilidad en el asesinato cayeron sobre él desde el primer instante. A tal punto que el propio Flores, desde Guayaquil, a solo diez días de distancia del fatal suceso, escribíale (14 de junio) a título informativo, como para describirle el ambiente: “Es preciso confesar que aquí no se te ha culpado, porque nadie ha podido figurarse que un hombre de sentimientos sea capaz de semejante iniquidad”. En estas palabras, Flores dejaba entrever la fatal sugerencia. Y añadía: “Aunque tú, por las circunstancias, hayas desconfiado de mi amistad, yo he sabido, como antes, ponerte al abrigo de toda sospecha”. Obando obró contra el mariscal, hasta eliminarlo por consigna de bandería política, odio personal, ambición. ¡Muertos Bolívar y Sucre, ascendieron, ya sin obstáculo, todos los aspirantes!

You mean Christians invented war, invented religious war, invented slavery and racial prejudice and treating women like objects and all that?” “Well, yeah–” “None of those things ever happened before Christianity existed?” Tom started to answer and stopped. War had been around forever. The ancient Egyptians, the Jews, and the Romans had fought wars over religion. Slavery went back to Mesopotamia and beyond. The Chinese had long called outsiders “foreign devils.” And in the Code of Hammurabi, the penalty for killing another man’s daughter had been for him to kill your daughter.

La estela de Hammurabi (la columna de piedra sobre la que se grabó su código) establecía claramente que su finalidad era asegurar la justicia haciendo pública la ley: Que el hombre oprimido que tenga un pleito venga a presencia de mi estatua y lea atentamente mi estela inscrita.

People blame capitalism for social ills that have long caused great misery. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—oppression, war, famine, and devastation—come to mind. Unattractive personal motives, traits like greed and indifference to suffering, are often projected onto capitalists. Greed is as old as Hammurabi’s code. It could be said that capitalism is the first economic system that depends upon greed—at least upon the desire of bettering one’s condition, as Smith said.

If you are or have ever been a girl, you know that girls are aggressive. This is news the way the Code of Hammurabi is news. Yet the girls in station break Candyland are never aggressive; in fact, they are getting gooier by the year. Nor are the girls who prance through the meadows of biological theory ever aggressive. No, they’re prosocial. They’re verbal, interactive, attentive, amiable. They’re the friends you wish you could buy along with the Belchee Baby you saw on TV.

What surprises historians of language is that Arabic has been able to preserve a morphology already exemplified by Hammurabi's code in the nineteenth or eighteenth century B.C., and a phonetic system which perpetuates, apart from one single sound, the very rich sound range borne witness to by the most ancient Semitic alphabets discovered.

Voltaire said about God that ‘There is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’. Hammurabi

the Code of Hammurabi of c.1776 BC, which served as a cooperation manual for hundreds of thousands of ancient Babylonians; and the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 AD, which today still serves as a cooperation manual for hundreds of millions of modern Americans.

The text begins by saying that the gods Anu, Enlil and Marduk – the leading deities of the Mesopotamian pantheon – appointed Hammurabi ‘to make justice prevail in the land, to abolish the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak’.

1776 BC Babylon was the world’s biggest city. The Babylonian Empire was probably the world’s largest, with more than a million subjects. It ruled most of Mesopotamia, including the bulk of modern Iraq and parts of present-day Syria and Iran. The Babylonian king most famous today was Hammurabi. His fame is due primarily to the text that bears his name, the Code of Hammurabi. This was a collection of laws and judicial decisions whose aim was to present Hammurabi as a role model of a just king, serve as a basis for a more uniform legal system across the Babylonian Empire, and teach future generations what justice is and how a just king acts. Future generations took notice. The intellectual and bureaucratic elite of ancient Mesopotamia canonised the text, and apprentice scribes continued to copy it long after Hammurabi died and his empire lay in ruins. Hammurabi’s Code is therefore a good source for understanding the ancient Mesopotamians’ ideal of social order.3 The text begins by saying that the gods Anu, Enlil and Marduk – the leading deities of the Mesopotamian pantheon – appointed Hammurabi ‘to make justice prevail in the land, to abolish the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak’.4 It then lists about 300 judgements, given in the set formula ‘If such and such a thing happens, such is the judgment.

We are told at one point that a Hittite king named Mursili I, grandson and successor of the above-named Hattusili I, marched his army all the way to Mesopotamia, a journey of over one thousand miles, and attacked the city of Babylon in 1595 BC, burning it to the ground and ending the two-hundred-year-old dynasty made famous by Hammurabi “the Law-Giver.” Then, instead of occupying the city, he simply turned the Hittite army around and headed for home, thus effectively conducting the longest drive-by shooting in history.

The disenfranchisement of women from inheriting land was particular to Israel in the ancient world. Just as Israel was relatively isolated in largely restricting women from public and professional religious roles, they were also virtually alone in legislating women’s exclusion from property law. Women throughout the ancient Near East, from Egypt to Mesopotamia broadly, and specifically in places like Sumer, Ugarit, and Elam, owned and inherited property for more than a thousand years before the codification of Israelite law. The codes of Hammurabi and Israel’s Hittite neighbors also legally enfranchised the property rights of women.

When the old Ptolemaic model had accumulated so many epicycles that the movement of the stars became complicated and unreadable, a change became necessary. The center of the system was moved toward the sun, and everything became clear again. The written code of Hammurabi no doubt put an end to the socio-juridical difficulties that had arisen in oral law. Our own complexities come from a crisis of writing.

Hammurabi’s

Hammurabi instead dammed up the river which supplied the city with water and waited as the inhabitants began to die of thirst.

Hammurabi’s Code of Laws applied to all three levels of Babylonian society.

By 1750 BCE, Hammurabi was around 60 years of age and had become increasingly frail.

In this year he passed the rule of Babylon to his son, Samsu-iluna. Hammurabi died later the same year.

Hammurabi encouraged the pursuit of art, science, music, mathematics, literature, and astronomy,

Hammurabi dubbed himself “King of the Four Quarters of the World” and named his kingdom Babylonia.

Hammurabi a taste for conquest. In 1761 BCE, he suddenly broke off an alliance with King Zimri-Lim,

Hammurabi’s forces also conquered one of the last remaining city-states in the area, Eshnunna.

Hammurabi next turned his attention to the Assyrian Empire in the north.

By 1755 BCE, Hammurabi and Babylon controlled almost all of ancient Mesopotamia,

Hammurabi and the growing power of Babylon contained the seeds of its destruction.

These lands conquered by Hammurabi returned to control of the Assyrians within twenty years of his death.

Hammurabi not only defeated the armies of Mari, but he also conquered the city and had it completely destroyed.

King Hammurabi and the Babylonian Empire

Circa 1792 BCE, a new king took the throne in Babylon. Hammurabi was only around twenty years old

in the early years of his rule, Hammurabi was very careful not to offend any of his more powerful neighbors.

Hammurabi also introduced a set of laws to be used in all the cities under his control,

The laws, which became known as the Hammurabi Code, are not a complete set of laws as we understand them today

The Hammurabi Code was one of the earliest attempts to enact a uniform set of behaviors

The intention was to foster a sense of fairness and equality amongst those ruled by King Hammurabi, and

Voltaire said about God that ‘there is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’. Hammurabi would have said the same about his principle of hierarchy, and Thomas Jefferson about human rights. Homo sapiens has no natural rights, just as spiders, hyenas and chimpanzees have no natural rights. But don’t tell that to our servants, lest they murder us at night. Such fears are well justified. A natural order is a stable order. There is no chance that gravity will cease to function tomorrow, even if people stop believing in it. In contrast, an imagined order is always in danger of collapse, because it depends upon myths, and myths vanish once people stop believing in them.

The advent of the first ledger technology can be traced back to roughly 3000 BCE, in ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). Of the tens of thousands of clay tablets the Mesopotamians left behind, most are, well, ledgers: records of taxes, payments, private wealth, worker pay. The famous Code of Hammurabi—the Babylonians’ system of law—was written on one of these ledgers, but most of the kings had their own rules set out as well. The rise of these ledgers matched the rise of the first large-scale civilizations. Why have ledgers been so important throughout history? Exchanges of goods and services have defined the expansion of societies, but this was possible only if people could keep track of the exchanges. It wasn’t so difficult for everyone in a small village to remember that someone had killed a pig and to trust—a word we’ll encounter throughout this book—that all who ate of it would find some way to later repay the hunter, perhaps with a new arrowhead or some other thing of value. It was another to manage these cross-societal obligations across a larger group of strangers—especially when moving outside of kinship boundaries made it harder to trust each other. Ledgers are record-keeping devices that help deal with those problems of complexity and trust.

Double-entry accounting was popularized in Europe toward the end of the fifteenth century, and most scholars believe it set the table for the flowering of the Renaissance and the emergence of modern capitalism. What is far less well understood is the why. Why was something as dull as bookkeeping so integral to a complete cultural revolution in Europe? Over nearly seven centuries, “the books” have become something that, in our collective minds, we equate with truth itself—even if only subconsciously. When we doubt a candidate’s claims of wealth, we want to go to his bank records—his personal balance sheet. When a company wants to tap the public markets for capital, they have to open their books to prospective investors. To remain in the market, they need accountants to verify those books regularly. Well-maintained and clear accounting is sacrosanct. The ascendance of bookkeeping to a level equal to truth itself happened over many centuries, and began with the outright hostility European Christendom had to lending before double-entry booking came along. The ancients were pretty comfortable with debt. The Babylonians set the tone in the famous Code of Hammurabi, which offered rules for handling loans, debts, and repayments. The Judeo-Christian tradition, though, had a real ax to grind against the business of lending. “Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother,” Deuteronomy 23:19–20 declares. “In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God,” Ezekiel 22:12 states. As Christianity flourished, this deep anti-usury culture continued for more than a thousand years, a stance that coincided with the Dark Ages, when Europe, having lost the glories of ancient Greece and Rome, also lost nearly all comprehension of math. The only people who really needed the science of numbers were monks trying to figure out the correct dates for Easter.

People who are different are dangerous, they belong to another tribe; they want our lands and our women. We must marry, have children, reproduce the species. Love is only a small thing,, enough for one person, and any suggestion that the heart might be larger than this is considered perverse. When we marry we are authorized to take possession of the other person, body and soul. We must do jobs we detest because we are part of an organized society and if everyone did what they wanted to do, the world would come to a standstill We must buy jewellery, it identifies us with our tribe, just as body piercing identifies those of a different tribe. We must be amusing at all times and sheer at those who express their real feelings, it is dangerous to a tribe to allow its members to show their feelings. We must at all costs avoid saying "No" because people prefer those who always say "Yes", and this allows us to survive in hostile territory. What other people think is more important than what we feel. Never make a fuss, it might attract the attention of an enemy tribe because you could infect others and destroy something that was extremely difficult to organize in the first place. We must always consider the look of our new cave, and if we don't have a clear idea of our own, then we must call in a decorator who will do his best to show others what good taste we have. We must eat three meals a day, even if we're not hungry, and when we fail to fit in the current ideal of beauty we must fast, even if we're starving. We must dress according to the dictates of fashion, make love whether we feel like it or not, kill in the name of our country's frontiers, wish time away so that retirements comes more quickly, elect politicians, complain about the cost of living, change our hairstyle, criticize anyone who is different, go to a religious service on Sunday, Saturday or Friday , depending on our religion, and there beg for forgiveness for our sins and puff ourselves up with the other tribe who worship another god. Our children must follow in our steps, after all we are older and know about the world. We must have a university degree even if we never get a job in the area of knowledge we were forced to study. We must study things we will never use but which someone told us was important to know: algebra, trigonometry, the code of Hammurabi. We must never make our parents sad, even if this means giving up everything that makes us happy. We must play music quietly, talk quietly, weep in private

The most famous ruler of this period was Hammurabi, who lived circa 1810–1750 BCE. He is best known for the Code of Hammurabi—a set of laws inscribed on a black basalt pillar that now stands in the Louvre Museum. Hammurabi’s code specifies the rate of interest on silver at 20% and on barley at 33⅓%. What is most important about the code is not what is says but what it represents. The code is a uniform legal framework for the entire Babylonian empire. It covered everything from criminal law to family law, commercial practice to property rights. It details a range of punishments for transgressions, methods of dispute resolution, and attributions of fault for various offenses. It specifies the roles of judge, jury, witnesses, plaintiffs, and defendants. It recognizes and elaborates the rights of ownership of property, including rights to lease and rights of eminent domain. It specifies the role of the written document in a contractual obligation, the necessity of receipts, and what should be done if they do not exist. It specifies legal tender. It describes the obligations of merchants, brokers, and agents and their fiduciary duties and limits to their liabilities in case of attack or theft. It places limits on the term of debt indenture (three years). In short, it creates a comprehensive, uniform framework for commerce.

It is easy to accept that Hammurabi’s Code was a myth, but we do not want to hear that human rights are also a myth. If people realise that human rights exist only in the imagination, isn’t there a danger that our society will collapse? Voltaire said about God that ‘There is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’. Hammurabi would have said the same about his principle of hierarchy, and Thomas Jefferson about human rights. Homo sapiens has no natural rights, just as spiders, hyenas and chimpanzees have no natural rights. But don’t tell that to our servants, lest they murder us at night.

Hammurabi might have defended his principle of hierarchy using the same logic: ‘I know that superiors, commoners and slaves are not inherently different kinds of people. But if we believe that they are, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society.’ Voltaire said about God that ‘there is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’. Hammurabi would have said the same about his principle of hierarchy, and Thomas Jefferson about human rights.

Tenacious dynasties of city-kings seem to have flourished at Kish ca. 4500 B.C., and at Ur ca. 3500 B.C. In the competition of these two primeval centers we have the first form of that opposition between Semite and non-Semite which was to be one bloody theme of Near-Eastern history from the Semitic ascendancy of Kish and the conquests of the Semitic kings Sargon I and Hammurabi, through the capture of Babylon by the “Aryan” generals Cyrus and Alexander in the sixth and fourth centuries before Christ, and the conflicts of Crusaders and Saracens for the Holy Sepulchre and the emoluments of trade, down to the efforts of the British Government to dominate and pacify the divided Semites of the Near East

Everything in religious law comes down to the refinements, applications, and interpretations of the Golden Rule, “Don’t do unto others what you don’t want them to do to you.” This we saw was the logic behind Hammurabi’s rule.

In 1776 BC Babylon was the world’s biggest city. The Babylonian Empire was probably the world’s largest, with more than a million subjects. It ruled most of Mesopotamia, including the bulk of modern Iraq and parts of present-day Syria and Iran. The Babylonian king most famous today is Hammurabi. His fame is due primarily to the text that bears his name, the Code of Hammurabi. This was a collection of laws and judicial decisions whose aim was to present Hammurabi as a role model of a just king, serve as a basis for a more uniform legal system across the Babylonian Empire, and teach future generations what justice is and how a just king acts.

Hammurabi’s Code asserts that Babylonian social order is rooted in universal and eternal principles of justice, dictated by the gods. The principle of hierarchy is of paramount importance. According to the code, people are divided into two genders and three classes: superior people, commoners and slaves. Members of each gender and class have different values. The life of a female commoner is worth thirty silver shekels and that of a slave-woman twenty silver shekels, whereas the eye of a male commoner is worth sixty silver shekels.

Among the first written codes is that of Hammurabi, king and creator of the Babylonian empire. It appeared in about 1760 bc, and is one of the earliest instances of a ruler proclaiming a systematic corpus of law to his people so that they are able to know their rights and duties.