得窥天境
得窥天境，须看透红尘万丈；人神相通，只凭借灵犀一缕。信靠耶稣，此外路路是绝望；坚定不移，万里迢迢聚天堂。
| Figure 3.5 Hammurabi Monument The Code of Hammurabi contains 282 laws chiseled onto a pillar of basalt rock. The upper register is a picture of Hammurabi kneeling in prayer before the sun god Shamash, the patron god of justice. The bottom register contains the Code of Hammurabi in cuneiform. This standing stone was a monument to justice and did not first of all function as a reference manual for the use of judges at court, but gave public testimony to the character of Hammurabi as a promoter of righteousness. 18th century B.C.E., Musée du Louvre, Paris -- Gianni Dagli Orti/Corbis |
The most famous collection is the Code of Hammurabi (see Figure 3.5). Hammurabi was a Babylonian ruler from the eighteenth century B.C.E. The code begins with Hammurabi's call
"...to promote the welfare of the people . . . to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil that the strong might not oppress the weak." (Pritchard 1969: 164)There are notable similarities between the Code of Hammurabi and certain Israelite legal materials, especially the Book of the Covenant. For instance, as in Israelite law, the Code of Hammurabi contains the law of retribution in kind (lex talionis), which prescribes proportional punishment: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Code of Hammurabi
If a man has destroyed the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye. If he has broken another man's bone, they shall break his bone. (196-97)Book of the Covenant
If any injury occurs, you shall take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, beating for beating. (21:23-25)While such physical retaliation may seem brutal, in fact, it was humane in its day. Specifying restitution in kind prevented resort to harsher punishments for such offenses, typically the death penalty. The existence of this code and others like it demonstrate that Israel shared with her neighbors an ideal of justice that would be administered by a righteous king. In Israel, David and Solomon were thought to epitomize this ideal.
