Thursday, September 12, 2024

The lex talionis in the Bible and in cuneiform from Hazor

PROF. WAYNE HOROWITZ: An Eye for an Eye or for Shekels: Canaan’s Cuneiform Laws (TheTorah.com).
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.
I noted the discovery of the "Laws of Hazor" tablet in 2010 here and here.

For more on the efforts to find a cuneiform archive at Hazor, see here and links. Apart from a few fragments like this one, those efforts are still unsuccessfu after forty years.

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