Preview

Hammurabi Laws

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
673 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Hammurabi Laws
Laws and Rules Laws are the rules that every human being is supposed to abide by. Laws are set in place to ensure everyone’s safety and well being, as well as to help run a society. Good laws protect all kinds of people regardless of their gender, race, culture, age, how much money they have or what “class” they belong to. Laws can be unfair and prejudicial to certain people.
Even though they are two different time periods and places, Ancient Mesopotamia and 1900s Mississippi had very strict laws that were unfair to people of certain classes or colors. Both the Code of Hammurabi of Ancient Mesopotamia and the Jim Crows of Mississippi were similar in that they were very harsh and had extreme punishments. These punishments were used differently
…show more content…
“If a man destroyed the eye of a man of the “gentlemen” class, they shall destroy his eye.” This was unfair, because if somebody did something bad to another person they would pay for their wrongdoing even if the incident was not purposeful. Two wrongs don’t make a right. “If he has destroyed the eye of a commoner or broken the bone of a commoner, he shall pay one shekel of silver.” This law is unfair for the reason that just because these people are commoners they don’t get justice for what happened to them, unlike somebody who belonged to the gentlemen class. In Let the Circle be Unbroken there are laws that are similar to this but, instead of targeting the classes, they target and make laws according to people’s race. For example, “That water in there and them toilets, they belong to the white folks, and the white folks don’t want no colored folks using neither one.” This shows just how unfair for black people it was during this time. It also shows how they couldn’t even do a simple task like wash their hands in a public bathroom, for the reason that they were black instead of being white which was the “better”

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    If you look at the three main laws of Hammurabi’s which: Property law, Family law, and Personal injury law. You can see that they are just, or as i say … Fair! They are fair but, some of them could be a little harsh.…

    • 299 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Between 1792-1750 BC the Babylonians lived in Mesopotamia. They were part of a group called the Semites. Hammurabi, who was the sixth Babylonian king, united the Semites under one code of laws. Hammurabi established laws that would be implemented throughout his kingdom. The “Code of Hammurabi” is the first recorded laws in history. The code provided laws and punishments that were based on social status and…

    • 67 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hammurabi Fair Laws

    • 749 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Do you think that if a surgeon's patient dies while being operated on then the surgeon's hands get cut off or if builder makes a house and it falls on the owner than the builder dies these are some of the fair laws of hammurabi's code. Hammurabi's code is very old it was created 4000 years ago and he made 282 laws while he was king and carved his laws on giant stones called steles. Hammurabi's code was fair to many people like the builders because if the house that they built was poorly made and the building collapses on its owner than the builder dies and it is also fair to surgeons because if the patient who is being operated on died because of the surgeon then the surgeon's hands get cut off so he can't cause any more harm. one of hammurabi's…

    • 749 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Hammurabi's Code of Law and the Hebrew Law have many differences and many similarities. They both have laws on marriage, farming, religion, equality, and many other things. Both of these codes of law showed that each civilization had order and some form of government. It also showed how two civilizations, that are so far apart, can still think so alike and that humanity learns from it's mistakes by improving on them. Hammurabi had a nice view on how to keep things equal. He has the basic concept of “eye for an eye.” The Hebrew law also has this same concept because in one of it's laws, it says, “if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake..” (Exodus 21:28, KJV) This shows that both the Hebrews and Hammurabi's people, the Babylonians, had a sense of equality in social class and other things. There is a Hebrew law that if an ox gores a man or woman and kills him, and the owner knows about this and does nothing, then the ox and the owner will be put to death. This differs slightly from Hammurabi's Code because it does not say that the owner has to be put to death. It says that the owner shall pay ½ a mina of silver. This shows how the two different codes of laws and two different civilizations can still have similar concepts but have different ways to interpret them. But, most of these laws only applied to the situation or geography of the land at the time. There is many differences and similarities in both of these codes of law and almost impossible to conclude whether these are more similar or more different. It really all depends on opinion. These are examples on how Hammurabi's Code of Law and the Hebrew Law are alike or…

    • 324 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hammurabi Justice

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Ancient Mesopotamia’s hierarchical social structure provides the setting for the Code of Hammurabi. The Amorite King, Hammurabi, ruled Mesopotamia for more than 40 years, originally over a 50-mile radius of Babylon; however, toward the latter part of his reign, he extended his rule toward Assyria and northern Syria. In an effort to unify these multifaceted societies, he published the Code of Hammurabi laws. His effort was a noble one – to end wickedness and end oppression of the weak; therefore, he proclaimed he held a divine commission “to rise like the sun over the black-headed people, and to light up the land. “ Though Hammurabi’s code covered a plethora of concerns and penalties regarding people, palaces, and property,…

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Hammurabi Code Of Laws

    • 177 Words
    • 1 Page

    The Code of Hammurabi refers to a set of rules or laws enacted by the Babylonian King Hammurabi (reign 1792-1750 B.C.). The code governed the people living in his fast-growing empire. By the time of Hammurabi's death, his empire included much of modern-day Iraq, extending up from the Persian Gulf along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.…

    • 177 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    First of all, if a person of a higher class hits a slave, he pays half of the slave’s value, which was probably low considering the fact that they saw slaves as just property. If a person hits the same person of his social class, it is an “eye for an eye.” This injustice shows no protection whatsoever for the weak because the strong can basically harm the weak and not have as much done to them in return. The ones of higher social classes would think twice about putting out the eye or breaking the bone of a man’s slave if the “eye for an eye” rule applied to all regardless of social class. Second of all, if a physician performs an operation, accidently killing a freeman or cutting his eye out, the hands of the doctor would be cut off, whereas with a slave, it is simply a replacement. This rule means that the doctors would have to be more careful when operating on the freeman. Providing protection, in this situation, for the weak, would mean to be just as careful during an operation as you would on a person who is…

    • 699 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mesopotamia as ‘the cradle of civilization” was one of the first civilizations- in the modern sense of the word, to arise. It is understandable then that it set the standards for what government, religion, art and culture should be for the countless civilizations that followed it. Their system of government in particular left a huge impression on how later civilizations wrote laws judging the behavior of the people, in fact historians agree that Hammurabi’s code of law- although somewhat cruel at times, was surprisingly ahead of its times. The Mesopotamian structure of religion with its many gods and goddesses also proved very popular as it was replicated in some of the most well known civilizations of Egypt, Greece and Rome. Artists of Mesopotamia also set the standards for how generations of artists would interpret the world around them in art.…

    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The “Black Code” shows that the Reconstruction era had been marked more by continuity than change from antebellum period. Section one of Civil Rights of Freedom gave African-Americans the right to sue, which indicates a change from the antebellum period. It is crucial to note that enslavement of African descended individuals was a legal practice during the antebellum period. Much of the laws were, thus, unfavorable towards those of African descent. An example of one such unfavorable law was one that treated the murder of African descended…

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The idea of any rule being righteous is often questioned, since a righteous rule or law is very ambiguous . In the past, Hammurabi created the first complete set of rules called, Hammurabi’s Code, that was intense in some area’s , and too lenient in others. In some of his rules,he wasn’t fair to the accused, to the victim, and to the society in all his laws.…

    • 506 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Crow That Hurt Them All “May one day the Crow be executed for blinding the naive and clawing the innocent.” The Jim Crow laws were the laws that separated the rights of colored people and white people. These Laws changed the thinking and course of history with the relationship between blacks and whites forever. In this paper i will discuss the Topic of Jim Crow laws and how they have affected society from 1863 to 1954. It was an extreme struggle during the Jim Crow Era.…

    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Code Of Hammurabi

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages

    He was called to bring about the rule of righteousness. His code was established to destroy the evil in the land. Hammurabi received this authority from the Anu the Sublime, King of Anunanki, and Bel, the lord of Heaven and earth. This implies that all rulers are divinely anointed. As one expands their control over larger areas, this could cause problems because not everyone has the same beliefs and gods. This means, in turn, that the people may not see the rulers anointment as credible. This may be one reason why Hammurabi list all of the cites and gods he has benefitted. He received his calling and authority from his gods. To prove that his authority is true, he names all of the other…

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Biblical Worldview

    • 1490 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Law by definition is, “The principles and regulations established in a community by some authority and applicable to its people, whether in the form of legislation or of custom and policies recognized and enforced by judicial decision.” To make this simple in means rules established by a country for the wellbeing of their citizens. This is considered a major principal in the eyes of the U.S. people because without law our country would erupt in mad chaos.…

    • 1490 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay On Hammurabi's Laws

    • 838 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Babylonian people’s laws focused upon their society, economy and religion because they had strong morals that influenced their decisions surrounding these three things. These three aspects of the Babylonian Civilization seemed to not only be things that shaped the Babylonian laws, but also their culture. Successful farming, being high up on the social pyramid, and following the religion of the group were things that enhanced a person’s life and in the end may have determined their survival. Hammurabi used the concept of religion to reinforce his power. The text says, “Then Anu and Bel [gods] called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land…” (Doc. A). The Babylonian people…

    • 838 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Hammurabis Laws

    • 268 Words
    • 2 Pages

    * The man that got his eye put out has the right to defend himself. If a man put another man’s eye out and the other guy did it right back they would both go to jail.…

    • 268 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays