Hammurabi Dbq Analysis

Hammurabi’s Code: Just or Unjust Can you imagine a scenario where you loan your friend money to buy food, but since the restaurant is closed the friend is allowed to keep the money? Obviously you’re thinking that this is an act of injustice and is in no way fair, and you are correct, although if you lived during Hammurabi’s rule, this situation may have actually occurred and be noted as just. Hammurabi was an ancient king of an early civilization, Babylonia. According to Hammurabi, Shamash, the god of justice, instructed him a law code consisting of 282 laws. He ended up carving these laws on a large stone column known as stele, which was set in the center of the city-state. These laws were perceived and obeyed with no objection, whether

This is clearly seen in Laws 213, 209, and 48. As an example, Law 213 and Law 209 shows that if a man strikes a free girl then he pays her 10 shekels of silver, whereas if he strikes a slave he would only have to pay 2 shekels of silver. (Doc E) A child is still a child no matter what social class, and I wouldn’t be satisfied if I were to be the slave girl. Then, Law 48 says, “If a man has borrowed money to plant his fields and a storm has flooded his field or carried away the crop, … in that year he does not have to pay his creditor.” (Doc D). This law isn’t fair to the creditor because he got cheated and just because things didn’t go the way the borrower hoped, doesn’t mean his debt should be exiled. The unfairness present in the laws directed toward the victim is another reason why they shouldn’t be used an everyday

The Law 23 is a perfect representation of why. Law 23 states, “If the robber is not caught, the man who has been robbed shall formally declare whatever he has lost before a god, and the city and the mayor in whose territory or district the robbery has been committed shall replace for him whatever he has lost.” (Doc D). The explanation of why this is unfair is transparent, it’s because why should the society pay for the crime even though they didn’t commit it, disregarding the chance that a crime wasn’t even made and the “victim” is telling a lie. This is another of the many flaws of Hammurabi’s Code, the lack in fairness to the