12. Some things are very suggestive of a de- liberate change. The Code has a slanderer thrown down before the judge and branded. In Dt 25? we get directions for scourging. The judge shall cause him to lie down and be beaten before his face. The ‘certain number’ of stripes in Israel was not to exceed forty; Hammurabi ordered sixty for some cases. e are told that scourging was a late introduction into Israel. This may be true of the bastinado, but there seems no reason to regard scourging as a late form of punishment. It is curious that Dt 25", which may be a parallel to §§ 202-205, should come so close to the mention of scourging in Dt 25%, separated from it by clauses which seem to have no possible connexion with either. If vy." followed v.? in the source, that would seem to have been a distinct reminiscence of §§ 202-205. Authorities differ as to the sense of létu, usually ‘strength’; some take it to mean ‘head,’ but the genitalia may be meant: compare littuitu, * progeny.’
(a) A case that must have occurred to the mind of both lawgivers, though not perhaps very practical, was what should be done if a man had intercourse with mother and daughter, or a woman with father and son, The case where the daughter was his own child, or the son her own son, was especially bad. Now Hammurabi takes one case in § 157, and enacts that, if a man has intercourse with his own mother, both shall be burned. He does not touch the case of a woman and her mother with the same man. In Ly 20" that is taken as the test case, and both are to be burned. The Mosaic Law does not touch Hammurabi’s case. It may well be that the actual text of the Code was known to the later legislator; and either to show the further application of the same principle, or because the former case was now so well known as to need no further legislation, he takes the new example. One can hardly suppose that in one society the one crime was known and the other
unknown, while the reverse held in the other society. In both Codes the penalty for this sort of thing was burning. That 1s awarded only once again in either Code, and there also for what may well be the same crime in both, described in different terms. Of course we may refer both back to a common Semitic primitive law; but a younger lawgiver would naturally prefer to select a different example if he could. Taken in this way, we can arrange a very remarkable parallel, due to Miiller—
HAMMURABI. LEVITICUS 20. Man with daughter-in- Man with daughter-in- ~ law (§ 155). law (v.?2), Man with father’s wife Man with father’s wife (§ 158). (v.2
Mother and daughter with one man (v.14).
Man and son with one woman (§ 157).
(6) Again, we may note that Hammurabi (§ 210) ordains that if a man caused the death of a pregnant woman by his blows, then not he, but his daughter, should be put to death. Now this is retaliation pure.and simple, and can only be meant as a limit to which the compensation might be pushed by a revengeful father. The accused might have no daughter at all; he might have several. The old discussions as to the relative value to the accused and accuser of the damage inflicted by exact retaliation must come up. Now Ex 21” solves this question by the phrase ‘soul for soul.’ That may be the result of reflexion on this very crude law. It is a convenient phrase for laying down, that as a woman’s life was worth less than that of a man, the compensation exacted must not exceed the damage done.
(c) Further, when we read in Ly 24” that there shall be one law for ‘foreigner and native’ set at the end of a passage which otherwise literally repeats §§ 196-201, where careful distinction of rank is made in awarding penalties, one may well be tempted to suspect a reminiscence. That differences of treatment should be expressly ex- cluded, surely points to knowledge that they existed somewhere. Where else was this than in the Code? The common Semitic source hardly had these gradations. That cattle are included in Lv 2418-21 may be due to a desire to get together all that fell under the same rule.
13. It is not a little instructive to notice that the Code of Hammurabi shows marked similarities to other ancient codes. Professor Miiller has worked out a number of striking parallels with the Roman XII Tables. Professor Cohn compared the Laws of the West Goths. Incidental comparisons with the Laws of Manu are noted by Mr. Cook. The Code receives illustration from a variety of other sources in the books named above for the biblio- graphy. Whether a knowledge of this Code can really have spread to Rome and India, depends upon the results of much further research than has yet been made.
li. VIEWS AS TO THE CHARACTER OF THE CON- NEXION.—Opinions are divided as to the reality of the connexion between the Code of Hammurabi and Mosaic legislation. The positive view has been well stated thus: ‘The Babylonian and Mosaic Codes are conceived in the same literary form ; they contain a considerable number of practically identical laws; they present not a few cases of actual verbal agreement, and both are designed for the regulation of a civilized community. The parallels are too close to be explained upon a some- what vague theory of common tradition. ... It has been shown that, in Palestine, Israel learned and appropriated the ancient Babylonian myths. Why should they not learn Babylonian law as well? . . . The foundation of the Babylonian law