Hammurabi a Modern Day Reader of the Essay

Hammurabi

A modern day reader of the Hammurabi Law Code would immediately be stricken by the one primary punishment offered in a majority of the laws as being death. One could perceive from that fact that the Hammurabi society was one where death was a frequent occurrence. Comparing that society and its fixation on death with today's modern society and its abhorrence of death (at least as a punishment) leads one to believe that the rules were more generally followed during the Hammurabi era than they are in today's society.

Many of the Hammurabi laws were very simple and easy to follow and comprehend. Again, comparing those simple laws with today's complexity in applying societal rules and regulations, makes one wonder why today's society does not take a page from the Hammurabi Lawbook and make laws much more simple than what they are. Hammurabi wrote the laws in response to caring for all members of society and "so that all may know their rights and have glad hearts under Hammurabi's care" (Calliope, 2011, p. 23) and that could be the reason behind their simplicity.It could also be, however, that the simplicity was due to the fact that Hammurabi was writing for all levels of society; as the reader can ascertain by studying Hammurabi's laws, they were written for all members of society, but provided for different punishments for the different classes of citizens. As one study of Hammurabi determined "all were entitled to proper court procedure, a fair judge, and an appeal to the king himself" (Kruger, 2000, p. 11) but that did not mean that the punishments or judgments were equally distributed.

There were three laws that were intriguing and said a lot about the wisdom of Hammurabi. The second law dealt with a wrongfully accused individual. The law states that if anyone was to….....