Oxford University Press is
publishing a new book on the laws of Hammurabi.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Among the best-known and most
esteemed people known from antiquity is the Babylonian king Hammurabi. His fame
and reputation are due to the collection of laws written under his patronage.
This book offers an innovative interpretation of the Laws of Hammurabi.
Ancient scribes would demonstrate their legal flair by composing statutes on a
set of traditional cases, articulating what they deemed just and fair. The
scribe of the Laws of Hammurabi advanced beyond earlier scribes in composing
statutes that manifest systematization and implicit legal principles, and
inserted the Laws of Hammurabi into the form of a royal inscription, shrewdly
reshaping the genre. This tradition of scribal improvisation on a set of
traditional cases continued outside of Mesopotamia. It influenced biblical law
and the law of the Hittite empire significantly. The Laws of Hammurabi was also
witness to the start of another stream of intellectual tradition. It became the
subject of formal commentaries, marking a profound cultural shift. Scribes
related to it in ways that diverged from prior attitudes; it became an object
of study and of commentary, a genre that names itself as dependent on another
text. The famous Laws of Hammurabi is here given the extensive attention it
continues to merit.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pamela Barmash teaches
at Washington University in St. Louis and has served as director of Jewish,
Islamic, and Near Eastern Studies there. She is the author of Homicide
in the Biblical World, the co-editor of Exodus in the Jewish
Experience: Echoes and Reverberations, and the editor of The Oxford
Handbook of Biblical Law.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Chapter One: The Stela of the
Laws of Hammurapi and the Representation of Political Power
Chapter Two: Royal Legitimization
Through the Establishment of Justice
Chapter Three: The Laws of
Hammurabi as a Royal Inscription
Chapter Four: Scribes and
Statutes
Excursus: Scribes and Scribal
Education
Chapter Five: Adoption in the
Laws of Hammurabi
Chapter Six: The Legal Authority
of the Laws of Hammurabi
Chapter Seven: The Afterlife of
the Laws of Hammurabi: The Continuation of Scribal
Improvisation Outside of
Mesopotamia and the Creation of Commentaries in
Mesopotamia
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
List of Illustrations
Bibliography
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