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Secondary sourceBook1914

The Relations Between the Laws of Babylonia and the Laws of the Hebrew Peoples

C. H. W. Johns · 1914

A 1914 published lecture series examining connections between Babylonian law, including Hammurabi's code, and Hebrew law.

This lecture series studies Hammurabi's code as a foundation for comparing ancient legal systems.

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The Relations Between the Laws of Babylonia and the Laws of the Hebrew PeoplesPDF · 120 pages
C. H. W. Johns, The Relations Between the Laws of Babylonia and the Laws of the Hebrew Peoples, Schweich Lectures, 1914. Internet Archive (scanned book, PDF).

About this source

What it is

This is a scanned book of lectures given by C. H. W. Johns in 1912 and published in 1914 as the Schweich Lectures for the British Academy. It studies the relationship between Babylonian laws, including the code of Hammurabi, and the laws of the Hebrew peoples.

Why it matters

This work is part of a broader early twentieth-century scholarly effort to understand Hammurabi's legal code by comparing it to other ancient legal traditions. It shows how academics of the time used comparative methods to explore questions of cultural influence and the origins of law in the ancient Near East.

Look closer

  • What does the preface's statement about comparing laws to understand them reveal about the author's approach?
  • How might prior assumptions about biblical law affect how a scholar studies Hammurabi's code?
  • Why might a British Academy lecture series in 1912 be interested in ancient Babylonian law?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Hammurabi on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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