The Code Of Hammurabi And the Bible?

[dcontroversal]

Hello, people! I am new to this website, my apologies if I had not introduced myself on the other introduction page but, here I am! I'm not a Christian, I don't know what to think where my faith is, I want to believe in God, but it's tough in this day and age. We live in now, Sin city.

Anyways, the point I'd like to make here is Did Moses steal the 10 commandments? it'll be a bit silly, since one of the commandments does stipulate '' Thou shalt not steal '' but other people do honestly believe that Moses did in fact plagiarize some laws from Hammurabi. The story goes that a French Archaeologists began excavations around Shushan in 1852. M. Dieulafoy discovered the palace fortress that the writer of the book of Esther calls the citadel of Susa. In 1901, another expedition began, led by de Morgan, uncovered three stone fragments of black stone. After being fitted together, they formed an impressive round-top stele or pillar, which according to the archaeologists measured in total of 7.5 feet high. Hammurabi was said to be around the time of 1792 to 1750 BC.

But the closest parallel between the Code of Hammurabi and the Law of Moses comes in the common wording of "eye for an eye" and "tooth for a tooth". Hammurabi's laws 196, 197, and 200 stipulated that "If a man puts out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out. If he breaks another man's bone, his bone shall be broken. And if a man knocks out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out." This is very similar to Exodus 21:23-25, which reads, "But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

So, I'm kinda scratching my head here and starting to think, '' Who copied who exactly? '' I don't know exactly what dates that Moses was born, but obviously if he was born way before 1792 or 1750, then we'd be pointing our fingers at Hammurabi. Please tell me what you's think about this!


thanks all,

You can rely on God and count the Bible as the source of inspired truth. A simple thought seems to indicate which has stood the test of time and the below facts about each should suffice.

The Law Of Moses...inspired and commanded by God...has stood the test of time and for 3500 years plus or minus a few, was carried by Moses off of a burning, thundering mountain and was written by the finger of God, was witnessed by several million Hebrews, has been on the scene, pointing people to Jesus Christ (as the law is our school master which leads and points to the master) and has been changing people's lives and or proving their guilt since it's giving.

The Code of Hammurabi was given by a man without claims of inspiration and or given by God, it fell into ruin and lay buried in the sand for thousands of years without any influence whatsoever at all with any human beings and at the end of the day pointed at what? It was dug out of the ground by a man, sits in a museum and is a nice piece to look at and study concerning ancient man, but still without any direction at all about knowing and or receiving God.

By the way, my (several million Hebrews statement is based upon the following math).
600,000 men of war over age of 20 that could fight
Not counting the aged men that could not fight
and the women and children. The Bible and history teach us that the Jewish people are blessed by God with big families and under Egyptian bondage (represents sin and the bondage to sin) Israel was blessed and multiplied greatly.

I believe in the account of scriptures as I am from the (show me state) and I put everything to the test. If it does not jive I chunk it and look for conclusions based on truth. After being raised in the truth for almost 47 years and intensively studying the truth for over 24 years and putting it to the test there are a few things that continually prove to me that the scriptures cannot be the product of mere men.

1. God never misses anything when it comes to covering all bases and the Bible is full of thoughts/principles/truths that we would of missed if it was a man made project.
2. Thru and thru there are numerous prophecies concerning individual nations, people, events, statements, etc. that have come to pass exactly as predicted and the majority have been predicted hundreds and in some case thousands of years in the past before the events came to pass.
3. The fact that the Bible has come to us from over 40 different authors, over a period of 1600 years, in three languages (Hebrew, Greek and Chaldean in Daniel), written by Kings, Fishermen, Rich, Poor, Doctors (Luke) and every gambit imaginable and yet it all flows smoothly, doesn't contradict itself and has been changing lives from the very first words given. It has survived all attacks and attempts to burn out, kill off and or stamp out and you may or may not believe it, but it is for sure right when it states that, Men die, but the Word remains for ever as every scoffer from the past is in the ground having long been eaten by the worms and yet here it is, still here, still proclaiming the eternal truth of God. trust it my friend as it speaks truth!

 

[Tintin]

RA=God the creator...Ra-Atum=Lord God....Isaaset=tree of life....Atum=Adam....Ka=Eve....and so on

That was likely the case with the very earliest of Egyptians but later they became seen as gods and goddesses. Ancestor worship took over from the worship of the one living inside Adam and Eve (the one true God).

 

[GodIsSalvation]

@jag in concern towards this foolishness about the Egyptian idols

For one I think that is foolish thinking that have no bearing on this topic. However, since this is a very dangerous line of thinking I shall address it and dispel your illusion seeing as now other people are being mislead by this lie.

For two not only is it a falsifiction of the Bible, but also a falsification of the Egyptians' own idolatry. Ideas such as this are neither Biblical nor Egyptian, but are in fact the teachings of the backwards thinking modern-day witches whom cannot even see that their own ideas are a snare and trap for themselves. One cannot build truth off of lies. One cannot build lies off of truth.

The Truth is the Egyptians believed Ra was a solar deity of the city Heliopolis born from the non-living idol Nun. Atum was a competing sun idol in the same city. Ra-Atum was the egyptian pagans merely fusing the two idols. Isaaset I can find no mention of online nor in the Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology (my book reference on these things and a good read IF you have a discerning eye.) And the Ka isn't even a deity or person but rather the egyptian pagan concept of the "vital essence" or the life force. The Truth is all these are dead idols that could never think for themselves or care for themselves or do anything at all for themselves. They are in no way biblical outside of the fact that they are dead idols that the True God detests.

I would personally recommend throwing away such pagan non-sense ideas as they are complete and obsolete crap and didn't save the Egyptians one bit from their utter destruction, and one might even go so far as to argue contributed to the destruction of their culture and people as the idols were man-made illusions and the Egyptians believed the illusion so much that they could not see the stark Reality of their destruction when it was at the door. For their idols could not save themselves much less save the foolish people that worshipped them.

Why fall into the same trap the foolish Egyptians fell into? Come out of it brother, read the Bible, come see the glory of the True God. The True God proved the Egyptian idols and beliefs to be little more than dead stone when Moses showed to Pharoah's face how his own magicians were unable to literally stand up straight on the Plague of Boils. The Ancient Egyptians did not listen to the True God at any point, even after He proved Himself to their face through Moses. How can you compare the True God to the Egyptian idols when the True God proved Himself to be True and the idols and their magicians to be false? Not only in the Bible, but behold even in our day today; where is Ra to save himself? Where is Atum to save himself? Both are dead pieces of stone whose only legacies are that they couldn't save themselves or their followers.

 

[reject-tech]

There's an alternate consideration that can excuse a concerned Christian from the proposals that the old testament and new testament steal concepts from outside sources, and a very powerful, quick, and simple argument against those claims.

That solution is as follows -

Those sources were not written as records of older people's confirmed past ways, they are secular prophecy of what is being fulfilled in Christ.
They just didn't present those prophecies in the same languages and symbolism that the more refined Israelites were accustomed to.

Even though we may have Babylonian texts, we did not read and speak the same way, and honestly have no way of knowing if they are stories that were told as if they had, were, or were to occur. A key element in this that even occurs in the old testament, is that verb tense was much more artistically expressed than in our modern languages.
Older languages were more prone to write of "things to come" as if they had already happened, or were happening.
Of course, if you tell a bible challenger this, they'll have plenty of rebuttal, but that's ok. You're not there for the rebuttal.
Do what God says and tell them something simple that makes sense, then let them take it or leave it.

In other words, for example, the whole "Ishtar" mess is a secular prophecy of Christ, portrayed in a "weird" way by our standards, and that prophecy was later turned by it's community into a past tense set of beliefs and religion. They made a booboo with their own texts by making up and worshiping things that hadn't even happened yet.
The Israelites, if they were aware of these "secular" prophecies, would have been more likely not to make it into a religion, but rather to clarify and re-record it in their native and standardized symbolic language, translating names from other languages into their own, retaining it as prophecy rather than already manifested paganism.
Though, they probably didn't need to make such "plagiarism" because they already had their own streamlined version of it. They probably would have had to fix too many mistakes or vague illustrations to make it match their better version.

We make the same mistake as the "nations around us" when we assume that the bible is exclusively past tense instead of perpetual tense.

Even more simply as an example - "Ishtar isn't a pagan god, was never meant to be a pagan god, but was made into one by it's own community"

I know this is veering from the law issue at hand, but it is related, and it's handy to have at your disposal if you ever meet one of those people who "just knows" that Christianity is a "copy" of all the other "made up religions"

If you want a more recent and understandable example, look at Islam. Some (many?) Muslims have taken the writings of a man who used examples of physical war and killing as an illustration of something that is supposed to be spiritual, and made it into a belief that God wants them to really go out and "behead" someone physically. What's even more ironic is that they sing the scripture, but they have forgotten that music in it's most basic concept, is supposed to be artistic and symbolic.

 

[jag1977]

Hilarious.....

 

[jprocks]

Hilarious.....

I asked for what you though about all of all this, not a rebuttal.