Coach Smith
Ancient world history
25 September 2017
Hammurabi’s Code: Was it Just? Hammurabi was a cruel and unjust man. Read this and you learn how he was unjust. He was enforcing the laws too much, he was making such laws that involved hanging a person and cruel punishments for even the smallest things. He had said that those laws were meant to protect and make life easier for his people. In the speech he had given, he had sounded like a great and caring King, but in reality he wasn’t great or caring. He was killing his own people for little things like robberies and false building of a house. He may have even been lying about the god, Shamash, giving him the laws and the code, when he may have been just saying that to get the people to believe what he was saying. Do I believe Hammurabi’s Code was just or unjust? I believe it was unjust, because some of his laws were ridiculous and incredibly harsh. Maybe the laws were needed, …show more content…
Laws 53 and 218. Law 53 is unjust because it says that ‘if a physician kills a patient or cuts out a patient's eye when trying to remove a tumor, the physician's’ hands will be cut off. I think that’s unfair because, it may have been an accident and not on purpose, so the physician shouldn’t have his hands cut off, he may not have meant to kill the patient. Law 218 is unfair because, it says ‘if a surgeon has operated with a bronze lancet on a free man for a serious injury, and has caused his death, … his hands shall be cut off.’ That’s unjust because, the surgeon obviously was trying to save the man’s life and not kill him. Cutting off the hands of the surgeon will not bring the man back to life, so the surgeon should not be punished, at least he tried to save the man’s life and not just let him