Justice is a highly subjective idea. Every society throughout history has had legal codes with the hopes of achieving what they believed to be justice. However, because each society has different attitudes toward what they believe is just and even toward the purpose of their laws, historians have often seen different concepts arise. Two clear examples of societies having different concepts of justice and of the purpose of legal codes are the Mesopotamians, who believed that justice involved retribution and that the purpose of legal codes was to clearly dictate punishments, and the Hebrews, who believed that justice involved morality and that the purpose of legal codes was to tell people how to live morally correct lives. However, even though
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Even if the Mesopotamians focused on retribution and detailing punishments and the Hebrews focused on morality and setting a moral standard, does not mean that there are no similarities between the two groups’ concepts of justice and the purpose of legal codes. First of all, both groups shared the common concept of justice that slavery was a perfectly acceptable practice to have. Both the Code of Hammurabi and Deuteronomy mention slavery. Neither legal codes condemn the practice but instead focuses on legal issues that might arise in which a slave is involved such as the slave’s death or the slave’s running away. Furthermore, a clearer example of the Mesopotamians and the Hebrews having similar concepts of justice and similar legal codes is that even though the Hebrews mostly focus on morality, there is still evidence within the Hebrew Scriptures of the ideas that justice can still involve those related to the perpetrator and can still involve retribution. In Exodus for instance, the second commandment mentions how the Hebrew God will punish the descendants of those who worship graven images of their Lord. While this is about a godly entity punishing the perpetrator’s relations and not necessarily the society, it still demonstrates that Code of Hammurabi attitude of people being punished as a result of their relations breaking a law. Furthermore, in Deuteronomy, there is a clear example of equivalent retribution regarding false witness in which it states that if the person has provided false witness “then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother.” Not only is this a clear example of equivalent retribution, but it is almost exactly what the Code of Hammurabi mentions in code 3 and 4 in which a false witness in a capital trial shall be executed and a false witness
Even if the Mesopotamians focused on retribution and detailing punishments and the Hebrews focused on morality and setting a moral standard, does not mean that there are no similarities between the two groups’ concepts of justice and the purpose of legal codes. First of all, both groups shared the common concept of justice that slavery was a perfectly acceptable practice to have. Both the Code of Hammurabi and Deuteronomy mention slavery. Neither legal codes condemn the practice but instead focuses on legal issues that might arise in which a slave is involved such as the slave’s death or the slave’s running away. Furthermore, a clearer example of the Mesopotamians and the Hebrews having similar concepts of justice and similar legal codes is that even though the Hebrews mostly focus on morality, there is still evidence within the Hebrew Scriptures of the ideas that justice can still involve those related to the perpetrator and can still involve retribution. In Exodus for instance, the second commandment mentions how the Hebrew God will punish the descendants of those who worship graven images of their Lord. While this is about a godly entity punishing the perpetrator’s relations and not necessarily the society, it still demonstrates that Code of Hammurabi attitude of people being punished as a result of their relations breaking a law. Furthermore, in Deuteronomy, there is a clear example of equivalent retribution regarding false witness in which it states that if the person has provided false witness “then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother.” Not only is this a clear example of equivalent retribution, but it is almost exactly what the Code of Hammurabi mentions in code 3 and 4 in which a false witness in a capital trial shall be executed and a false witness