Table Of ContentINVENTING GOD’S LAW
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INVENTING GOD’S LAW
How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and
Revised the Laws of Hammurabi
David P. Wright
1
2009
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wright, David P. (David Pearson), 1953–
Inventing God's law : how the covenant code of the Bible used
and revised the laws of Hammurabi / David P. Wright.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 978-0-19-530475-6
1. Bible. O.T. Exodus XX, 23–XXIII, 19—Criticism, interpretation, etc.
2. Code of Hammurabi. 3. Bible. O.T.—Extra-canonical parallels.
4. Law, Ancient—Sources. 5. Law—Middle East—Sources. I. Title.
BS1245.52.W75 2009
222'.12066—dc22 2009012890
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Dianne
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Preface
It was by accident that the thesis of this book came to be. I had accepted and
operated according to the standard critical understanding of the Covenant Code
and its relationship to Mesopotamian legal tradition. This viewed the biblical
law collection as the result of stages of development over several centuries.
The similarities it had with texts such as the Laws of Hammurabi were due to
Israel’s and the Bible’s inheriting oral traditions that circulated in Syria and
Canaan before Israel appeared on the historical scene. I assumed, too, that the
laws of the Covenant Code in large part reflected the practice of early Israel.
Then, one day in the fall of 1998 while preparing a lecture for a course on
biblical and Near Eastern law at Brandeis University, I noticed that passages
from the Covenant Code and the Laws of Hammurabi that I had assigned for
an upcoming class session on a new topic happened to follow, in sequence,
passages in these texts that I had assigned from the previous class session that
was devoted to a different topic. I spent the next several hours looking for
other sequential correlations between the two collections. By dinner time, I had
charted a list of ten such laws or legal topics. Thus this study was born.
Since that day, I have spent time testing, expanding, questioning, and refin-
ing the evidence and arguments. My first paper on the topic was at the New
England Regional Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, April 1999
(Newton, Massachusetts). Since then, I have reported on my findings at various
national and international professional meetings. I also published preliminary
versions of my findings in three articles, the first in Maarav (“The Laws of
viii Preface
Hammurabi as a Source for the Covenant Collection,” 2003, appeared 2004) and
two in the Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte (“The
Compositional Logic of the Goring Ox and Negligence” and “The Fallacies
of Chiasmus,” 2004). These early publications sought to elicit response from
colleagues. One such considered response, by Bruce Wells, allowed me in
turn to restate and sharpen the presentation of the data in a second Maarav
article (“The Laws of Hammurabi and the Covenant Code: A Response to
Bruce Wells,” 2006, appeared 2007). Some material from these articles has
been incorporated, with extensive revision, at places in this study. I thank these
journals for permission to reuse this material.
The thesis of this book requires detailed textual examination and is there-
fore by necessity technical in nature. In order to facilitate a basic grasp of the
evidence, to serve nonspecialists as well as specialists who want an overview, I
have summarized the thesis and evidence in chapter 1. Reading this along with
the conclusion (chapter 13) will give any reader a solid understanding of the
study’s claims. A more intensive reading would include chapters 2–4 (part I),
which lay out in detail the evidence for the Covenant Code’s dependence
upon Hammurabi’s Laws and explain when this borrowing occurred. A fully
engaged reading would add chapters 5–12 (part II). They describe how the
Covenant Code transformed its sources and explain the purpose and ideology
of the work. At the suggestion of colleagues, I have provided in most cases cita-
tions of texts in translation and in the original languages to allow immediate
critical analysis. I have also included translations of citations from contempo-
rary European scholarship in the main text of the chapters (and in the notes of
chapter 1) for the benefit of nonspecialists.
I am deeply grateful to several colleagues for their help and criticism:
Bernard Levinson, for taking an early interest in my findings, responding to
drafts of some of my papers on the book’s thesis, critiquing and refining some
of my arguments in his own publications, and sharing his offprints and some
prepublication manuscripts; Jeffrey Stackert, my student during the years that
this study was in formation and from whom I learned much, for providing a
critical ear in hours of discussion and evaluating some early drafts of chapters;
my Brandeis colleague Tzvi Abusch, for being an incisive sounding board for
ideas, helpful with Assyriological matters, and an advisor on how to present the
data and arguments on such a complicated topic; Bruce Wells, for his resistance
and criticisms, not only in his review article, just noted, but in friendly discus-
sions over the past few years, which have helped me see a wider set of ques-
tions; Bernard Jackson, for corresponding with me about my first articles and
sharing the prepublication proofs of his now recently published book, Wisdom-
Laws; Eckart Otto, for sharing his work with me over the years and for recently
facilitating the presentation of my ideas in ZABR; William Morrow, for his
cautionary questions and sharing a manuscript of a forthcoming article; Simo
Parpola, for asking me to summarize my thesis for his online Melammu Project
(see Wright, “The Codex Hammurapi as a Source for the Covenant Collection”);
Preface ix
and John Van Seters, for sending me offprints of his articles and discussing his
approach and views with me.
In addition, I thank other scholars for suggesting references, engaging in
discussions, and offering critiques, including Joel Baden, Simeon Chavel,
Andrew Cohen, Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Samuel Greengus, Dale Patrick, Jan
Wagenaar, Emily West, and Raymond Westbrook. I acknowledge several of my
Brandeis colleagues for their critique and suggestions, including Marc Brettler,
Bernadette Brooten, Jonathan Decter, Jon Levisohn, Antony Polonsky, and
Eugene Sheppard. I also thank the several students who served as research
assistants on this work in its various stages: David Bokovoy, Jason Gaines, and
Michael Singer. I also recognize a debt to other graduate students who have
argued with me and provided suggestions, including Molly DeMarco, James
Getz, Eric Grossman, Alan Lenzi, Sarah Shectman, Sheila Reeder, Susan
Tanchel, and Ilona Zsolnay.
I thank the British Museum and cuneiform collection curator Jonathan
Taylor for allowing me to examine and photograph unpublished neo-Assyrian
fragments of Hammurabi’s Laws (see chapter 4, n. 137).
Finally, I extend special gratitude to my wife, Dianne, who supported me
through the long process of developing this study, listened to my incessant and
evolving test lectures, and endured the various grunts and groans of the writing
process. She has always been patient and accommodating. Since 1998, our four
children have gone through and graduated from college, and I thank them, too,
for being patient with a sometimes preoccupied father. Dianne and I are now
happy to see this fifth “child” leave the nest.
