Tutorial Exercise: Mesopotamian Literature
Working in groups of two or three, answer the following questions:
1. Read the following laws on goring oxen from the A.N.E. and discuss their
similarities and differences
Laws of Eshnunna 53-55 (dating to 1850 B.C.E.)1
53: If an ox gores an (other) ox and causes (its) death, both ox owners shall divide (among
themselves) the price of the live ox and also the meat of the dead ox.
54: If an ox is known to gore habitually and the authorities have brought the fact to the
knowledge of its owner, but he does not have his ox dehorned, it gores a man and causes (his)
death, then the owner of the ox shall pay two-thirds of a mina of silver.
Laws of Hammurabi 250-252 (dating to 1750 B.C.E.)2
250: If an ox, when it was walking along the street, gored a seignior to death, that case is not
subject to claim.
251: If a seignior’s ox was a gorer and his city council made it known to him that it was a
gorer, but he did not pad its horns (or) tie up his ox, and that ox gored to death a member of the
aristocracy, he shall give one-half mina of silver.
252: If it was a seignior’s slave, he shall give one-third mina of silver.3
Exodus 21:28-32 (ESV; probably dating to the 7th century B.C.E.)
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“When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not
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be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall not be liable. But if the ox has been accustomed to gore
in the past, and its owner has been warned but has not kept it in, and it kills a man or a woman,
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the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.
If a ransom is imposed on him,
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then he shall give for the redemption of his life whatever is imposed on him.
If it gores a
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man’s son or daughter, he shall be dealt with according to this same rule. If the ox gores a
slave, male or female, the owner shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox
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shall be stoned. . . . “When one man’s ox butts another’s, so that it dies, then they shall sell the
live ox and share its price, and the dead beast also they shall share. 36
Or if it is known that
the ox has been accustomed to gore in the past, and its owner has not kept it in, he shall repay ox
for ox, and the dead beast shall be his.
2. List the similarities and differences between these texts?
3. What possible explanations can account for these similarities and differences?
1
2
ANET, 163
ANET, 176
Tutorial Exercise: Critical Reading
1. Read the following quote from this week’s assigned reading
“The collections of legal decisions (sometimes inaccurately referred to as 'codes' of law) are
closely related to these 'covenants'. A number of laws are extant from Sumer (Ur-Nammu,
Lipit- Ishtar), Babylonia (Eshnunna, Hammurapi) and Assyria (Middle Assyrian collection).
These are all summaries of cases, of both evidence and decision, which were brought together
as an illustration of the way the individual king had maintained the traditional 'law and order'.
They were, in effect, reports to the deity on the exercise of the divinely given royal' “wisdom.”
As in the case recorded of Solomon they were often of unusual or abstruse decisions (1 Kings
2: 6; 3: 16-28).”1
2. Taking into account the discussions from the previous exercise,
use the “critical reading” handout as a guide to analyze and evaluate the
author’s conclusion about A.N.E. law collections. Do you agree? If not,
discuss.
3. Read the texts below (with the critical reading handout in mind)
and discuss the different views on biblical and A.N.E. law. Based on the
reading from PART I, which view seems best to you?
Wiseman, “Books in the Ancient Near East and in the Old Testament,” in The Cambridge History of the
Bible (ed. Peter R. Ackroyd, et al.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 43.
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