Editing Hammurabi (section)

==Legacy==
===Posthumous commemoration===
[[File:Babylonian tablet of Hammurabi.jpg|thumb|Tablet of Hammurabi ({{cuneiform|8|𒄩𒄠𒈬𒊏𒁉}}, 4th line from the top), King of Babylon. British Museum.<ref>{{cite book |title=Cuneiform Tablets in the British Museum |date=1905 |publisher=British Museum |pages=Plates 44 and 45 |url=http://www.etana.org/sites/default/files/coretexts/17083.pdf |access-date=14 March 2020 |archive-date=29 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210129221205/http://www.etana.org/sites/default/files/coretexts/17083.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Budge |first1=E. A. Wallis (Ernest Alfred Wallis) |author1-link=E. A. Wallis Budge |last2=King |first2=L. W. (Leonard William) |author2-link=Leonard William King |title=A guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian antiquities |date=1908 |publisher=London : Printed by the order of the Trustees |page=[https://archive.org/details/babylonianassyri00britiala/page/147 147] |url=https://archive.org/details/babylonianassyri00britiala}}</ref><ref>For full transcription: {{cite web|title=CDLI-Archival View|url=https://cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P365476|url-status=live|website=cdli.ucla.edu|access-date=4 November 2021|archive-date=4 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104175904/https://cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P365476}}</ref>]]

Hammurabi was honored above all other kings of the second millennium BC{{sfn|Van De Mieroop|2005|page=128}} and he received the unique honor of being declared to be a god within his own lifetime.{{sfn|Van De Mieroop|2005|page=127}} The personal name "Hammurabi-ili" meaning "Hammurabi is my god" became common during and after his reign. In writings from shortly after his death, Hammurabi is commemorated mainly for three achievements: bringing victory in war, bringing peace, and bringing justice.{{sfn|Van De Mieroop|2005|page=127}} Hammurabi's conquests came to be regarded as part of a sacred mission to spread civilization to all nations.{{sfn|Van De Mieroop|2005|page=126}} A stele from Ur glorifies him in his own voice as a mighty ruler who forces evil into submission and compels all peoples to worship [[Marduk]].{{sfn|Van De Mieroop|2005|pages=126–127}} The stele declares: "The people of Elam, Gutium, Subartu, and Tukrish, whose mountains are distant and whose languages are obscure, I placed into [Marduk's] hand. I myself continued to put straight their confused minds." A later hymn also written in Hammurabi's own voice extols him as a powerful, supernatural force for Marduk:{{sfn|Van De Mieroop|2005|page=126}}

<blockquote><poem>
I am the king, the brace that grasps wrongdoers, that makes people of one mind,
I am the great dragon among kings, who throws their counsel in disarray,
I am the net that is stretched over the enemy,
I am the fear-inspiring, who, when lifting his fierce eyes, gives the disobedient the death sentence,
I am the great net that covers evil intent,
I am the young lion, who breaks nets and scepters,
I am the battle net that catches him who offends me.{{sfn|Van De Mieroop|2005|pages=126–127}}
</poem></blockquote>

After extolling Hammurabi's military accomplishments, the hymn finally declares: "I am Hammurabi, the king of justice."{{sfn|Van De Mieroop|2005|page=127}} In later commemorations, Hammurabi's role as a great lawgiver came to be emphasized above all his other accomplishments and his military achievements became de-emphasized. Hammurabi's reign became the point of reference for all events in the distant past. A hymn to the goddess [[Inanna|Ishtar]], whose language suggests it was written during the reign of [[Ammi-Saduqa|Ammisaduqa]], Hammurabi's fourth successor, declares: "The king who first heard this song as a song of your heroism is Hammurabi. This song for you was composed in his reign. May he be given life forever!"{{sfn|Van De Mieroop|2005|page=128}} For centuries after his death, Hammurabi's laws continued to be copied by scribes as part of their writing exercises and they were even partially translated into Sumerian.{{sfn|Van De Mieroop|2005|page=129}}

===Political legacy===
[[File:Babylonian stele Louvre Sb9.jpg|thumb|Copy of Hammurabi's stele usurped by [[Shutruk-Nakhunte|Shutruk-Nahhunte I]]. The stele was only partially erased and was never re-inscribed.{{sfn|Van De Mieroop|2005|pages=129–130}}|left]]

During the reign of Hammurabi, Babylon usurped the position of "most holy city" in southern Mesopotamia from its predecessor, [[Nippur]].<ref name="Schneider">{{citation|last=Schneider|first=Tammi J.|title=An Introduction to Ancient Mesopotamian Religion|publisher=[[William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company]]|location=Grand Rapids, Michigan|date=2011|isbn=978-0-8028-2959-7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2HfU9gv0fXYC&q=Iconography+of+Enlil&pg=PA58|pages=58–59|access-date=1 November 2020|archive-date=12 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211112192643/https://books.google.com/books?id=2HfU9gv0fXYC&q=Iconography+of+Enlil&pg=PA58|url-status=live}}</ref> Under the rule of Hammurabi's successor [[Samsu-iluna]], the short-lived Babylonian Empire began to collapse. In northern Mesopotamia, both the Amorites and Babylonians were driven from [[Assyria]] by [[Puzur-Sin]] a native [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]]-speaking ruler, {{circa|1740 BC}}. Around the same time, native Akkadian speakers threw off Amorite Babylonian rule in the far south of Mesopotamia, creating the [[Sealand Dynasty]], in more or less the region of ancient Sumer. Hammurabi's ineffectual successors met with further defeats and loss of territory at the hands of Assyrian kings such as [[Adasi (Assyria)|Adasi]] and [[Bel-ibni]], as well as to the Sealand Dynasty to the south, [[Elam]] to the east, and to the [[Kassites]] from the northeast. Thus was Babylon quickly reduced to the small and minor state it had once been upon its founding.{{sfn|Roux|1992|pp=243–246}}

The ''coup de grace'' for the Hammurabi's Amorite Dynasty occurred in 1595 BC, when Babylon was sacked and conquered by the powerful [[Hittite Empire]], thereby ending all Amorite political presence in Mesopotamia.{{sfn|DeBlois|1997|p=19}} However, the Indo-European-speaking Hittites did not remain, turning over Babylon to their [[Kassites|Kassite]] allies, a people speaking a [[language isolate]], from the [[Zagros mountains]] region. This [[Karduniaš|Kassite Dynasty]] ruled Babylon for over 400 years and adopted many aspects of the [[Babylonia]]n [[culture]], including Hammurabi's code of laws.{{sfn|DeBlois|1997|p=19}} Even after the fall of the Amorite Dynasty, however, Hammurabi was still remembered and revered.{{sfn|Van De Mieroop|2005|page=129}} When the Elamite king [[Shutruk-Nakhunte|Shutruk-Nahhunte I]] raided Babylon in 1158 BC and carried off many stone monuments, he had most of the inscriptions on these monuments erased and new inscriptions carved into them.{{sfn|Van De Mieroop|2005|page=129}} On the stele containing Hammurabi's laws, however, only four or five columns were wiped out and no new inscription was ever added.{{sfn|Van De Mieroop|2005|pages=129–130}} Over a thousand years after Hammurabi's death, the kings of [[Suhum|Suhu]], a land along the Euphrates river, just northwest of Babylon, claimed him as their ancestor.{{sfn|Van De Mieroop|2005|page=130}}

A [[Neo-Babylonian Empire|Neo-Babylonian]] royal inscription, which was intended for display on a stele, commemorates a royal grant of tax exemptions to nine Babylonian cities and presents the royal protagonist as a second Hammurabi.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Frazer |first1=Mary |last2=Adalı |first2=Selim Ferruh |date=2021-11-25 |title="The just judgements that Ḫammu-rāpi, a former king, rendered": A New Royal Inscription in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/za-2021-2004/html |journal=Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie |language=en |volume=111 |issue=2 |pages=231–262 |doi=10.1515/za-2021-2004 |s2cid=244530410 |issn=0084-5299 |access-date=20 March 2023 |archive-date=20 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230320152531/https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/za-2021-2004/html |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Relationship to Biblical figures and Mosaic law ===

In the late nineteenth century, the Code of Hammurabi became a major center of debate in the heated ''Babel und Bibel'' ("Babylon and Bible") controversy in Germany over the relationship between the Bible and ancient Babylonian texts.{{sfn|Ziolkowski|2012|page=25}} In January 1902, the German Assyriologist [[Friedrich Delitzsch]] gave a lecture at the [[Sing-Akademie zu Berlin]] in front of the [[Kaiser]] and his wife, in which he argued that the Mosaic Laws of the Old Testament were directly copied off the Code of Hammurabi.{{sfn|Ziolkowski|2012|pages=23–25}} Delitzsch's lecture was so controversial that, by September 1903, he had managed to collect 1,350 short articles from newspapers and journals, over 300 longer ones, and twenty-eight pamphlets, all written in response to this lecture, as well as the preceding one about the [[Gilgamesh flood myth|Flood story in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'']]. These articles were overwhelmingly critical of Delitzsch, though a few were sympathetic. The Kaiser distanced himself from Delitzsch and his radical views and, in fall of 1904, Delitzsch was forced to give his third lecture in [[Cologne]] and [[Frankfurt am Main]] rather than in Berlin.{{sfn|Ziolkowski|2012|page=25}} The putative relationship between the Mosaic Law and the Code of Hammurabi later became a major part of Delitzsch's argument in his 1920–21 book ''Die große Täuschung'' (''The Great Deception'') that the Hebrew Bible was irredeemably contaminated by Babylonian influence and that only by eliminating the human Old Testament entirely could Christians finally believe in the true, [[Aryan]] message of the [[New Testament]].{{sfn|Ziolkowski|2012|pages=23–25}} In the early twentieth century, many scholars believed that Hammurabi was [[Amraphel]], the King of [[Shinar]] in the Book of Genesis 14:1.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1440-amraphel|website=[[The Jewish Encyclopedia]]|title=Amraphel|access-date=24 November 2012|author1-last=Rogers|author1-first=Robert W.|author2-last=Kohler|author2-first=Kaufmann|author2-link=Kaufmann Kohler|author3-last=Jastrow|author3-first=Marcus|author3-link=Marcus Jastrow|archive-date=22 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211122081627/https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1440-amraphel|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2014&version=NIV|title=Bible Gateway passage: Genesis 14 - New International Version|access-date=24 November 2012|archive-date=20 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211120171947/https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2014&version=NIV|url-status=live}}</ref> This view has now been largely rejected,<ref>{{cite book|last=North|first=Robert|editor1-last=Metzger|editor1-first=Bruce M.|editor2-last=Coogan|editor2-first=Michael D.|date=1993|title=The Oxford Companion to the Bible|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195046458/page/5 5]|chapter=Abraham|isbn=978-0-19-504645-8|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195046458/page/5}}</ref><ref name="Granerød2010">{{cite book|last=Granerød|first=Gard|title=Abraham and Melchizedek: Scribal Activity of Second Temple Times in Genesis 14 and Psalm 110|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m5mlvNPexSEC&pg=PA114|date=26 March 2010|location=Berlin, Germany|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-022346-0|page=120}}</ref> and Amraphel's existence is not attested in any writings from outside the Bible.<ref name="Granerød2010"/>

Parallels between this narrative and the giving of the [[Covenant Code]] to [[Moses]] by [[Yahweh]] atop [[Biblical Mount Sinai|Mount Sinai]] in the [[Bible|Biblical]] [[Book of Exodus]] and similarities between the two legal codes suggest a common ancestor in the Semitic background of the two.<ref name="Douglas">{{cite book|last1=Douglas|first1=J. D.|last2=Tenney|first2=Merrill C.|author2-link=Merrill C. Tenney|date=2011|title=Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary|location=Grand Rapids, Michigan|publisher=Zondervan|isbn=978-0-310-22983-4|page=1323}}</ref>{{sfn|Barton|1916|p=406}}<ref name="Unger">[[Merrill Unger|Unger, M.F.]]: ''Archaeology and the Old Testament''. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing Co., 1954, pp. 156–157</ref><ref name="Free">Free, J.P.: ''Archaeology and Biblical History''. Wheaton: Scripture Press, 1950, 1969, p. 121</ref> Nonetheless, fragments of previous law codes have been found and it is unlikely that the [[Law of Moses|Mosaic laws]] were directly inspired by the Code of Hammurabi.<ref name="Douglas"/>{{sfn|Barton|1916|p=406}}<ref name="Unger"/><ref name="Free"/>{{efn|Barton, a former professor of Semitic languages at the University of Pennsylvania, stated that while there are similarities between the two texts, a study of the entirety of both laws "convinces the student that the laws of the Old Testament are in no essential way dependent upon the Babylonian laws." He states that "such resemblances" arose from "a similarity of antecedents and of general intellectual outlook" between the two cultures, but that "the striking differences show that there was no direct borrowing."{{sfn|Barton|1916|p=406}}}} Some scholars have disputed this; David P. Wright argues that the Jewish Covenant Code is "directly, primarily, and throughout" based upon the Laws of Hammurabi.<ref>{{cite book|last=Wright|first=David P.|author-link=David P. Wright|title=Inventing God's Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi|url=https://archive.org/details/inventinggodslaw00wrig|url-access=limited|location=Oxford, England|publisher=Oxford University Press|date=2009|pages=[https://archive.org/details/inventinggodslaw00wrig/page/n17 3] and passim|isbn=978-0-19-530475-6}}</ref> In 2010, a team of archaeologists from [[Hebrew University]] discovered a cuneiform tablet dating to the eighteenth or seventeenth century BC at [[Tel Hazor|Hazor]] in [[Israel]] containing laws clearly derived from the Code of Hammurabi.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Hazor 18: Fragments of a Cuneiform Law Collection from Hazor |journal=Israel Exploration Journal |url=https://www.academia.edu/25193017 |last1=Horowitz |first1=Wayne |issue=2 |volume=62 |pages=158–176 |last2=Oshima |first2=Takayoshi |year=2012 |issn=0021-2059 |jstor=43855622 |last3=Vukosavović |first3=Filip}}</ref>