New translations of fifty transliterated texts for research and classroom use This collection of sixth-century B.C.E. Mesopotamian texts provides a close-up, often dramatic, view of ancient courtroom encounters shedding light on Neo-Babylonian legal culture and daily life. In addition to the legal texts, Holtz provides an introduction to Neo-Babylonian social history, archival records, and legal materials. This is an essential resource for scholars interested in the history of law. Features Fifty new English translations Transliterations for use in advanced Akkadian courses Background essays perfect for courses dealing with ancient Near Eastern history and law Explanatory essays preceding each text and its translation
Even though scholars have known of Neo-Babylonian legal texts almost since Assyriology's very beginnings, no comprehensive study of court procedure has been undertaken. This lack is particularly glaring in light of studies of court procedure in earlier periods of Mesopotamian history. With these studies as a model, this book begins by presenting a comprehensive classification of the text-types that made up the "tablet trail" of records of the adjudication of legal disputes in the Neo-Babylonian period. In presenting this text-typology, it considers the texts' legal function within the adjudicatory process. Based on this, the book describes the adjudicatory process as it is attested in private records as well as in records from the Eanna at Uruk.
The question arises whether logic was given to us by God or whether it is the result of human evolution. I believe that at least the modus ponens rule ( A and if A then B implies B) is inherent in humans, but probably many other modern systems (e.g., resource logic, non - monotonic logic etc.) are the result of humans adapating to the environment. It is therefore of interest to study and compare the way logic is used in ancient cultures as well as the way logic is going to be used in our 21st century. This welcome book studies and compares the way formation of logic in three cultures: Ancient Greek (4th century B.C.), Judaic (1st century B.C. – 1st century A.D.) and Indo-Buddhist (2nd century A.D.) The book notes that logic became especially popular during the period of late antiquity in countries covered by the international trade of the Silk Road. This study makes a valuable contribution to the history of logic and to the very understanding of the origions and nature of logical thinking. -Prof. Dov Gabbay, King's College London, UK Andrew Schumann in his book demonsrates that logic step-by-step arose in different places and cultural circles. He argues that if we apply a structural-genealogical method, as well as turn to various sources, particularly, religious, philosophical, linguistic, etc., then we can obtain a more general and more adequate picture of emengence and development of logic. This book is a new and very valuable contribution to the history of logic as a manifestation of the human mind. - Prof. Jan Wolenski, Jagiellonian University, Poland The author of the Archaeology of Logic defends the claim, calling it "logic is aftter all", which sees logical competence as a practical skill that people began to learn in antiquity, as soom as they realized that avoiding cognitive biases in their reasoning would make their daily activities more successful. The in-depth reading of the book with its diving into the comparative quotations in the long dead or hardly known to most of us languages like Sumerian-Akkadian, Aramatic, Hebrew and etc, will be rewarded by the response that the logical competence is diverse and it can be trained, despite the inevitabilitiy of the reasoning fallacies; and that critical discussions and agaonal character of the social lide are the necessary tools for that. - Prof. Elena Lisanyuk
Outside of the Bible, all of the known Near Eastern law collections were produced in the third to second millennia BCE, in cuneiform on clay tablets, and in major cities in Mesopotamia and in the Hittite Empire. None of the major sites in Syria that have yielded cuneiform tablets has borne even a fragment of a law collection, even though several have produced ample legal documentation. Excavations at Nuzi have also turned up numerous legal documents, but again, no law collection. Even Egypt has not yielded a collection of laws. As such, the biblical texts that scholars regularly identify as law collections represent the only "western," non-cuneiform expressions of the genre in the ancient Near East, produced by societies not known for their political clout, and separated in time from "other" collections by centuries. Making a Case: The Practical Roots of Biblical Law challenges the long-held notion that Israelite and Judahite scribes either made use of "old" law collections or set out to produce law collections in the Near Eastern sense of the genre. Instead, what we call "biblical law" is closer in form and function to another, oft-neglected Mesopotamian genre: legal-pedagogical texts. During their education, Mesopotamian scribes studied a variety of legal-oriented school texts, including sample contracts, fictional cases, short sequences of laws, and legal phrasebooks. When biblical law is viewed in the context of these legal-pedagogical texts from Mesopotamia, its practical roots in a set of comparable legal exercises begin to emerge.
How was it possible that Greeks often wrote their laws on the walls of their temples, but - in contrast to other ancient societies - never transformed these written civic laws into a religious law? Did it matter whether laws were inscribed in stone, clay, or on a scroll? And above all, how did written law shape a society in which the majority population was illiterate? This volume addresses the similarities and differences in the role played by law and religion in various societies across the Eastern Mediterranean. Bringing together a collection of 14 essays from scholars of the Hebrew Bible, Ancient Greece, the Ancient Near East, Qumran, Elephantine, the Nabateans, and the early Arab world, it also approaches these subjects in an all-encompassing manner, looking in detail at the notion of law and religion in the Eastern Mediterranean as a whole in both the geographical as well as the historical space.
Explore the lengthy history of legal metaphors in ancient prayer In biblical and other ancient Near Eastern sources, prayer is an opportunity to make one’s case before divine judges. Prayers were formulated using courtroom or trial language, including demands for judgment, confessions, and accusations. The presence of these legal concepts reveals ancient Near Eastern thoughts about what takes place when one prays. Holtz highlights legal concepts that appear in prayers, including the motif of the speakers' oppression in Psalms the possibility of countersuit against God through prayer, and divine attention and inattention as legal responses. By reading ancient prayers together with legal texts, this book shows how speakers took advantage of prayer as an opportunity to have their day in the divine court and even sue against divine injustice. Features Identification of legal vocabulary and concepts that appear in ancient prayers Analysis of legal metaphors in prayer examples in Akkadian and postbiblical rabbinic texts Interpretations of trial records and texts from Psalms and Lamentations
Informed, accessible textbook on law collections in the Pentateuch In this book William Morrow surveys four major law collections in Exodus–Deuteronomy and shows how they each enabled the people of Israel to create and sustain a community of faith. Treating biblical law as dynamic systems of thought facilitating ancient Israel's efforts at self-definition, Morrow describes four different social contexts that gave rise to biblical law: (1) Israel at the holy mountain (the Ten Commandments); (2) Israel in the village assembly (Exodus 20:22–23:19); (3) Israel in the courts of the Lord (priestly and holiness rules in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers); and (4) Israel in the city (Deuteronomy). Including forthright discussion of such controversial subjects as slavery, revenge, gender inequality, religious intolerance, and contradictions between bodies of biblical law, Morrow's study will help students and other serious readers make sense out of texts in the Pentateuch that are often seen as obscure.
Even though scholars have known of Neo-Babylonian legal texts almost since Assyriology's very beginnings, no comprehensive study of court procedure has been undertaken. This lack is particularly glaring in light of studies of court procedure in earlier periods of Mesopotamian history. With these studies as a model, this book begins by presenting a comprehensive classification of the text-types that made up the "tablet trail" of records of the adjudication of legal disputes in the Neo-Babylonian period. In presenting this text-typology, it considers the texts' legal function within the adjudicatory process. Based on this, the book describes the adjudicatory process as it is attested in private records as well as in records from the Eanna at Uruk. "This study of textual typologies and adjudication processes will be of immense value to Assyriologists, biblical scholars and historians of law alike. This is without mentioning the wealth of social and economic insights evident in each case, let alone the valuable identification of Neo-Babylonian formulaic legal expressions." S. Jacobs “Overall, Holtz’s work is replete with important data, insightful in its analysis and judicious in its interpretive decisions. It should serve not only as an important resource but also as a significant statement on the function of law and judicial procedure at an important time in Mesopotamian history.” Bruce Wells, Saint Joseph’s University
The first comprehensive survey of the world's oldest known legal systems, this collaborative work of twenty-two scholars covers over 3,000 years of legal history of the Ancient Near East. Each of the book's chapters represents a review of the law of a particular period and region, e.g. the Egyptian Old Kingdom, by a specialist in that area. Within each chapter, the material is organized under standardized legal categories (e.g. constitutional law, family law) that make for easy cross-referencing. The chapters are arranged chronologically by millennium and within each millennium by the three major politico-cultural spheres of the region: Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia and the Levant. An introduction by the editor discusses the general character of Ancient Near Eastern Law.
