[Music] in the ancient world there existed numerous legal collections we commonly refer to as law codes one of them is the hebrew torah and scholars note numerous similarities between the torah and its ancient near eastern counterparts however despite having similarities the torah is also revolutionary in many ways for the ancient world it introduced new ideas and ethical considerations that are absent in other legal collections i want to point out this is part 3 of a series so much of what i say here will be building on these previous two videos where we point out the torah was not a prescriptive law code or legislation it was more akin to didactic wisdom literature and was culturally situated so it was not intended to be universal moral legislation however despite the torah being intended for the standards of the ancient culture it was still revolutionary for its time and place challenged the ethical standards of the day and would eventually help pave the way to many concepts and beliefs that we take for granted to start in the ancient near eastern legal collections class distinctions were taught as social norms in the hittite assyrian and babylonian legal collections the punishment described would change depending on who was the victim so in the code of hammurabi if a member of the upper class harmed another member of the upper class the punishment is described as fitting the crime if he breaks another man's bone his bones shall be broken but if a member of the upper class harms someone of the lower class the punishment described is only having to pay a fine likewise if someone harmed a slave the punishment listed as paying half the price of the slave class distinctions of the ancient world were recognized in the upper class was given special privileges that members of the lower classes were not entitled to but in the torah class distinctions are directly challenged and rejected christine hayes notes the torah contains a unique principle of talion which was most likely a polemic against class distinctions in other cultures all people of israel were taught to be treated equal whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death whoever takes an animal's life shall make it good life for life if anyone injures his neighbor as he has done it shall be done to him fracture for fracture eye for eye tooth for tooth whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him whoever kills an animal shall make it good and whoever kills a person shall be put to death you shall have the same rule for the sojourner and for the native for i am the lord your god some say this sounds harsh but it is a cultural misunderstanding on our part douglas stewart notes there is no evidence in israel like judge literally required an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth the expression was understood idiomatically to mean a penalty that hurts the person who ruined someone else's eye as much as he would be hurt if his own eye were actually ruined also whatever that was was left for local courts to take the circumstances into consideration stewart says it has as its primary function the prevention of powerful people using their money and influence to get their own way in the courts eye for eye therefore means an effect completely fair without regards for wealth or status of the persons involved so instead of being taught the upper class at special privileges the torah taught all free citizens should be seen as equal brevard child says the principle of lex talionis marked an important advance and was far from being a vestige from a primitive age this casts the principle of talion i hope in a new light the law of italian which is essentially the principle that a person should be punished according to the injury they inflicted it's been decried as a primitive archaic reflex of the vengeance or vendetta principle the notion of an eye for an eye it's usually cited or held up as typical of the harsh and cruel standards of the vengeful old testament god but when you look at it in a comparative light in its legal context we see that it's a polemic against the class distinctions that were being drawn in antecedent and contemporary legal systems such as the code of hammurabi according to the bible the punishment should always fit the crime regardless of the social status of the perpetrator on the one hand or the victim on the other we also see a strong emphasis on humanitarian aid in the torah israel is constantly reminded to love this stranger as yourself provide for the poor and helpless and be compassionate as much as possible it was taught foreigners were to be treated as equals which is a strong stance against racist and ethnocentric tendencies god warned that he was on the side of the helpless in the weak these were the people god was looking out for and israel was called to imitate god in this way the torah taught israel ought to help the needy and helpless because this is what god does israel was called to imitate him in offering humanitarian aid as an extension of his identity ken campbell says deuteronomy 10 18 adds that the israelites were to look to yahweh himself as the paradigm for treating the economically and socially vulnerable persons in their communities so how the god of israel wanted his people to represent him was in caring for the weak and helpless deuteronomy 15 teaches a description of what compassion should look like it states there ought to be no poor among the israelites and to get freely to end poverty for there will never cease to be poor in the land people today have taken this verse to mean because there will always be poverty there's no reason to give to charity but the torah meant for this statement to mean the opposite that poverty is such a horrible and persistent problem that the hebrews ought to always be ready to lend to the poor even though we noted the ancient legal collections were not prescriptive legislation we can still observe that the descriptive nature of the punishments in the torah were more humane than their other ancient or eastern counterparts the middle of syrian laws for example are considered to contain some of the harshest laws of any ancient or eastern collection the middle of syrian laws explicitly authorized inhumane treatment of a deserting wife and cut off her ears legalize violence in the case of a trainee a diss trainee is a pledge someone who has been placed in your house because of a debt and is working for you the the citizen may do what he wishes as he feels that his trainee deserves he may pull out his hair he may mutilate his ears by piercing them the middle of syrian laws also legalize violence against a wife when she deserves it a senor may pull out the hair of his wife mutilate or twist her ears there's no liability attaching to him in contrast within the torah we don't see descriptive punishments of mutilation or other types of extreme inhumane practices as bad as they are in the other ancient texts michael woolser even admits it has often been said that israelite law the three codes taken together is more advanced that is more humanitarian liberal and so on than that of other ancient peoples he goes on to note sometimes the torah describes more harsh punishments for specific crimes but these seem to be crimes that are direct offenses to god and still not necessarily prescriptive others seem to be because the torah places a higher value on human life and less value on property to elaborate what i mean in other legal collections death is at times described as the proper punishment for stealing or other property crimes but in the torah death is never described for infringements on property moshe greenberg has shown that other legal collections can describe a fine as the proper payment for a murder but the torah describes justice as being that a murderer cannot pay his way out death was the only just way to deal with murder in the context of the ancient near east greenberg says the torah places more value on human life and less value on property in other legal collections property can be valued more than life seen in the fact that death can be described as the proper punishment for theft and one can pay their way out of a murder but the torah implies human life should be seen as more valuable murder can only be dealt justly by executing the murderer kidnapping also is described as deserving death given that human life was seen as valuable but stealing is not described as a crime worthy of death greenberg argued the torah reverses the standard of the ancient near east that life was cheap and property was more valuable david baker says the penalties prescribed for theft in the bible are much more humane than in most ancient near eastern laws and never involve mutilation beating or death we also see vicarious punishments minimizing the torah in other legal collections a described punishment will often be something like if a poorly built house kills someone's son then the builder's son has to die or if someone rapes another man's daughter then the rapist wife is to be raped these are lacking in the biblical texts and contain possible polemics against this type of legal teaching exodus 21 says that if an untamed ox gores a son or daughter of someone else then the ox owner is the one held responsible not the child of the ox owner deuteronomy 24 16 even states fathers should not be put to death because of their children nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers each one shall be put to death for his own sin in other words the torah encouraged the idea of personal responsibility instead of the ancient eastern custom of a family member suffering the consequence for your crime and place of you there is a debate on whether or not slavery in the bible included real chattel slavery where slaves were seen as the literal property of masters or of all slaves were merely indentured servants meaning that they were not really slaves like antebellum slaves in part of this series we argue that regardless of this debate the biblical texts admit the torah was not perfect and was culturally situated wisdom so we don't have to worry about the question on whether or not slavery in the bible included chattel slavery but setting aside that debate for now there is still a push towards humanitarian treatment of slaves in the torah as we noted israel was commanded to love the foreigner and treat them as one of their own the rationale for this is in places like exodus 22 21 and 23 9 which teaches that israel was once foreigners in the land of egypt and they ought to remember how they were treated there so don't oppress and enslave foreigners in your land like you were oppressed in egypt brevard child says verse 9 voices a familiar concern over this stranger who was especially vulnerable to acts of violence and injustice by his isolated position the motivation clause which suddenly shifts to the plural form once again reminds israel of her egyptian bondage the implication in the pentateuch is not to do what egypt did by oppressing foreigners and treating them unfairly so there is an implication in the torah slaves regardless of their status must be treated fairly and cannot be oppressed ken campbell notes all those slaves reviewed as the property of the heads of households the latter were not free to brutalize or abuse even non-israelite members of the household on the contrary explicit prohibitions of the oppression exploitation of slaves appears repeatedly in the mosaic legislation like exodus 22 20 in both texts israel's memory of her own experience as slaves in egypt should have provided motivation for compassion and treatment of her slaves the torah also describes slaves as having a right to a sabbath rest be allowed to participate in important religious practices should not be abused could only be marked or branded if they wanted to be and could not be killed on the whims of their master some might attempt to argue some of the stipulations only apply to indentured servants and not chattel slaves but that is assuming these are necessarily prescriptive laws which we argue is not likely in part one instead what we see is culturally situated wisdom on what justice looked like in that time period one is meant to learn from the holistic wisdom of the torah regarding the proper way to act and what the torah is pushing towards is a more humanitarian approach to the treatment of slaves which is why we see the torah including wisdom with much more humane treatment as slaves skeptics may also attempt to cite exodus 21 20-21 where it says that if a master hits his slave and the slave lives then there's no punishment for the master but this is cherry-picking as just a few verses later the authors add that the slave also must be set free even for small infractions so it is not true that torah describes justice as masters being allowed to abuse their slaves within an inch of their lives christopher wright points out no other ancient nor eastern law has been found that holds masters to account for the treatment of his own slaves as distinct from injury done to the slave of another master walter eitrolt says the norms given in the book of the covenant reveal when compared with related law books of the ancient near east radical alterations in legal practice in the evaluation of the offenses against property in the treatment of slaves and the fixing of punishment for indirect offenses and in the rejection of punishment by mutilation the value of human life is recognized as incomparably greater than all material values even the rights of the lowliest foreigner are placed under the protection of god and if he is also dependent without full legal rights to oppress him is like oppressing the widow and the orphan a transgression worthy of punishment which calls forth god's avenging retribution so the torah radically challenged the ethical standards of the day and has a strong push towards humanitarian aid slaves cannot be abused or treated harshly the poor and the helpless were to be cared for all were equal before god and judges regardless of class distinctions people were responsible for their own sins and the value of human life was perceived as much greater than what we see in other legal collections this is not to say there were not humanitarian measures in other cultures or presented in other legal collections however the torah goes further in many ways as we've noted and also it has a much stronger emphasis on humanitarian aid equality and ethical demands more importantly is how the torah grounds these teachings in the ancient near east outside of israel there was no formal understanding of integrity and guilt all wrongdoing centered around public honor and public shame one did good to receive public honor and one did not do what was perceived as bad so you would not receive public shame good and evil were public ideas not personal ideas ethical demands were grounded in the community in public appearances if a woman committed adultery and neither her nor the participant told anyone there was no sin committed since it brought no public shame things were only bad if it brought dishonor among the community carl vandertorn says the babylonians did not have an introspective tradition and had little sense of interiority subjectivity had not been invented yet the virtual absence of interiority and subjectivity in the babylonian autobiographical tradition follows from the concept of person as a social role in character individual identity in this view is not what you are deep down but what you manifest to be it is public and social but in the torah obligations and virtues are grounded in god so something is still wrong if no one sees it or it doesn't affect the community sin is moved to a personal level between you and god not between you and the community this is why the torah often teaches that you ought to do good to please god regardless of how others see it one is to love god before anyone else and realize that he is aware of all that happens the torah is not intending to lay down universal moral laws to follow but it does contain teachings that promote a more ethical way to think in new ways for the ancient culture to think about why one should live more ethically within the torah after certain stipulations are presented a phrase often appears i am the lord your god scholars note this phrase is used to teach one is personally beholden to the god who sees all not just the community in essence it reminds israel they are to do good because it is god who sees their actions and they are primarily beholden to him not the courts of the community the scope of the law is holistic it's going to contain social and ethical and moral and religious prescriptions and very often they're going to be couched in an authoritative apodictic style particularly the things that aren't enforceable in a court of law they will tend to be the ones that are backed up by the authority of god directly you shall do this i the lord of your god notice how many times that that refrain is used and it's almost always used with those unenforceable kinds of things love your neighbor as yourself you know i the lord i'm your god it's me who's watching out for this one not the court the sean battero says did morality honest and righteous behavior have an authentic religious and cultural value a place in the practice of religion a direct influence on the gods we have never found any response in all of our documentation to such a question a question we ask ourselves from our own religious and biblical point of view the ancient mesopotamians never overtly concern themselves with or imagine such preoccupations which are so familiar to us this must have been one of moses great revolutions in israel to replace the purely material maintenance of the gods with the single and so liturgical obligation in life to obey a moral law thereby truly rendering to god the only homage worthy of him so the torah laid the foundation for personal integrity and internal guilt to emerge jj finkelstein points out this biblical idea was revolutionary for how the ancient world viewed what was right and wrong since the stipulations of the torah introduced concepts that would lead to personal guilt integrity and located the idea of right and wrong in the character of god himself kings could not simply make decrees that contradicted the will of god michael walser notes a story in first kings 21 where king ahab desires the vineyard of naboth he tries to buy it but naboth refuses so ahab reluctantly has to return to his palace unable to acquire the vineyard such a story would have been peculiar to the surrounding cultures in the ancient near east the king could do as he pleased and seize whatever he wanted the legal collections of the ancient world were not given by the gods the gods appointed rulers to establish justice and order so the code of hammurabi is not wisdom from the gods it is the wisdom of hammurabi and if he decided he could seize whatever he wanted but in israel the legal wisdom on the ideal way to live in that time period came from god himself ahab was beholden to wisdom or guidelines he could not transcend even as king and so he could not just seize what he wanted to which is why his wife a follower of baal uses trickery or finds a loophole to have naboth killed so one of the points of the story is that the torah challenged the idea kings could do as they pleased and placed real authority in god not in human rollers the torah changed the way rules were viewed and placed them beyond the whims of kings and rollers this is one reason why jerusalem is one of the pillars of western civilization the torah laid a revolutionary foundation for standards beyond human constructs it placed a strong emphasis on humanitarian aid and challenged the idea that there could be special legal privileges for the kings or the upper class although the torah was only temporary and would one day be replaced it laid the foundations for a revolutionary view of morality and judicial wisdom it was an important and necessary step towards building a better world you