1. Warm-Up Scenario The community harvest has failed due to bad weather.
There are animals in the temple but they’re protected by law.
Your cousin steals one of the protected pigs to feed his family. You tried to persuade him not to steal the pig.
Your cousin is caught.
He must pay 30 times the cost of a pig.
He cannot afford it so he is sentenced to death.
Is this fair?

2. Early Legal Codes
LG 3: Identify the impact of Hammurabi’s Code of Laws and the Ten Commandments. (TEKS/SEs 20B)

3. Vocabulary used today
Polytheism:
Monotheism:
Theocracy:

4. Babylonian Empire 2,000 BC – nomadic warriors invade Sumer
Establish Babylonian Empire
Greatest leader is Hammurabi
Developed world’s 1st uniform legal code
Uniform: organized & applied to everyone
Hammurabi’s Code of Laws
Goal: Unify diverse groups within the empire by having a common legal code
Engraved in stone and spread all over empire!
Different punishments for rich & poor, men & women
Based on principle of retaliation: “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”

5. Spread of the Israelites
1st - Migrated from Mesopotamia to Palestine
2nd - Drought led them to migrate from Palestine to Egypt
3rd - Enslaved in Egypt until Moses (parting of the Red Sea - “let my people go”)
4th - Returned to Palestine

6. Israel & Judah Established a small state in Palestine
split into 2 kingdoms
Israel in the North
Judah in the South – Jerusalem is capital

7. Evolution of Judaism Through exile and migration, Judaism evolved
One God (monotheism)
Torah - Sacred writings (also the Old Testament in Christianity)
Ten Commandments
Jews believe they are moral laws given to them by God for them to follow

8. Spread of Judaism
Idea of monotheism spreads in the region due to migrations, captivity, powerful kingdoms
Provided foundation for both Christianity and Islam
Romans forced them to far ends of empire
Jewish Diaspora

9. Compare/Contrast
Using the handout, compare/contrast Hammurabi’s Code with the Ten Commandments