Middle Assyrian Laws

Impact

The Middle Assyrian Laws are set firmly in the ancient Near Eastern legal tradition that harks back at least to the earliest set of formalized legal promulgations written in Sumerian from the reigns of Ur-Nammu of Ur (ca. 2112–2095 BCE) and Lipit-Ishtar of Isin (ca. 1950 BCE). Moreover, legal codes written in Akkadian have been uncovered, including those of Dadusha of Eshnunna (ca. 1770 BCE) and Hammurabi of Babylon, as well as Hittite laws from Anatolia (ca. 1400–1200 BCE). There are also late-period Babylonian laws from centuries after the Middle Assyrian texts, dating to around 700 BCE. Furthermore, there are fragments of other legal codes with dates ranging from 2100 to 700 BCE. These codes suggest an overall ancient Near Eastern legal tradition that spanned different linguistic groups, geographic regions, and time periods. These legal documents have a number of things in common. Virtually all of them use the same conditional format. Moreover, the laws clearly are not comprehensive but rather deal with specific incidental situations. Many of the laws (and themes) from the early codes are duplicated and edited in later texts.

The ancient law of the Hebrew peoples, attributed to Moses and found in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, shows evidence that it also rests firmly in the legal tradition of the ancient Near East. It is no surprise that the Middle Assyrian Laws have a special affinity to the so-called Mosaic Laws, in terms of both themes and formalistic structure. For example, Middle Assyrian Laws concerning assault resulting in miscarriage (A21 and A50–52) are similar to those in Exodus 21:22–25. Similarly, the Middle Assyrian Laws concerning seduction and rape (A55–56) are like those in Exodus 22:15–16. Moreover, Middle Assyrian Laws about slander (A18) correspond to Deuteronomy 22:13–22. Like the Mosaic Laws, the Middle Assyrian Laws obliquely belong to an ancient legal tradition from which much of the core legal values of Western civilization stem.