Compare And Contrast The Code Of Hammurabi And The Eight Beatitudes

Over the course of many years and through many traditions, humans have been guided by three different things that govern human behavior. The three elements are the Ten Commandments, the Code of Hammurabi, and the Eight Beatitudes. The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue, are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and Christianity. The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code of ancient Mesopotamia, dating back to about 1754 BC. It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The Beatitudes are eight blessings recounted in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. Each is a proverb-like proclamation.
The Hammurabi

The Hammurabi Code was a very strict, action and consequence series, whereas the Beatitudes are suggestions of the types of people who could easily enter Heaven. The Beatitudes are the blessings that Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount, and they offer an entirely different moral code, one which is inviting rather than prohibitive. According to Dan Barker, “Five of the eight beatitudes have nothing to do with morality. They are more of a pep talk than a code of ethical behavior. None of them are truly ethical in themselves since they are all conditions for a future reward. A true ethical code might mention the benefits of certain actions, but should stress the inherent value of the behavior on its own merits before detailing the gain or loss for the individual.” The Hammurabi Code speaks of punishment, rather than moral values. The main principle was "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." This phrase, along with the idea of written laws, goes back to ancient Mesopotamian culture that prospered long before the Bible was written or the civilizations of the Greeks or Romans flowered. Hammurabi is the best known and most celebrated of all Mesopotamian kings. Although he was concerned with keeping order in his kingdom, this was not his only reason for compiling the list of laws. Hammurabi needed one universal set of laws for all of the diverse peoples he conquered. Hammurabi states that he wants "to make justice visible in the land, to destroy the wicked person and the evildoer, that the strong might not injure the weak." The laws themselves support this compassionate claim, and the vulnerable from being harmed or exploited. The phrase "an eye for an eye" represents what many people view as a harsh sense of justice based on revenge, but the entire code is much more complex than that one