Hammurabi Discussion Questions
Around 1700 BC King Hammurabi of Babylon conquered many of
the city-states of Mesopotamia. The city-states had divergent
unwritten laws subject to the whim of the judge. Hammurabi decided
that all his subjects needed a uniform, written code of laws that could
apply to the whole empire. When he was finished there were 282
laws.
1) Prior to Hammurabi’s Code, what specific type of problems
could result from laws that were not written down?
2) Which of Hammurabi’s laws would be impossible to enforce in
the modern world? Why?
3) Are there any of his laws you feel are superior to our modern
equivalent laws? Why?
4) Are there any of his laws you think we could use if we
modified them? Which ones? How should they be modified?
Why?
5) To what extent did Hammurabi’s judges have more authority
than modern judges? Why?
6) Do you find any of Hammurabi’s laws brutal or unfair? Why?
7) To what extent did discrimination by social classes or sex exist
under Hammurabi’s laws? Explain.
8) How do Hammurabi’s laws compare to laws in modern Middle
Eastern nations such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or Iran?
9) What effect would enactment of all Hammurabi’s laws have on
modern bureaucracy? Why?