Laws of the gods, they have been influencing humanity since the birth of civilizations. From the Hammurabi to the Hebrews, or Manu to Zoroastrianism, people have been obeying the calls of their lords whether it was due to fear of punishment or desire to further knowledge and placement along side their respectful gods in the afterlife. These four societies all contained key aspects which made them their own. However, all had a main focus of a strict moral code that preaches human rights to better the societies as wholes, although some may tend to focus on males over females, or one caste over another, the end goals are clear: to be closer to God.
In Exodus, of the Hebrew Bible, God gave Moses strict covenants: do not worship any gods above Me, honor your mother and father, do not commit murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false evidence against your neighbor, and do not covet your neighbor (Gosch, Grieshaber, and Stearns 29). Along with these was a code of laws which guided the Hebrew people, giving them rules to help live their lives. These laws focused on personal matters between the Hebrew people, how they could have repaid debts between themselves, and matters in justice of the law (30). Now even though the Hebrew people had these laws to follow, the punishments were by God, and would not only affect the individual involved but their children, and their children’s children for generations to come (28).
The Hebrew Laws say a lot about their status at the time. They did not have much. Many were at one time slaves to the Egyptians (Brasil). These laws kept things in check, keeping everything fair in the eyes of God. There was still a lot of within the people, but there were laws to protect them, such as slaves could only be slaves for 6 years and must be set free in the seventh year (Gosch, Grieshaber, and Stearns 29). The laws influenced equality among the people and many have carried into societies of today.
Hammurabi...