David
History is the past, which for the most part can not be scientifically
proven. The real goal of history and humanities is to rediscover and learn about the past.
A dramatic error happens when past is rediscovered from our own bias that is from the
way we see it. Even certain artifacts, and works of literature that we have left from earlier
civilizations, can be interpreted in several different ways, or misinterpreted to a certain
extend or entirely.
Usually interpretation, or even misinterpretation is affected by the concept
of ethnocentrism, where different communities have an already set up establishment of
certain norms based on their own believes, traditions, social, legislative, and personal
values and ethics from which they judge other foreign communities. When considering
other societies, it is usually a difficult task to view “other world” without an observer’s
prejudices. Each world, can evoke its own realities that are more or less comparable from
one period to another, or from one culture to another.
One of the obvious attempt at a justice system, which is going to be
discussed in this paper, took place by the king of Mesopotamia, King Hammurabi. (Arts
and Culture, An Introduction To The Humanities. Volume I. By Janetta Rebold Benton
and Robert DiYanni. Prentice Hall, Inc. 1998p. 98) presents Hammurabi’s Code as a
“Law Code” of king Hammurabi. It was, in turn something quite different from a Code of
Laws existing in our judicial and legislative structure of government and society in
America. Hammurabi’s Code- “A law Code” or a set of royal decisions???
As written in Mesopotamia:The Mighty Kings. Time-Life Books,
Alexandria, Virginia.1997, p26, the code consists if 282 laws that are branched at the
beginning and end by a prologue and epilogue. The “Code” touches almost every aspect
of everyday life in Babylonian. As the prologue states, the laws...