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?