An eye for an eye

Might depend it you believe not eating from an Apple tree was a law?

2350 bc first recorded law


2350 BC Mesopotamian kings lay down the first recorded law, known as the Urukagina's Code. (The code has never been discovered but it is mentioned in other documents.)
An administrative reform document was discovered which showed that citizens were allowed to know why certain actions were punished. It was also harsh by modern standards. Thieves and adulteresses were to be stoned to death with stones inscribed with the name of their crime. The code confirmed that the "king was appointed by the gods".

It's the earliest recorded law on a relic but it implies there were previous written laws and there are bits and snatches of these in other artifacts. If you read Hammurabi's Code of Laws, it shows the likelihood that the basis for the Hebrew, Egyptian, Greek and Roman Law to name a few came from previously writings of law. The Ten Commandments came out of nowhere as the word of God? I think not. Archaelogical expeditions will uncover more convincing evidence in the future but none of us may be alive to appreciate it. The destruction of the library at Alexandria was a single tragic event in that many manuscripts which would likely have prooved this were lost. There's more to the code than just an eye for an eye so I'm not quite sure what you're asking here.

Hi Light Wizard , we just over lapped transmissions.That was kind of neat. Do you copy ?

Where was China in all of this ?

What if "An eye for an eye" was related to us and the rest of the worlds wild beasts. The equivalent damage to us would be devastating.

Side note - according to this site it's in the Louvre, Paris
http://www.duhaime.org/hamm1.htm

At the time of the rise of Akkadian (first known large group of semitic peoples)civilization in the middle-east, the Chinese had progressed from clan and tribal groups into the establishment of many small, oligarchic, feudal states. The rulers of these states are usually referred to in western texts as "King," "Duke," "Count," "Marquis," etc., based upon an arbitrary assessment of their known or putative territorial control. The "Rice Wars" begin at about the time of the foundation of Babylon, while Ur, the Biblical "Ur of the Chaldees" was still the dominant city in the region. It is believed that the Chaldeans were semitic as well, and likely of the same stock as the Akkadians, but insufficient evidence remains. There is also insufficient detailed evidence about possible temple-societies in ancient China to know if they went through a stage of development similar to that going on in the Middle East.

The "Rice Wars" were wars for control of what is today central and southern China--north of a line running roughtly 50 to 100 miles south of Peking is the "wheat" zone of China, and, given primitive agriculture, rice supported far larger populations. The peoples of the northern regions remained semi-nomadic, the Hu-nu, or Hung-nu of ancient texts--i.e., the "horse barbarians," who enjoyed a considerable advantage militarily over their southern cousins. The invention of the crossbow in China in about 750 B.C.E. changed warfare considerably, and the "Rice Wars" sputtered out rather quickly, as human and material resources were quickly used up. The squabbles continued, however, for centuries--the so-called Shang dynasty never exercised true imperial power in China, and was not able to prevent the squabbling and outright warfare of the clan-leaders--the war lords.

This all changed with the first emperor, Huang-ti, or, as the Chinese long knew him, the Yellow Emperor. He was the first leader able to subdue all the war lords and impose his administration. This occured in the 3d century B.C.E., i believe, although i should go look it up. Huang-ti's administration was possible because of a well-organized bureaucracy, the predecessors of the mandarins. This bureaucracy was to quickly in place, and functioning efficiently, that it is believed that the "mandarin" had been a loosely defined fraternity of the literate who attached themselves to individual clans or rulers, and advised them, while organizing other literate individuals to carry out day-to-day executive functions. This seems to be borne-out by the behavior of the "mandarins" during the "Three-Kingdoms" period, in the third century C.E., after the collapse of the Latter Han dynasty. Again, personal loyalties determined the behavior of the "mandarins," and their influence was great in China.

I saw that but thats not the one I saw. I almost walked past the room actually.When I entered the room and discovered the stone, it was rather plain and unornamental.

Oh, silly old me . . . this relates to the topic in that Huang-ti was the first to be able to impose decrees on most of what we know as China. Otherwise, there was more of an emphasis on policy than on actual "law" per se--and that is why the "mandarins" are significant. Being literate, they kept the records from which precedents were determined--rather like the development of case law in our legal system, but without the legislated antecedants.

http://www.co.broward.fl.us/boi01300.htm
While the precise date of Hammurabi's Code of Laws is disputed by scholars, it is generally believed to have been written between the second year of his reign, circa 1727 BCE, and the end of his reign, circa 1780 BCE, predating the Hebrew "Ten Commandments" by about 500 years.

Perhaps the single most striking feature of Hammurabi's Code is its commitment to protection of the weak from being brutalized by the strong. He believed that he had been ordained by his gods Anu (God of the Sky) and Bel (The Lord of Heaven and Earth, the God of Destiny) to establish the rule of law and justice over his people.

Hey Algis: There has been a long-lingering assumption of a "law of the Jungle" in surmises about early human communities. This is almost exclusively derived from the work of an archaeologist working in South Africa at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. He found skulls with evidence of trepanning, and other signs of violence among hominids, and immediately developed a theory of "killer apes" which was very popular, given the perversions of "social Darwinism" then in vogue. I have, mercifully, forgotten this gobshite's name. Similar signs of violence among early humans had been found in remains found in caves in China. The notion was so popular, that it has become engrained in our view of the ancient world. A lot of the writings of Jack London are predicated upon such assumptions about early humans.

I've never subscribed to this idea. Given all of the other threats to human existence in the old and new stone ages, i cannot imagine the human race as having thrived and prospered as it did if the propensity was to random slaughter. In fact, temple societies could only have developed and survived if an ethic of group cooperation and peaceful resolutions of disputes were not already in place.

For an interesting take on where the stories and legends which make up Genesis derived, see The Gilgamesh Epic--a very interesting text . . .

An eye for an eye seems to be more prevalant than turning the other cheek. Recorded Chinese law is something I'm not as familiar with but it prompts me to delve into it with earnest. I doubt that there's a great deal of difference.

Setanta -- I think it's imperative to read about all the creation stories -- including those the American indians believed in.

I've never made a specific study of ancient Chinese law--however, westerners of all descriptions, in all the periods in which westerners have visited China and reported on it have made especial reference to the lack of violence between individuals in that nation--i don't know how far back this goes, nor it's antecedants--but i've more than once read that two Chinese peasants would argue loudly for long periods of time, hurling the most scurrilous imprecations upon one another and one another's families and ancestors, without ever exchanging blows--something apparently never tolerated by the communities of which they were a part. That is, of course, anecdotal information.

I particularly like the stories about Coyote--the aboriginal natives here truly admired a clever avatar . . .

Here's a few stories:
http://www.pbs.org/circleofstories/voices/voices_gallery.html

Very good, Setanta. Nice overview of what was happening in China, and the beginnings of the organized State. Unfortunately, there isn't alot that can be said here with authority about what was happening in China around the time that writing was invented in Mesopotamia. The earliest "writing" we have in china are some crude pictographs scratched on to bone fragments believed to have been used for divination. These scraps are from around 1000 BCE, if memory serves. Confucious and Lao Tse lived during the 6th century BCE, a time of the Warring States. It is from around that period that Chinese History begins to be known in some detail. Confucian and Taoist thinking thereafter played pivotal roles in Chinese moral/social/ethical codes, and in the legal system.

The Origins of Chinese Civilization
http://asterius.com/china/china1.html#Xia
http://members.aol.com/Donnclass/Chinalife.html#XIA

Yes, and this late start in writing made the position of the mandarin all the more important, as a relatively high degree of civilization had been achieved in an illiterate society--very much like my Irish ancestors--memorization surely played a very pivotal role, perhaps, like the ancient Irish bards, the earliest mandarins were those who had memorized all the "necessary" tracts . . .

I believe that it was Confucian ethics which kept the Chinese peasant society relatively non-violent . . .