The Curse of Hammurabi

There is a very close correspondence  between ancient legal systems, such as the Code of Hammurabi, Hittite Laws etc on the one hand,  and the Torah on the other hand. In fact, the rather brilliant British Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz (as in Hertz Chumash)  argued against the claims of the Bible Critics, by pointing out that some of the legal matters Abraham was involved in, were contemporary laws in the Hammurabian code.  This refuted the claims that Higher Critics made that the story of Abraham was written thousands of years later, by people who simply made up fictional and anachronistic stories about Abraham and his era.  The Hammurabi code would not have been well known in the time of Josiah for example, hence the stories could not have been fictional.

Unfortunately it was also not known in the time of Halevi's Kuzari. But  Gil Student, who cites a bunch of defunct arguments of the Kuzari, would have had the opportunity to read the Hertz Chumash, but unless he is a lazy student, he probably did not. This is because about 25 years ago, the Haredi rabbis banned it, to make way for a Hirsch Humash they were marketing, and then the Artscroll.

Student offers the following support for the Oral Law:

9. The sections of Exodus [ch. 21] and Deuteronomy [ch. 21-25] that deal with monetary and physical crimes do not seem to contain enough information to formulate a working legal system.  How can a court legislate with so few guidelines?  Certainly, for courts to function based on biblical law there must have been more information given in the form of an oral law [Kuzari, ibid; Rashbatz, ibid.].

This is false for the reasons already mentioned, and more.  Firstly, Hammurabi seems to have done reasonably well in administrating a legal system, without having had a Divine Oral Law.  To present the above argument, Halevi is inadvertently  committing apostasy, by implying that the Code of Hammurabi would also have  had an Oral Law.  So does that make Hammurabi also a Divine religion?

In fact, the human Code of Hammurabi was so successful, that the laws in

the Torah are often replicas or developments of them.   Are Israelites so dumb, that what is clear to ancient Babylonians  would need an entirely separate track of law to explain and modify these laws?

Next, the type of laws in these chapters, eg  eye for an eye, were understood quite literally in Hammurabian society. Yet the rabbis claim that in the Torah they refer to monetary compensation. Why would the Torah use precisely the same language and syntax as the Code of Hammurabi, and intend something completely different?  The presence of these replica laws indicates there was some consistency in ancient law, and thus an oral law is precluded.

IN all of these Kuzari type arguments, there is a distinct lack of logic.  It is simply saying that anything that the author of the Kuzari finds difficult to comprehend, be it Ancient Hebrew, unvoweled Hebrew, or basic laws, must ipso facto be unintelligible. This is a demonstration of supreme arrogance combined with total ignorance. This is typical of rabbinic and Talmudic statements in general, and the rabbinic mindset in particular.

IN any case, even if there were guidelines, these may have been written guidelines, or they could be subjective judgements that the Judges would have made in their own cases. Or, there was Divine guidance to the Priests, who administered the courts.  The fallacious argument of a false dilemma is a well known nonsensical argument.

One must add to this kind of discussion, that contrary to rabbinic faith, the fact that a rabbi says or writes something, does not make his statement true. Nor does the printing of a book by a rabbi make its contents true. This is a central fallacy which the rabbis impose on believers - "emunat hachamim". And, this suffers from the Curse of Hammurabi - which has felled Bible Critics and Rabbis alike.