God's Dismissal

Ritik Malhotra

Near Eastern Studies R1B Lecture 4

Response Paper: Hammurabi (Ch 1-3)

God’s Dismissal

King Hammurabi of Babylon: A Biography by Marc Van De Mieroop is a cleverly crafted biography depicting the tale of a great king and conqueror, Hammurabi, who was the sixth king of Babylon. Hammurabi is shown as a wonderful king, famous in Ancient Mesopotamian history, famous for his law code. However, contrary to many other works we’ve read, this biography me Mieroop shows Hammurabi as an intellectual character who is more motivated from his inner will than from the will of God.

While reading through this biography, I noticed that there was much more descriptive text on the actual details of the defeat of Elam and of Hammurabi’s magnificence, as compared to previous texts in which there was a lot more allusion to God and a dependence on God to perform tasks. For example, in The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh constantly made offerings to God and called upon God for assistance, however Hammurabi seems to be more “modern” and enacts his actions using logical reasoning. This may be a consequence of a modern perspective being taken upon Hammurabi’s conquest, or it could be that there isn’t enough evidence that Hammurabi was God-dependent like many others of the same time period. I felt that this lack of dependence on God gave off a more intellectual vibe from Hammurabi as a leader, especially as he is famous for constructing his very own law code.

However, it is also important to note that Hammurabi does make some allusions to God, yet even those are still scarce. Hammurabi mentions that he “defeated the armies of Elam” with “the help of the great gods” (Mieroop 30), which is still very peculiar in comparison to God’s role in what we’ve previously read. In this statement, Hammurabi merely takes God’s name as a helping hand in his task, as if God were just a sidelined player that assisted Hammurabi rather than actually did something significant, which is moreso witnessed in The Epic of Gilgamesh as Shamash significantly helps Gilgamesh in his battles, and even God’s influence that motivates people to create Uruk as described in Uruk: The First City.

Essentially, the sole argument lies around the fact that Hammurabi has a more modern, intellectual, and independent air to him. Even though he mentions God a few times, and develops places of worship for people, he is still portrayed as someone that takes his own action and provides real results rather than those of God’s, which strikes me as unusual and peculiar for this time period especially.