King's Research Portal

King’s Research Portal

Link to publication record in King's Research Portal

Citation for published version (APA): Jacobs, S. (Accepted/In press). Models of Perfect Justice: Aspirational Retaliatory Measures in Ancient Legal Sources . In K. de Graff (Ed.), Law and (Dis)Order in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the 59th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Held at University of Ghent, 15-19 July 2013 Eisenbrauns.

Citing this paper Please note that where the full-text provided on King's Research Portal is the Author Accepted Manuscript or Post-Print version this may differ from the final Published version. If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the Research Portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognize and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.

•Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the Research Portal for the purpose of private study or research. •You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain •You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the Research Portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.

Download date: 28. Sep. 2021

19 August 2014

Dr Sandra Jacobs Conference Paper Submission: 59th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale University of Ghent, 15-19 July 2013 “Law and (Dis)Order in the Ancient Near East.”

Models of Perfect Justice: Aspirational Retaliatory Measures in Ancient Legal Sources

The quest for perfect justice remains a tantalizing ideal, the absence of which is most acute for victims of crime, particularly for those injured, or killed, by a serial offender. Contemporary punishments, including the death penalty and life imprisonment, essentially convey a sense that justice has been achieved, even when it appears to be compromised – as in the recent reports of successfully-escaped prisoners from UK jails and, arguably also, where a “life-sentenced” criminal is released on parole. Such situations offer a compelling rationale for understanding the ancient belief that perfect justice was ultimately divine, and accordingly that kittum u mīšarum, “truth and justice,” (ROTH 1997, 81) could only be achieved by reproducing the heavenly order on earth. In this context “judgement was thus a transposition of divine practices into the human sphere,” in which the integral elements of stability (kittum from kânum, “to be stable, or solid,”) and precision (mīšarum from ešērum, “to be right, straight,”) were crucial for the continuity of human life on earth (DÉMARE- LAFONT 2011, 335). In this ideological framework divine retribution played a profound role, where conditions in the natural environment were presumed to echo those in the cosmic arena. This instinctive desire for judicial accuracy was reflected in widespread aspirations for achieving a notional equivalence between a crime and its punishment, and where the tailoring of a sanction to correspond to the sin was variously recommended in ancient sources. While such processes have a complex textual history, appearing often stereotypical in their demands for physical retaliation (as in the case of ius talionis, encapsulated in its “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth,” formulation, examined in JACKSON 1973, 273-304; CARDASCIA 1979, 169-183; WESTBROOK 1986, 52-69; HOUTMAN 1996, 381-397; HAASE 1997; DAVIS 2005; LEVINE 2008, 187-203; ROTHKAMM, 2011; JACOBS 2014, 68-189) the non-bodily specific demands for retaliatory measures are no less important. With reference to these more abstract expressions, the correspondence between the active nature of the crime and its subsequent punishment, nonetheless, remains explicit. In relation to the traditions preserved in the Hebrew Bible, this process has been termed “reflective talion,” (JACOBS 2013, 691-699; 2014, 127-134), and can be differentiated from that of instrumental talion, which describes a punitive injury to the body part responsible for carrying out, or initiating, the crime (SHEMESH 2005; JACOBS, 2010; 2014, 134-178 ). Accordingly the core-belief, that there was an intrinsic link between a negative act and the inevitable consequence for its perpetrator encouraged the conviction that a fair punishment would rightly correspond proportionally to the nature and extent of the crime committed, (as BLENKINSOPP 1995; HAASE 1997; EGO, 2007). In general terms this message that “you reap whatever you sow,” (Galatians 6:7, as also Jeremiah 17:10; Job 34:1, etc.) reverberated in the Gospels: “For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you,” (Luke 6:38) and similarly, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you,” (Mark 4:24). Likewise, within the Hebrew Bible, the Psalmist (7:17) confirms, “his mischief will recoil upon his own head; his lawlessness will come down upon his skull.” In exemplifying this process with more concrete (negative) activities, Ecclesiastes

(10:8) adds: “He who digs a pit will fall into it; he who breaches a stone fence will be bitten by a snake.” Key elements of reflective talion are keenly recalled in the post-flood experience of Utanapištim, who explains to Gilgameš that once he and his wife returned to dry land, they provided the appropriate thanksgiving offerings to the gods, who descended like flies. Once sated, Ea proceeds to rebuke Enlil: You sage of the gods, you hero. How could you lack counsel and cause the deluge? On him who commits a sin, inflict his crime! On him who commits a wrong, inflict [his] wrongdoing! Slack off, lest it be snapped! Pull taut, least it become [slack!],” (GEORGE 2003, 715). Ea’s criticism of Enlil (in effectively wiping out mankind entirely with a flood) presumes that even the gods ought to be bound by talionic convention: “on him who commits a sin, inflict his crime.” A more ideal allocation of divine justice is recommended, as Ea then suggests that less widespread human destruction would have been a more responsible option: “Instead of the deluge you caused, lion could arise to diminish the people….. wolf could arise to diminish the people….famine could happen to slaughter the land…..Erra could arise to slaughter the land.” (Lines 189-95, GEORGE 2003, 714-717). Here the desire for the gods to distribute punishment more equitably and restrict it to sinners exclusively is presented as a more responsible divine option. Unlike these entirely destructive consequences earlier attestations of reflective talion were configured also in positive terms, where the Sumerian proverbs recommend: “Let kindness be repaid to him who repays kindness,” (ALSTER, 1997, Vol. 1, 216), and later in bilingual Akkadian-Sumerian forms: “May kindness be repaid to him who does a kindness. May Ḫunma grant favour to him of whom favour is predicated.” (LAMBERT 1960, 264). In this same vein, “he who insults is insulted; he who sneers, is sneered at,” (ALSTER, 1997, Vol. 1, 92), where Bendt Alster explains “a person is treated according to his behaviour.” (ALSTER 1997, Vol. 2, 384), and thus: “let revenge be taken on one who takes revenge” (ALSTER 1997, Vol. 2, 431). Nor were such expressions restricted to anecdotal or literary conventions, but were present in a number of Babylonian, Assyrian and Hebrew laws. While it is reasonably clear that the scribes responsible for writing the Covenant Code did have access to the full sequence of provisions listed in Hammurabi’s laws, there is no need to presume that this collection was “directly, primarily and throughout dependant on the Laws of Hammurabi,” (WRIGHT 2009, 3), given the significantly different consequences preserved in Exodus 20:19-23:33. In this context, therefore, where does the tailoring of a punishment, to correspond to the crime(s) of its perpetrator, most noticeably occur?

There are four cases Hammurabi’s laws where the process of reflective talion is evident:

1. LH 1: If a man accuses another man and charges him with homicide but cannot bring proof against him, his accuser shall be killed. (ROTH 1997, 81)

This evokes the right of the blood avenger (variously the bēl napšāti, or in biblical or “blood redeemer,”) to slay the killer after a homicide was ,גאל הדם tradition, the committed (MISHALY 2000, 34-45; BARMASH 2005, 27, 50-52). LH1 is, however, paralleled more closely in the Deuteronomic revision of the talionic formulation: “If the man who testified is a false witness, if he has testified falsely against his fellow, you shall do to him as he schemed to do to his fellow. Thus you will sweep out evil from your midst; others will hear and be afraid, and such evil things will not be done again in your midst. Nor must you show pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” Deuteronomy 19:18b- 24. In terms of its early reception, the main juridical elements of this law are dramatized in meticulous relief in the Book of Susannah (JACKSON 1976; LEVINE 1995), preserved as “additions,” (Chapter 13) in Daniel by the Roman Catholic

and Eastern Orthodox churches. The Book of Esther, “a tale reminiscent of the Arabian nights,” (DALLEY 2007, 195), also describes how the arch-villain Haman was hung on the gallows he had built originally for Mordechai: “With the promulgation of this decree, let the evil plot, which he devised against the Jews recoil on his own head,” (Esther 9:25). Admittedly this is not a precise exemplar, since the charges against the Jews were presented to the King, by Haman, as acts of civil disobedience (Esther 3:3-5; 8), rather than homicide, so that only the underlying sentiments in the hanging of Haman and his sons, assume the process of reflective talion.

2. LH 229: If a builder constructs a house for a man but does not make his work sound, and the house that he constructs collapses and causes the death of the householder, that builder shall be killed. (ROTH 1987, 125).

This indicates that the builder, whose negligence fatally injures his client, was to receive the death penalty himself. Here the most relevant inner-textual parallel is found in LH 218, which deals with injuries caused by a negligent physician, and states: If a physician performs major surgery with a bronze lancet upon an awīlu and thus causes the awīlu’s death, or opens the awīlu’s temple with a bronze lancet and thus blinds the awīlu’s eye, they shall cut off his hand, (ROTH 1987, 123). LH 218, however, constitutes an example of instrumental talion, whereby the offending organ is punished. However, in both LH 229 and 218, composition, i.e. a sum of money paid to the family of the victim, would have been an alternative, available option (ROTH 1987, 351).

3. LH 230: If it should cause the death of a son of the householder, they shall kill a son of that builder. (ROTH 1987, 125).

In this description of vicarious punishment the equivalence between the status of the victim and the substitute provided is identical, unlike the provision in LH 210: “If that woman should die, they shall kill his daughter,” and also HL 44a “If anyone makes a man fall into a fire, so that he dies, he shall give a son in return,” (ROTH 1987, 223). As in the previous case, “probably the son or daughter, as the case might be, was seldom put to death as talion could be avoided by compensation, and a sum of money would be offered and accepted if the builder had no son,” (DRIVER AND MILES 1952, 426). These terms additionally recall the actions of the Pharaoh who decreed that “every boy that is born you shall throw into the Nile,” (Exodus 1:22), and was punished concomitantly: “In the middle of the night the Lord struck down all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first born of Pharaoh who sat on the throne to the first born of the captive who was in the dungeon and all the first born of the cattle.” (Exodus 12:29).

4. LH 231: If he shall cause the death of a slave of the householder, he shall give to the householder a slave of comparable value for the slave. (ROTH 1987, 125).

As is well-documented in ancient juridical sources, the need to reflect pre-existing categories of social status was paramount (ROTH 1995, 15), as was the case here with these three provisions (LH 229-231), which outline the compensation required from a negligent builder. Thus neither the builder’s life, nor that of his son, is comparable to the fatal injury of the householder’s slave, where the phrase: “a slave of comparable value for the slave,” wardam kīma wardim, suggests that the builder would be required to provide a live, alternative substitute in

compensation for the death of his clent’s (i.e. the householder’s) slave. In this a life for a life,” in“ נפש תחת נפש context the association between the formulation Exodus 21:23 and the Middle Assyrian principle (MAL A50, lines 69, 73, 81, A52 line 91) kīmu ša libbiša napšate umalla as “he pays (on the principle of) a life (for a life),” did not automatically presume the killing of the replacement slave, and would not also preclude composition, even though live, human substitution was formally specified, (JACOBS 2012, 241-253). This would apply also in the case of an injury caused by the negligent physician, described in LH 219: “If a physician performs major surgery with a bronze lancet upon a slave of a commoner and thus causes the slave’s death, wardam kīma wardim iriab, “he shall replace the slave with a slave of comparable value,” (ROTH 1987, 123).

Although vicarious punishments remain conspicuously absent in the main legal collections of the Hebrew Bible – i.e. the Covenant Code (Exodus 20:22-23:19), the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26), Priestly Law (Leviticus 12:2-8; Numbers 27:8-11; 30:4-17; 36:7-12), and the Deuteronomic Code (Deuteronomy 12-26) - the desire to co-ordinate a punishment with its crime crystalizes in the talionic formulation (Exodus 21:22-25), and is developed in its inner-biblical revisions, found in Leviticus 24:18-20, Deuteronomy 19:21. Bernard Jackson identifies two separate linguistic formulations which qualify the principle (ius talionis) in its earliest form within the Covenant Code, where it appears as follows:

When men fight and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no [other]1 damage ensues, the one responsible he shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband may exact from him: the payment to be based on reckoning. But if [other] damage ensues, the penalty shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. (Exodus 21:22-25).

eye for eye,” formulation is characterized by the use of the“ עין תחת עין The axiomatic taḥat), meaning “in place of,” and is consistently translated as “for,” in all) תחת preposition taḥat) appears either as an adverbial) תחת ,English versions. Elsewhere in biblical syntax accusative, or a preposition, and is variously translated as “underneath, below, instead of,” taḥat) functions) תחת BDB, 2000, 1065). To all intents and purposes, the preposition) identically in the talionic formulation to the aššum clause in cuneiform law (ROTH 2001, 407- 412; JACOBS 2014, 96-99). However, in relation to its use in the Covenant Code, Jackson taḥat) in Exodus 21:23-25 “has precisely the quantitatively) תחת maintains that the use of limiting effect,” i.e. only one life, organ, or limb, was specified to correspond to the precise life, organ or limb of the injured victim, (JACKSON 2006, 199), down to the individual burn, wound, and bruise inflicted. כאשר This is differentiated markedly from its less well-known accompaniment, the (ka’asher) formulation of talion, also observed in the above passage, where Exodus 21:22 ”.according as the woman’s husband may exact from him“ כאשר ישית עליו בעל האשה :provides ka’asher) meaning “according as, as, when, or according to that) כאשר Here the conjunction ,ki), meaning “the like of) כי which,” (BDB, 2000, 455), is an amalgamation of the substantive meaning “which, as to which,“ (BDB אשר as,” (BDB 2000, 453), and the relative particle 2000, 81).2 Accordingly this formulation is indicative of “qualitatively equivalent retribution,” (JACKSON 2006, 197), where it determines the amount of compensation required

1 In the above NJPS translation, the word “other” has been placed in brackets, as it is .is provided by the Masoretic Text ולא יהיה אסון not present in Exodus 21:22, where 2 My thanks to Amitai Baruchi-Unna for reminding me of this grammatical feature.

for the loss of life of an unborn child in the Covenant Code (see further JACOBS, 2014, 86- כאשר Other examples of “qualitatively equivalent retribution,” which utilize this .(94 (ka’asher) conjunction are present also in narrative sources, where (for example) Judges 1:6- 7 states: “Adoni-bezek fled, but they pursued him and captured him; and they cut off his thumbs and his big toes. And Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings, with thumbs and big toes cut off, used to pick up scraps under my table; as I have done so God has requited me.” ”,as I have done so God has requited me“ כאשר עשיתי כן שלם¯לי אלהים Likewise, the phrase acknowledges the “qualitatively equivalent retribution,” while further emphasizing the role of divine justice this process. In addition, the characterization of Samson (in his role as military leader and in the aftermath of his uncontrollable rage), is equally informative, as this reported conversation in Judges 15:10-11 indicates: “They [the Philistines] said: ‘We have come to ’.and to do to him as he has done to us [לעשות לו כאשר עשה לנו] take Samson prisoner Thereupon three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave of the rock of Etam, and they said to Samson, ‘You knew the Philistines rule over us; why have you done this to us?’ He as they did to me, so I did to them.” More poignantly, the [כאשר עשו לי כן עשיתי להם] ,replied do to“ עשה לי כאשר יצא מפיך :book of Judges records how Jephtah’s daughter tells her father me as you have vowed,” (Judges 11:36), prior to her sacrifice. ,ka’asher) formulation of talion) כאשר These narrative exemplars recall the use of the ”,meaning “do, or make ,עשה and are also frequently characterized by the use of the verb (BDB, 2000, 793-796):

כאשר ישית עליו Exodus 21:22 As the woman’s husband בעל האשה may exact from him

כאשר עשה Leviticus 24:19 As he has done so כן יעשה לו shall it be done to him

כאשר יתן מום באדם ,Leviticus 24:20 The injury he inflicted on another כן יתן בו .shall be inflicted on him

ועשיתם לו Deut. 19:19 You shall do to him כאשר זמם לעשות לאחיו as he schemed to do to his fellow

כאשר דברתם באזני Numbers 14:28 I will do to you כן אעשה להם just as you have urged me

כאשר תעשו ,Numbers 15:14 As you do כן יעשה so shall it be done

והיה כאשר דמיתי לעשות להם Numbers 33:56 So that I will do to you אעשה לכם what I planned to do to them

And similarly in prophetic sources:

כאשר עשיתה יעשה לך Obadiah 1:15 As you did, so it shall be done to גמלך ישוב בראשך you; your conduct shall be requited

הנקמו בה ,Jeremiah 50:15 Take vengeance on her כאשר עשיתה עשו¯בה Do to her as she has done

כאשר עשיתי ,Ezekiel 12:11 As I have done כן יעשה להם so it shall be done to them

ועשיתי]ועשית[ אותך Ezekiel 16:59 I will deal with you כאשר עשית .as you have dealt

ועולל למו Lamentations 1:22 And deal with them כאשר עוללת לי .as You have dealt with me

Although never articulated explicitly in Babylonian law, such direct expressions of idealized justice appear unequivocally in the Middle Assyrian Law Code. In this context, both the relevant provisions in the Covenant Code (Exodus 21:22-25) and in MAL A50, deal with the injuries sustained by a pregnant woman in a brawl, the where the Assyrian provides the following rationale:

Line 65 DAM ša-a LÚ] ša DAM-at LÚ The wife of the man] who [caused] the (other) married woman

Line 66 ša-[a ŠÀbi-ša ú-ša-ad-di]-ú-ni [to lose] the fruit of [her womb]

Line 67 ki-[i- ša-a e-pu]-šu-ši-ni shall be treated as [he has] he treated her

Line 68 e-pu-[šu-šu ki-mu-ú ša]-a lib- for the fruit] of her womb, he pays bi-ša Line 69 nap-ša-a-te u-ma-al-la. (on the principle of) a life (for a life)

Here the expression, kī ša ēpušūšini eppušūšu “and they shall treat him as he treated her,” (MAL A50, line 67, DRIVER AND MILES 1935, 418-419), provides a general introductory principle which underlies the subsequent terms of the law (DRIVER AND MILES 1935, 112- 113). On this basis the attacker’s own wife was to incur the same injury as her husband has inflicted, based on the (unstated) presumption first, that the assailant had a wife, and second, that she was also pregnant. This interpretation is most apparent in Meir Malul’s translation of MALUL 2010, 205). The Assyrian tablet) ,כפי שעשה לה כן יעשו לו :MAL A50, line 67 as continues to itemize the penalty for fatal injuries to the woman, providing gender-determined consequences for the loss of her unborn child: In the event that the injured wife dies, the assailant is to lose his life, aʼīla idukkū, “the man shall be put to death,” (MAL A50, line 71, DRIVER AND MILES 1935, 418-419): a verdict which could also technically be converted to composition. Likewise, in the event of the loss of a male child - and where the husband of the injured wife has no son and heir - again, “the striker shall be put to death,” māḫiṣāna idukkū (MAL A50, line 79, DRIVER AND MILES 1935, 418-419). However, if the unborn child was female: kīmū ša libbiša napšāte umalla, “the assailant pays on the principle of a life [for a תחת :life],” (MAL A50, line 81, DRIVER AND MILES 1935, 419), where Meir Malul provides MALUL 2010, 205). Here the requirement is for the assailant to replace the) ילדיה נפשות ימלא dead girl with a live, daughter (either of his own, or that of a slave), and if not, then to provide composition for this loss. It is unlikely that this permitted the assailant’s own daughter to be vicariously killed, (HOUTMAN 1996, 381-397; 2000, 166; JACKSON 1973, 293; 2006, 211; JACOBS 2012, 248-253; 2014, 104-106). This view is (partially) supported by the terms of settlement witnessed in ADD 321, where Amat-adimri, daughter of Attar-qāmu, was to be given to the murdered victim’s (i.e. Samaku’s) son, “in place of blood [money].” The assumption here is that the girl was to be handed over alive, in view of the subsequent threat: “if he does not give the woman, they will kill him on top of Samaku’s grave,” (transl. BARMASH 2005, 63; see also ROTH 1987, 358-60).

Yet while the Akkadian relative particles kî/kīma functions similarly in purpose and ki/ka’asher) conjunction in the talionic formulation, the) כי/כאשר meaning to the biblical Akkadian, kî, (“like, in the manner of, as, according to, instead of,” CAD, Vol 8, 322-325), is not restricted to designating “qualitatively equivalent retribution,” (JACKSON 2006, 197), as was the case in the Covenant Code. In the Assyrian sequence its quantitative role is evident in MAL A52, lines 89-90, where the law addresses an assault upon a prostitute, which results in the loss of her unborn child, and punishment of the assailant is stipulated as: miḫṣī ki miḫṣī išakkanušu “blow by blow shall be laid upon him,” (DRIVER AND MILES 1935, 420-421, MALUL 2010, 206). That “this suggests a ,מכה תחת מכה represented in modern Hebrew as distinction between punishment of a private nature by talion or otherwise, and that of a public nature inflicted with an instrument officially prescribed for the purpose, i.e. ‘rods’ (Ass. iṣ ḫaṭṭē),” (DRIVER AND MILES 1935, 363) accords with more recent reconstructions of judicial realities, which suggest that a “diversity of enforceable rules,” (DÉMARE-LAFONT 1994, 118), was available any given legal area. While this diversity was evident in the context of accidental injuries incurred by a pregnant wife (including miscarriage), it is also apparent in the broader resolutions for manslaughter, where the available “typologies of homicide,” have also been very carefully delineated (BARMASH 2005, 116-153). Furthermore, the Akkadian use of kīma, as both a preposition, yet also a subordinating conjunction (See CAD, Vol 8, 367-369 and RICHARDSON 2008, 232-233), is additionally confirmed in non-legal expressions, where its role in conversational use is apparent: pištam kīma pištim aqbīšm, “I returned insult for insult,” (kîma, CAD, Vol 8, 367). While there is no evidence that biblical scribes had access to the Middle Assyrian Law Code, nor to any of the fragments from Tablet A found at Nimrud (POSTGATE 1973), and no direct cultural trajectories can be reconstructed between the two societies (MORROW 2013, 183-190) it is sensible to conclude that the similarities between these aspirational expressions are entirely random and co-incidental.3 However, like the highly striking elements of Gilgameš which appear in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, it is equally acceptable to view these “as much more distant relatives,” (GEORGE 2003, 57), whose earlier, tenuous relationship is both long-buried and irretrievable. This brief discussion indicates that idealized models of perfect justice in cuneiform and biblical sources assume the process of reflective talion, where the demand for equivalence between a crime and its punishment was explicit. In the panorama texts preserved in the Hebrew Bible, this desire is expressed in several of its major literary genres, namely law, narrative, prophecy and wisdom teachings. While there appears to be no obvious, traceable, borrowing from the terminology of Hammurabi’s laws in these cases, a semantic correspondence between the Middle Assyrian principle kī ša ēpušūšini eppušūšu ka’asher) formulation of talion, as) כאשר and they shall treat him as he treated her,” and the“ it appears in the Covenant Code, is apparent. The use of these expressions together with their Sumerian proverbial precursors does, however, illuminate the profound, ancient, desire to achieve the unattainable: precision-perfect justice.

ALSTER, B., 1997: The Proverbs of Ancient Sumer: The World’s Earliest Proverb Collection: Volumes I & II. Bethesada.

BARMASH, P., 2005: Homicide in the Biblical World. Cambridge.

BROWN, F., DRIVER, S.R. AND BRIGGS, C.A., 2001: The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) Massachusetts.

3 As my colleague, Jonathon Stökl, has kindly pointed out.

CARDASCIA, G., 1979: “La place du talion dans l’histoire du droit penal à la lumière des droit du Proche-Orient ancient,” in Melanges offerts à Jean Dauvilliers, Toulouse, 169-183.

DALLEY, S., 2007: Esther’s Revenge at Susa: From Sennacherib to Ahasuerus, Oxford.

DAVIS, J.F., 2005: Lex Talionis in Early Judaism and the Exhortation of Jesus in Matthew 5.38-42 (JSNT Sup 281), London.

DÉMARE-LAFONT, S., 1994: “Ancient Near Eastern Laws: Continuity and Pluralism,” in Levinson, B. (Ed.) Theory and Method in Biblical and Cuneiform Law: Revision, Interpolation and Development (JSOTSup 181), 91-118. - 2011: “Judicial Decision-Making: Judges and Arbitrators,” in Radner, K. and Robson, E. (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture, Oxford, 335-257. - 2013: “From the Banks of the Seine to the Bay of Chesapeake: Crossglances on Ancient Near Eastern Law,” in Hagedorn, A.C. (Ed.) Maarav: The Raymond Westbrook Memorial Volume: Law and Diplomacy in the Ancient Near East and the Mediterranean World, California, 55-61.

DRIVER, G.R. AND MILES, J.C., 1935: The Assyrian Laws (Ancient Codes and Laws of the Near East, 2) Oxford. - 1952: The Babylonian Laws: Volume I Legal Commentary, Oxford.

EGO, B., 2007: “God’s Justice: The ‘Measure for Measure’ Principle in 2 Maccabees,” in Xeravits, G.G. and sengell r J. (Eds.) The Books of the Maccabees: History, Theology, Ideology. Papers on the Second International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, Pápa, Hungary, 9-11 June, 2005 (JSJ Sup 118) Leiden, 141-154.

GEORGE, A.R., 2003: The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts: Volume I, Oxford.

HAASE, R., 1997: “Talion und spiegelnde Strafe in den keilschriftlichen Rechtscorpora,” Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte ZABR 3, 195-201.

HOUTMAN, C., 1996: “Eine Schwngere Frau Als Opfer Eines Handgemenges (Exodus 21:22- 25): Ein Fall von Stellvertretender Talion im Bundesbuch?” in Vervenne, M. (Ed.) Studies in the Book of Exodus: Redaction - Reception – Interpretation, Leuven, 381-397. - 2000: Exodus: Volume III: Chapters 20 – 40, Leuven.

JACKSON. B.S., 1973: “The Problem of Exodus XX1 22-25 (Ius Talionis),” VT 37, 273-304. - 1976: “Susanna and the Singular History of Singular Witnesses,” in de Vos. W. et. al. (Eds.) Essays in Honour of Ben Beinart: jura legesque antiquiores necnon recentiores, Cape Town, 37-54. - 2006: Wisdom Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 12:1-22:16. Oxford.

JACOBS, S., 2010: “Instrumental Talion in Deuteronomic Law,” Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte ZABR 16, 263-278. .A Life for A Life and Napšate Umalla,” in G. Galil, A נפש תחת נפש“ :2012 - Gilboa, A.M. Maeir and D. Khan (Eds.) The Ancient Near East in the 12th-10th Centuries BCE: Culture and History. Proceedings of the International Conference held at Haifa University, 02-05 May 2010 (AOAT 392), Münster, 241-253. - 2013: “Natural Law, Poetic Justice and the Talionic Formulation,” Political Theology, Volume 14, Issue 5, 691-699.

- 2014: The Body as Object: Physical Disfigurement in Biblical Law (LHBOTS 582) London.

LAMBERT, W.G., 1960: Babylonian Wisdom Literature, Oxford.

LEVINE, A.-J., 1995: “Hemmed in on Every Side: Jews, Women and the Book of Susanna,” in A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith and Susanna, Sheffield, 303-323.

LEVINE, B.A., 2008: “Scripture’s Account: Lex Talionis,” in Torah Revealed, Torah Fulfilled: Scriptural Laws in Formative Judaism and Early Christianity, New York, 187-203.

MALUL, M., 2010: Law Collections from the Ancient Near East, Haifa (Hebrew).

MISHALY, A., 2000: “The Bēl Dāmē’s Role in the Neo-Assyrian Legal Process,” Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte ZABR 6, 34-54.

MORROW, W., 2013: “Legal Interactions: The Mīšpāṭim and the Laws of Hammurabi,” Bibliotheca Orientalis LXX, 3-4, 309-331. - 2013: “Tribute from Judah and the Transmission of Assyrian Propaganda,” in Niemann, H.M. and Augustin, M. (Hrsg.), “My Spirit at Rest in the North Country” (Zechariah 6.8): Collected Communications to the XXth Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, Helsinki 2010 (Beitr ge zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments und des antiken Judentums, 7), Frankfurt, 183-190.

POSTGATE, J.N., 1973: “Assyrian Texts and Fragments,” Iraq 35, 13-26

RICHARDSON, M.E.J., 2008: A Comprehensive Grammar to Hammurabi’s Stele, New Jersey.

ROTH, M.T., 1987: “Homicide in the Neo-Assyrian Period,” in Rochberg-Halton, F. (Ed.) Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner, New Haven, 351-65. - 199 : “Mesopotamian Legal Traditions and the Laws of the Hammurabi,” Chicago Kent Law Review 71, 13-39. - 1997: Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (SBL Writings from the Ancient World, Vol. 6; LCMA), Atlanta. - 2001: “The Because Clause: Punishment Rationalization In Mesopotamian Laws,” in W.H. Van Soldt, J.G. Dercksen, N.J.C. Kouwenberg and Th.J.H. Krispijn (Eds.), Veenhof Anniversary Volume: Studies Presented To Klaas R. Veenhof On The Occasion Of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, Leiden, 407-412.

ROTHKAMM, J., 2011: Talio esto: recherches sur les origines de la formule il pour il, dent pour dent dans les droits du Proche- rient ancien, et sur son devenir dans le monde gr co- romain (BZAW 246) Berlin.

SHEMESH, Y., 200 : “Punishment of the Offending Organ in Biblical Literature,” Vetus Testamentum VT 55/3, 343-336

WESTBROOK, R., 1986: “Lex Talionis and Exodus 21:22-2 ,” RB 93, 52-69