The relations between the laws of Babylonia and the laws of the Hebrew peoples / by C.H.W. Johns.

  • Claude Hermann Walter Johns
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The relations between the laws of Babylonia and the laws of the Hebrew peoples / by C.H.W. Johns. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    105/120 page 85
    Babtjlonische Schenkmgsbriefe In the Beilragc zur Assyrio- togie, 1894, pp. 258-73, Fr. Delitzsch published and admirably treated Der Berliner Merodachbaladan-Stem. Ed. Cuq in La Propnete Jonciere en Chaldee gave a new view of the meaning of these documents and the significance of their first appearing in the Kassite period. It will be seen from the titles given in the above works that no complete unanimity prevails as to their nature and purpose. We may now turn back to the class of texts usually called contracts. The Assyrian empire has not yielded much of this class of document, before the time of Sargon II, b.c. 785-722. A number of texts have been reported in the Mitteihmgen der Deidschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin as found at Asshur by the German excavators there, which date from times both early and late. The publication of these texts will doubtless soon be achieved and add gi-eatly to our knowledge. The treatment in Assyria seems to be largely reminiscent of that of Babylonia under the First Djmasty, but there are wide divergences doubtless due to the foreign elements in the Assyi-ian population. We are not yet possessed of sufficient material to assign the changes to their true eauses, but we know enough to be sure that they were not on the whole due to contemporary developments in Babylonia. In Assyrian Deeds and Docume?its relating to the transfer of Property, in three volumes, by C. H. W. Johns, published in 1898-1901 (Deighton, Bell & Co., Cambridge, 3 vols.), practically all the material of this class in the British Museum then catalogued was edited. These tablets apparently all came from Nineveh. There are now many more similar tablets in the British Museum listed in the Supplement to the Catalogue. Recently in AssyrischeRechtsurkundenvonJ. Kohler imd A. Ungnad (Leipzig, Ed. Pfeiffer, 1913) a series of transliterations and translations have been commenced which will form a key to the whole, including many other texts since published. It was on these texts that J. Oppert formed his views given in Das Assyrische Landrecht, and in Le droit de retrait lignager d Ninive, see p. 72. V. ScHEiL published in his Notes d'epigraphie in the Recueil de Travaiuc, XX, note xl (1898), pp. 202-5, four tablets which possibly did not come from Nineveh. I republished the texts as nos. 779-82 in my Deeds and Documents above. The first is discussed by Meissner as Eine assj/rische Schenkungsurkunde in the Mitteihmgen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft, 1903, pp. 103-5, where he points out that my no. 6l9 is another like text. Here Adi-mati-ilu and other property were given to a son who was to take a double portion and divide the rest with his brothers. F. E. Peiser in the Orientalistische Litteraturzeitung, 1905, cols. 130-4, gave Ein neuer assyrischer Kontrakt, V. Scheil in the same journal for 1904, col. 70, and in the Recueil de Travaux, xxiv, note Ixii, p. 24, pointed out others, while in Vordcrasiatische Sclmfdenkmaler, vol. i.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3