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The World's Earliest Laws
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
162 pages, Hardcover
Published May 23, 2010
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 8, 2025
Disclaimer: I am not going to pretend I'm incredibly informed about Jewdaism or Babylonia, and this review is not me saying i do.
The first half of this book was a very fun read. Yes, the author was a bit annoying, but it was overshadowed greatly by how fun it was to read the laws themselves. There were lots of funny and interesting laws, made all the more funny and interesting by the fact that these laws were all the way back from somewhere between 2123 to 2080 B.C., Babylonia, and I had a great time, even if I was rather slow with reading it. I was prepared to give this book 4 stars.
Then around page 57, aka the end of the list of laws, things took a turn. It was back to the author talking, and he was just as annoying as I had remembered. He droned on and on about things that had already been explained rather well in the laws themselves.
But sometimes this is just how things are, so I prepared myself to skim past that part, so I did. But it just. Kept. Going. This man kept talking about things that had been explained well in the length of half a paragraph for 60 full pages. 60. I think the amount of new information I got from those 60 pages could have fit into 2 pages. Maybe 3.
By the time this section ended I was incredibly vexed, but decided to still go for the 4 star rating I had wanted 60 pages ago, since the laws had been incredibly interesting, and not even an annoying, boring author could change that. Until it did.
The next section, called "the laws of Moses", which went on for 20 full pages, looked the Jews and the Torah in the eye, and then proceeded to explain how they were unoriginal copies of Hammurabi's (the king who wrote the laws) code. Not only did this author proceed to call a whole legal system an imitation, he called the Jews cheap for believing in only one God (straight up what the book says: "THE JEWISH TRIBUNAL. ... the Code regularly directs that a case shall be taken 'mahar ili' i.e. 'before God' (or 'before a god,' for the Babylonians were not so poverty-stricken that they had only one God.)"). I swear to you, this man did everything in his power to denounce Jewdaism in as many ways as possible, that can still be vaguely excused as "oh, but its connected to what the book is about". Like excuse me what???? Why?? Why did you make a whole ass section in your book just to denounce Jewdaism???
Anyway, after that I could barely make myself finish the book. My eyes glazed over most of the rest of the book, even things that I would normally find very interesting.
I think if this book ended after 60 pages I would have liked it a lot more, and I would have given it 4 stars. Even if it had ended after 113 pages I would have given it 4 stars, but nope.
Anyway, this is my review, apologies to anyone offended by this, and also this is not an invitation to start any arguments, im honestly not sure what possessed me to write this review, since I don't usually write them, but. Um. Yeah. I don't know how im supposed to end this, so bye ig lol.
The first half of this book was a very fun read. Yes, the author was a bit annoying, but it was overshadowed greatly by how fun it was to read the laws themselves. There were lots of funny and interesting laws, made all the more funny and interesting by the fact that these laws were all the way back from somewhere between 2123 to 2080 B.C., Babylonia, and I had a great time, even if I was rather slow with reading it. I was prepared to give this book 4 stars.
Then around page 57, aka the end of the list of laws, things took a turn. It was back to the author talking, and he was just as annoying as I had remembered. He droned on and on about things that had already been explained rather well in the laws themselves.
But sometimes this is just how things are, so I prepared myself to skim past that part, so I did. But it just. Kept. Going. This man kept talking about things that had been explained well in the length of half a paragraph for 60 full pages. 60. I think the amount of new information I got from those 60 pages could have fit into 2 pages. Maybe 3.
By the time this section ended I was incredibly vexed, but decided to still go for the 4 star rating I had wanted 60 pages ago, since the laws had been incredibly interesting, and not even an annoying, boring author could change that. Until it did.
The next section, called "the laws of Moses", which went on for 20 full pages, looked the Jews and the Torah in the eye, and then proceeded to explain how they were unoriginal copies of Hammurabi's (the king who wrote the laws) code. Not only did this author proceed to call a whole legal system an imitation, he called the Jews cheap for believing in only one God (straight up what the book says: "THE JEWISH TRIBUNAL. ... the Code regularly directs that a case shall be taken 'mahar ili' i.e. 'before God' (or 'before a god,' for the Babylonians were not so poverty-stricken that they had only one God.)"). I swear to you, this man did everything in his power to denounce Jewdaism in as many ways as possible, that can still be vaguely excused as "oh, but its connected to what the book is about". Like excuse me what???? Why?? Why did you make a whole ass section in your book just to denounce Jewdaism???
Anyway, after that I could barely make myself finish the book. My eyes glazed over most of the rest of the book, even things that I would normally find very interesting.
I think if this book ended after 60 pages I would have liked it a lot more, and I would have given it 4 stars. Even if it had ended after 113 pages I would have given it 4 stars, but nope.
Anyway, this is my review, apologies to anyone offended by this, and also this is not an invitation to start any arguments, im honestly not sure what possessed me to write this review, since I don't usually write them, but. Um. Yeah. I don't know how im supposed to end this, so bye ig lol.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 of 1 review