Hammurabi’s and Moses’ codes both explicitly state that their purpose is to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land to prevent injustice. The difference between the two codes – and this is huge – lies in the contractual nature of Hammurabi’s Law vs the covenantal nature of the Mosaic Law. Human nature is such that powerful rulers, whether a theo-cracy – rule by the gods, or aristo-cracy – rule by the aristocrats, over powerless masses inevitably overrides the contractual agreements.
The Greeks recognized this problem when they replaced their kings with new forms of government. First came Demo–cracy – People Power. In Athens, all male citizens were eligible to participate in the city’s governing assembly. Obviously, this only works in small city states, and most of all, worked because anyone who didn’t fit in was eliminated by ostracism – a legal procedure by which any citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years. Execution was also used to keep the status quo from being disrupted by new ideas, Socrates being a famous example.
Socrates’ student Plato conceived The Republic, from Latin rēs (“thing”) + pūblica (“public”), literally “the public thing”, defining the novel plan of rule of the people by using representatives in an organized political system famously implemented by Rome (hence the Latinized name) and subsequent Western nations including the United States of America. Plato also emphasizes the rights of the people through detailed expositions of political and ethical justice.
Continue reading “113) Contract Nation vs Covenant Nation”



Many of the old Babylonian letters…include 