The Old Babylonian Empire and the Hittites

We have moved on from Sumer to the next empire in history: the Old Babylonian Empire. You might need to Babylon was part of the Fertile Crescent and the former Sumerian empire. According to Genesis 10:9-10, Nimrod, a great hunter, was the founder of Babel ("the gate of God" in Akkadian, but "to confuse" in Hebrew), later known as Babylon.

After Ur-Nammu of the Sumerian Third Dynasty died, the Sumerian empire crumbled under two main attacks in 2000 BC. The Elamites from the Iranian highlands in the east sacked Ur, and the Amorites conquered lower Mesopotamia and established Babylon. Once Hammurabi became king of Babylon, the rest of Mesopotamia was conquered as part of their empire. After Hammurabi's death, the Kassites overran the kingdom.

The Old Babylonians also adopted a form of Sumerian/Akkadian cuneiform to preserve older works from Sumer. This culture produced the Enuma Elish or the Babylonian Genesis which dates to the 7th century BC. This "creation story" is written on seven clay tablets discovered by Austen Henry Layard in 1849 in the Library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh or present-day Mosul, Iraq. It is missing a portion of Tablet V but is complete otherwise. The story shows the supremacy of the Babylonian god, Marduk, over all the Assyrian gods, and thus the supremacy of the Babylonians over the Assyrians. It is believed that this text is more political than religious. Then the story says that humans were created to serve the gods.

The greatest mathematical achievement of the Old Babylonians was place-value notation. You know, the classifications of the tenth, hundredth, thousandth, etc. place. They were also known for their precise and accurate astronomical observations and astrological influences.

Hammurabi's Law Code
The tablet is sometimes
described as a finger.

But what Old Babylon and Hammurabi are known for is their written law code, produced about 1754 BC. Hammurabi collected the existing Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian laws and produced a codified law of about 300 principles. One half of the laws pertained to contract, one third pertained to family matters, and the rest included military laws and established a judge. Although having laws down on paper, or in this case, clay, is a great thing, Hammurabi's laws were unusually harsh and varied depending on social status. This law code was discovered in 1901, but translated in 1902 by Jean-Vincent Scheil. The tablet is currently on display at the Louvre in France.

The Hittites are Indo-European people from Anatolia in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). Except for mentions in the Bible, there were no archaeological proof that they existed. Most skeptics such as Voltaire used the supposed "non-existence" of the Hittites to prove that the Bible was untrue.

In 1834, Felix Marie Charles Texier discovered the first Hittite remains but did not identify them as such. After excavations in 1884 and 1887, Archibald Sayce identified the Hittites as the tribe mentioned in the Old Testament.

The Hittites possessed Turkey and Syria from 1700 BC to 700 BC and conquered Babylon in 1600 BC. They were great conquerors and rivaled Egypt at their height (1400 BC). The Hittites were first to use iron extensively which is definitely an upgrade from wood weapons. Eventually, the Phrygians and the Assyrians both rose up to oppose the Hittites.

Next history article, I will discuss the Assyrians and possibly the New Babylonian Empire. I will close this article with a little bit of an analogy. History is much like a piece of string. God plans what the string is made up of or in other words, what events and people history is made up of. God also knows that the string has a beginning and an end. We don't see it from here, but God does. He knows when empires and people will rise or fall and when. We only see bits and pieces of history, but God sees the big picture, the complete picture. He not only knows the destination but also all the stops on the way. It seems to me that He is more wise than any of us could ever be!