Thoughts at large

[rb336]

Including the adultery and honoring your father and mother so your days will be long and not being jealous of your neighbor's possessions kind of stuff? I get the first four commandments because they deal with allegiance. And you expect virtually every culture to say: don't kill, steal, lie, etc. But half of the last six seem odd for a treaty. I enjoy understanding things from an historical perspective, so I guess I need to do some more research.

there were provisions for marital fidelity, covetous behavior, perjury, etc. I think it had a passage about keeping children disciplined, but i don't think it had the honor your father and mother bit, and it had something about holy days, but not the sabbath restrictions

[Locke09]

there were provisions for marital fidelity, covetous behavior, perjury, etc. I think it had a passage about keeping children disciplined, but i don't think it had the honor your father and mother bit, and it had something about holy days, but not the sabbath restrictions

That sounds more like the Code of Hammurabi. That code by the way precedes even the Hittite treaties.I've looked at a couple of the treaties themselves, the one with Egypt and the one between Mursilis and Duppi-Tessub and the similarity is primarily in form.

The Hittite treaties had the form: Preamble [[corresponds to Deut. 1:1-5), Historical Prologue [[Deut. 1:6-3:29, similar tone to the treaties), Stipulations [[Deut 4 - 26, the stipulations are not like those in the treaties), Deposition and periodic reading [[Deut 31, remarkable similarity in content here, in regards to where to place the treaty and a requirement to read it periodically and teach it to future generations), Witnesses [[Deut 31) and curses and blessings [[Deut 28, similar in tone, but Deut is more expansive). The form is identical but the content is different. Deut simply follows the treaty format.

Now the Code of Hammurabi actually has a lot of stipulations that are very similar to those in Deut. Of course, professors pull out the handful of similarities to make their case, without looking at the multitude of differences. There are a lot of those as well.

So, I still think you have to weigh it against all of Deuteronomy, not just the ten commandments, and I think there might be confusion between Hammurabi and the Hittite treaties. Do you have the name of the one you looked at?

[rb336]

That could be, it was years ago and we discussed both topics.