Dogma, Christianity, and womens' rights

[Imperial Overlord]

Why are you people deliberately misinterpreting what Darth Hoth is saying?

The part under contention is that he said Mosaic Law was progressive by Bronze Age standards. That's a fairly substantial claim and directly related to his other arguments (where he has also made claims without providing supporting evidence). He's being called upon to back them up and merely being better than Assyrian Law (both older and notoriously unpleasant during their era) isn't sufficient. Just like everyone else on SD.net, he has to support his statements.

[Simon_Jester]

Assyrian Law was notoriously brutal and unpleasant for its time period and it predates Mosaic Law. Being more generous than Assyrian Law is really damning with faint praise.

OK. Do you know of any other law codes from that general era (plus or minus a few centuries) that are preserved, known today, and in reasonably accessible form? Assyrian law dates back to the early Hebrew period; I'm not sure precisely how to date a given chunk of Mosaic law, but I'm inclined to doubt the pieces in question were formulated more than a few hundred years later than 1075 BC.

[Serafine666]

No offence to Orthodox Christian believers, but the Septuagint is a badly mangled translation of the original Hebrew source texts, and quite often the translators also had their own agendas when they interpreted the text. I would treat it very carefully as evidence of any original intent of the original writers/redactors of the Old Testament. Anyway, in Genesis 6 angels interbreed with human women and produce a race of giants, so clearly at least some of them are supposed to have male sexual characteristics.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Genesis 6 mentions that there were giants in the land in certain days and then talks about "sons of God" taking women as their wives and their offspring being mighty men. Genesis 4:6 draws no relationship between these two facts and the term "son of God" is also generally used to refer to ordinary humans; Jesus even makes this clear by saying that peacemakers would be called the children of God and obviously, He is not saying that peacemakers will spontaneously turn into angels. I do not immediately know of an instance where the Bible makes direct mention of the gender of an angel but if such a verse is there, it's not in Genesis 6.

[Thanas]

Assyrian Law was notoriously brutal and unpleasant for its time period and it predates Mosaic Law. Being more generous than Assyrian Law is really damning with faint praise.

OK. Do you know of any other law codes from that general era (plus or minus a few centuries) that are preserved, known today, and in reasonably accessible form? Assyrian law dates back to the early Hebrew period; I'm not sure precisely how to date a given chunk of Mosaic law, but I'm inclined to doubt the pieces in question were formulated more than a few hundred years later than 1075 BC.

Of course there are several. The Code of Ur-Nammu is the eldest surviving code we know of and dates back to the 20th century BC. The Laws of Eshnunna date back to 1930 BC, the Code of Lipit Ishtar is from around 1920 BC. And of course there is the most famous Codex Hammurabi of around 1790 BC.

These are all easily accessible on the Internet, btw.

[Darth Hoth]

Assyrian Law was notoriously brutal and unpleasant for its time period and it predates Mosaic Law. Being more generous than Assyrian Law is really damning with faint praise.

Not necessarily; at least some of the Mosaic Law in Exodus is reckoned as probably dating back to the time around Moses himself, which is imprecise but usually placed somewhere around 1400-1200 BC, while the Code of Assura that I quoted is later than that (c. 1100 BC). Now, for the Deuteronomistic Code, to which the paragraph that started this whole discussion belongs, you are most likely correct, but even so the difference is not more than a few centuries and closer than anything else I could find.

The reasons I quoted the Assyrian Law were two: 1) It was the best/most contemporary one I could find to quote on short notice (late Hittite law codes apparently not being accessible on the Interwebs, and I will rather concede an Internet debate than have to plow through original sources in my university library), given how people here have (correctly) pointed out that using Babylonian codes that can be a thousand years older or more is an unfair comparison; and 2) as noted, it was the only code I could find that mentioned rape of unmarried women even indirectly; in all the others, the only paragraphs concerning rape are mixed up with adultery of married women and never even mention unmarried women in that context.

[Darth Hoth]

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Genesis 6 mentions that there were giants in the land in certain days and then talks about "sons of God" taking women as their wives and their offspring being mighty men. Genesis 4:6 draws no relationship between these two facts and the term "son of God" is also generally used to refer to ordinary humans; Jesus even makes this clear by saying that peacemakers would be called the children of God and obviously, He is not saying that peacemakers will spontaneously turn into angels. I do not immediately know of an instance where the Bible makes direct mention of the gender of an angel but if such a verse is there, it's not in Genesis 6.

Bene ha-Elohim, or "sons of the God(s)", is used in the Hebrew mythology as an old name for angels (recurring, for instance, in Genesis, Job and in many of the Psalms). The best example for the purposes of this debate is Daniel 3:24-25, where Nebuchadnezzar has thrown Daniel's three friends in the ovens and an angel shows up to help them:

Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king.

He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.

The text clearly differentiates between the Jews (who are "sons of God" in a figurative sense, being His people) and the angel (the literal "God-son"). Consider also Ezekiel, where the prophet is consistently addressed as a "Son of Man" (which, in that context, means simply human, as contrasted to a divine God-son).

This usage of "Sons of God" is well established in the Bible and the Jewish traditions, and in the pseudepigrapha there is a wealth of legendary materials and expansions on Genesis 6 and how these "Watcher Angels" descended and impregnated human women.

In the New Testament, Jesus may have been speaking figuratively, or he may have believed (as many did in contemporary Hellenistic Jewish thought; see, for example, the Wisdom of Solomon in the Apocrypha) that after death human souls were exalted into an angel-like state (and thus became like "sons of God"); this would fit with what he is recorded as having told the Sadducees about the Resurrection in Matthew 22:29-30 and parallels:

Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.

For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

[adam_grif]

Standard Christian/Catholic apologetic response is "Mosiac laws don't apply to Christians, only ancient Jews, the only laws we have to follow are the ones given by Jesus."

[Thanas]

The reasons I quoted the Assyrian Law were two: 1) It was the best/most contemporary one I could find to quote on short notice (late Hittite law codes apparently not being accessible on the Interwebs, and I will rather concede an Internet debate than have to plow through original sources in my university library), given how people here have (correctly) pointed out that using Babylonian codes that can be a thousand years older or more is an unfair comparison; and 2) as noted, it was the only code I could find that mentioned rape of unmarried women even indirectly; in all the others, the only paragraphs concerning rape are mixed up with adultery of married women and never even mention unmarried women in that context.

6. If a man violates the right of another and deflowers the virgin wife of a young man, they shall kill that male.
7. If the wife of a man followed after another man and he slept with her, they shall slay that woman, but that male shall be set free.
8. If a man proceeded by force, and deflowered the virgin slavewoman of another man, that man must pay five shekels of silver.
11. If the man had slept with the widow without there having been any marriage contract, he need not pay any silver.

Which "Biblical Law" and which "Roman Law"? Unless we accept the fundie standpoint that all the laws in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy were dictated to Moses by God at that time, both varied rather considerably over the centuries, so a "Yes" or "No" answer to such an open question is impossible to give. Although as I understand it (I am not all that well versed in either), even the very most primitive collections of laws in Exodus exceed the Romans in humanity in at least some respects (e.g., limiting how badly one could treat one's slaves in Ex 21:20-21, 26-27, the Romans knowing no such limit until maybe the third or fourth century AD).

What are your sources about Roman law?

[Darth Hoth]

6. If a man violates the right of another and deflowers the virgin wife of a young man, they shall kill that male.
7. If the wife of a man followed after another man and he slept with her, they shall slay that woman, but that male shall be set free.
8. If a man proceeded by force, and deflowered the virgin slavewoman of another man, that man must pay five shekels of silver.
11. If the man had slept with the widow without there having been any marriage contract, he need not pay any silver.

From the Code of Ur-Nammu. What point are you making here? It still says nothing about unmarried women. Or does "virgin wife" refer to betrothal rather than marriage? If so then that technically includes a limited class of unmarried women, I suppose. Although the passage in Deuteronomy that I referred to specifically talks about women who are neither married nor betrothed.

What are your sources about Roman law?

Mostly second-hand; as I said, I am no expert there, so I may be in the wrong, and based my answer on what I did know. As far as I am aware there were no serious limitations on a slave owner's rights over his slaves until fairly late in Roman history and/or early Byzantine (my general histories note the Code of Justinian as a milestone). Earlier there had been some other attempts, such as the Lex Petronia, but they tended to be very limited in scope (e.g. in that case, a master could not deliver his slave unto wild beasts unless the slave was determined to have deserved it).

[Imperial Overlord]

Assyrian Law was notoriously brutal and unpleasant for its time period and it predates Mosaic Law. Being more generous than Assyrian Law is really damning with faint praise.

Not necessarily; at least some of the Mosaic Law in Exodus is reckoned as probably dating back to the time around Moses himself, which is imprecise but usually placed somewhere around 1400-1200 BC, while the Code of Assura that I quoted is later than that (c. 1100 BC). Now, for the Deuteronomistic Code, to which the paragraph that started this whole discussion belongs, you are most likely correct, but even so the difference is not more than a few centuries and closer than anything else I could find.

The reasons I quoted the Assyrian Law were two: 1) It was the best/most contemporary one I could find to quote on short notice (late Hittite law codes apparently not being accessible on the Interwebs, and I will rather concede an Internet debate than have to plow through original sources in my university library), given how people here have (correctly) pointed out that using Babylonian codes that can be a thousand years older or more is an unfair comparison; and 2) as noted, it was the only code I could find that mentioned rape of unmarried women even indirectly; in all the others, the only paragraphs concerning rape are mixed up with adultery of married women and never even mention unmarried women in that context.

If you can't find sufficient evidence to support your point, that's not my problem. You didn't make the claim that Mosaic Law was progressive compared to Assyrian Law, you made the claim that is progressive compared to Bronze Age Law in general. It's up to you deliver. Also, I would like to see support for the claim that Mosiac Law dates from 1200-1400 BC since scholarly effort seems to indicate that the Torah itself is a product of around 400-500 BC. I'm also awaiting evidence that Paul was progressive by 1st Century standards.

[Simon_Jester]

Of course there are several. The Code of Ur-Nammu is the eldest surviving code we know of and dates back to the 20th century BC. The Laws of Eshnunna date back to 1930 BC, the Code of Lipit Ishtar is from around 1920 BC. And of course there is the most famous Codex Hammurabi of around 1790 BC.

These are all easily accessible on the Internet, btw.

Being something of a barbarian, the only one I knew about was Hammurabi's Code. I had mentally dismissed this code (and, by extension, the others you name) on the grounds that they were all roughly 500 to 1000 years older than Mosaic Law, and thus weren't necessarily contemporary with it. From what I've heard about the popularity and widespread use of Hammurabi's Code and variations on it, on further consideration that might not be reasonable.

Let me look for relevant or semi-relevant provisions in the code of Hammurabi... [does so]

Although I didn't spot any specific point in the Code that covers the question of what happens when an unmarried woman is raped, the overall tone does lead me to think that the Code of Hammurabi was a lot better about women's rights than was Mosaic or Assyrian law. I should not have ignored it as a non-contemporary, since despite being older it is less savage.

============

My reasons for saying so:

(130) If a man violate the wife (betrothed or child-wife) of another man, who has never known a man, and still lives in her father's house, and sleep with her and be surprised, this man shall be put to death, but the wife is blameless.

This does sound much better than the Mosaic version, but on closer examination applies only to betrothed virgins, and does not cover the unmarried women the Mosaic law talks about. I'll keep looking.

(132) If the "finger is pointed" at a man's wife about another man, but she is not caught sleeping with the other man, she shall jump into the river for her husband.

I really wish I knew the context well enough to understand this. As best as I can figure out, "jump into the river" means swearing your innocence before the gods and then committing suicide in the manner described. Maybe I'm missing something...

Of course, if the woman is falsely accused:

(127) If any one "point the finger" (slander) at a sister of a god [SJ: nun-equivalent?] or the wife of any one, and can not prove it, this man shall be taken before the judges and his brow shall be marked. (by cutting the skin, or perhaps hair.)

Not entirely sure, but this might apply to accusations of infidelity, in which case the equivalent penalty in Assyria would seem to be death. If I'm getting it right, then they've got a version of the death penalty or something close to it as a penalty to the woman for infidelity, and scarring as the penalty for falsely accusing a woman of infidelity.

(131) If a man bring a charge against one's wife, but she is not surprised with another man, she must take an oath and then may return to her house.

Again, not sure how this interacts with (132), listed above. There may be some distinction between bringing charges and finger-pointing that I don't know of.

(129) If a man's wife be surprised [in flagrante delicto] with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves.

Not sure what's meant by "the king (may pardon) his slaves;" this may apply to the accused.

==========

Divorce:
Relatively humane divorce provisions for women who have borne children, complete with Bronze Age proto-alimony:

(137)If a man wish to separate from a woman who has borne him children, or from his wife who has borne him children: then he shall give that wife her dowry, and a part of the usufruct of field, garden, and property, so that she can rear her children. When she has brought up her children, a portion of all that is given to the children, equal as that of one son, shall be given to her. She may then marry the man of her heart.

In what we today would call cases of divorce on grounds of desertion:

(136) If any one leave his house, run away, and then his wife go to another house, if then he return, and wishes to take his wife back: because he fled from his home and ran away, the wife of this runaway shall not return to her husband.

Bronze Age proto-no-fault divorce legislation:

(142)If a woman quarrel with her husband, and say: "You are not congenial to me," the reasons for her prejudice must be presented. If she is guiltless, and there is no fault on her part, but he leaves and neglects her, then no guilt attaches to this woman, she shall take her dowry and go back to her father's house.

...with the catch being:

(143)If she is not innocent, but leaves her husband, and ruins her house, neglecting her husband, this woman shall be cast into the water.

Not quite so humane divorce provisions for women who have not borne children:

(138) If a man wishes to separate from his wife who has borne him no children, he shall give her the amount of her purchase money and the dowry which she brought from her father's house, and let her go... (139) If there was no purchase price he shall give her one mina of gold as a gift of release; (140) If he be a freed man he shall give her one-third of a mina of gold.

Of course, the question of where she is "let go" to under (138) could be relevant...

=============

Other:
Bronze Age proto-"in sickness and in health, till death do us part."

(148) If a man take a wife, and she be seized by disease, if he then desire to take a second wife he shall not put away his wife, who has been attacked by disease, but he shall keep her in the house which he has built and support her so long as she lives. (149) If this woman does not wish to remain in her husband's house, then he shall compensate her for the dowry that she brought with her from her father's house, and she may go.

...On the other hand,

(209)If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss.(210)If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.

...It wasn't all roses, especially not from the daughter's viewpoint.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Why are you people deliberately misinterpreting what Darth Hoth is saying?

The part under contention is that he said Mosaic Law was progressive by Bronze Age standards. That's a fairly substantial claim and directly related to his other arguments (where he has also made claims without providing supporting evidence). He's being called upon to back them up and merely being better than Assyrian Law (both older and notoriously unpleasant during their era) isn't sufficient. Just like everyone else on SD.net, he has to support his statements.

Also, so far, everyone has ignored ancient Egyptian law, which was far more progressive than that of any other society in the period and time:

So here we go!

Also, here

From the second article:

Permissible and Impermissible Sexual Conduct in Ancient Egypt

There were several permissible acts of sexual conduct which were permitted in Ancient Egypt, including homosexual relations between consenting partners, prostitution, and sex between consenting adults.[301] However, the ancient Egyptians considered rape and adultery as illegal.[302] In terms of adultery, divorce was the most common result in adultery.[303] In a Middle Kingdom a fictional story called King Cheops and the Magicians, a man by the name of Webaoner discovered that his wife was committing adultery with a townsman.[304] Thus, the husband summoned a crocodile to attack and take the townsman to the bottom of a lake for several days.[305] King Nebka agreed with this course of action and in addition, he ordered the crocodile to dispose of the townsman's body.[306] Furthermore, the king ordered that the wife be burnt alive as a consequence of committing adultery.[307] Even though this story was fictional, it was truthful in pointing out the real consequences of adultery, including the burning of the woman alive for committing adultery.[308] However, if a man committed adultery, he suffered a beating of a thousand lashes; women generally had their nose amputated.[309] Furthermore, in cases of rape, the common punishment was castration for a man.

Thus, adultery and rape were the only two criminal acts concerning sexual conduct.

So we can see that ancient Egyptians of around the same time as the ancient Israelites (In fact BEFORE the establishment of a coherent Israeli state, which probably happened in the New Kingdom--this was from the Middle Kingdom!) might sometimes burn the woman alive for adultery and have the man killed, but usually went for a lesser punishment of a thousand lashes for the man and amputation of the nose for the woman--horrible, but observe the case of rape: In this case, the sole punishment was castration for the man and the woman was not punished.

Egyptian law, besides treating women as equal legal entities, in short, also provided for a recognition of the actual responsible parties in crime, and Hebrew law comes out looking very bad in comparison.

[Thanas]

6. If a man violates the right of another and deflowers the virgin wife of a young man, they shall kill that male.
7. If the wife of a man followed after another man and he slept with her, they shall slay that woman, but that male shall be set free.
8. If a man proceeded by force, and deflowered the virgin slavewoman of another man, that man must pay five shekels of silver.
11. If the man had slept with the widow without there having been any marriage contract, he need not pay any silver.

From the Code of Ur-Nammu. What point are you making here? It still says nothing about unmarried women. Or does "virgin wife" refer to betrothal rather than marriage? If so then that technically includes a limited class of unmarried women, I suppose. Although the passage in Deuteronomy that I referred to specifically talks about women who are neither married nor betrothed.

Unmarried women are protected as members of the household of the father, as in all ancient societies. You don't really think there was no protection for daughters back then?

Mostly second-hand; as I said, I am no expert there, so I may be in the wrong, and based my answer on what I did know. As far as I am aware there were no serious limitations on a slave owner's rights over his slaves until fairly late in Roman history and/or early Byzantine (my general histories note the Code of Justinian as a milestone). Earlier there had been some other attempts, such as the Lex Petronia, but they tended to be very limited in scope (e.g. in that case, a master could not deliver his slave unto wild beasts unless the slave was determined to have deserved it).

There were very serious limitations, including some emperors ordering slave owners who had treated their slaves badly to be sold as slaves themselves.

[Surlethe]

Were those written into the legal code or one-off events? That seems like it would be a relevant distinction.

[Thanas]

Were those written into the legal code or one-off events? That seems like it would be a relevant distinction.

Depends. It was often the hallmarks of good emperors to protect slaves. Hadrian's efforts were clearly written into legal code, you can find them requoted in the Corpus Iuris Civilis. However, generally, our sources do not really concern themselves with slaves, considering they mainly deal with the whole empire.

[hongi]

In the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament, every reference to an angel except one (and I can't remember which off the top of my head) uses a neuter pronoun. The one exception is masculine.

That's wrong. I've read the Septuagint and the NT in Greek, and the angels are always associated with masculine articles and pronouns. Of course that doesn't necessarily mean that angels are 'male' just because the nouns are grammatically masculine; ἄγγελος simply has no precedent in the Greek language for being neuter, and so the writer may have used the masculine articles/pronouns even if he really thought that the angels were genderless.

But there are hints elsewhere in the Bible that angels were considered to be male, or at least looked like men as opposed to women. Genesis 32:24 refers to the angel who wrestled with Jacob to be a man, and Joshua 5:13 has a commander of the Lord appearing to Joshua as a man.

Look at the Code of Hammurabi, or the Hettite law codes, or those of Ugarit, which were roughly contemporaneous with the Mosaic Laws - in comparison, Moses was indeed a liberal.

I will. The question is, have you?

[hongi]

What do people think about areas in which the Bible comes off looking worse?

Deuteronomy 15:12

12 If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, sells himself to you and serves you six years, in the seventh year you must let him go free.

So six years of debt slavery, whereas the code of Hammurabi 117:

117. If any one fail to meet a claim for debt, and sell himself, his wife, his son, and daughter for money or give them away to forced labor: they shall work for three years in the house of the man who bought them, or the proprietor, and in the fourth year they shall be set free.

Just three years.

[Darth Hoth]

Since it appears to have been demonstrated that my initial position was indefensible (I honestly did not know that we knew that much about Egyptian law), I believe my concession to Zeon in particular is in order.

Also, I would like to see support for the claim that Mosiac Law dates from 1200-1400 BC since scholarly effort seems to indicate that the Torah itself is a product of around 400-500 BC. I'm also awaiting evidence that Paul was progressive by 1st Century standards.

The Pentateuch in its present form is generally considered a product of Exilic or post-Exilic times. However, the material that was redacted into these books is generally older and stems from diverse periods (for example, the J+E source/tradition in the Pentateuch, the parts of which were in turn originally separate, is generally thought to stem back from the time of Solomon, while the P source/tradition is later). The Mosaic Law Codes as such have a rather heterogeneous past, but some parts (the Decalogue and some of the earliest laws) are recognised as ancient by most and commonly thought to stem back from pre-1000 BC, quite likely to the time of the historical Moses (in the span 1400-1200 BC, depending on how much credit one gives to the internal chronology of the Bible; most scholars tend towards closer to 1200). Other parts are considerably younger; the Deuteronomic Code, for example, is usually placed as having been written in the time of Josiah, though it probably contains older traditions. My sources on the above include Introduction to the Old Testament by J. Alberto Soggin, which analyses the Biblical traditions from a textual-critical perspective and compares them with the archaeological evidence.

On Paul: What I posted came from secondary Swedish-language sources, the titles or authors of which I doubt would be of much use to anyone here (for example, has anyone heard of Om Jesus by Jonas Gardell?). If these are deemed acceptable as evidence I will promptly list them; otherwise, I will concede.

Unmarried women are protected as members of the household of the father, as in all ancient societies. You don't really think there was no protection for daughters back then?

No, I think the protection was informal and not enumerated in the law. As such, it becomes a) Difficult to discern anything certain about it, b) Likely that it was unevenly applied and/or subject to variation, and c) Not a matter of the laws or the courts, which was what we were discussing. Even the very most primitive societies quickly develop some form of informal justice (often related to blood revenge), and in lieu of written law people will tend to draw up their own agreements. But that is a separate matter to the discussion at hand.

There were very serious limitations, including some emperors ordering slave owners who had treated their slaves badly to be sold as slaves themselves.

I know that some emperors punished extraordinary brutality on the part of slave owners (such as it is said about Augustus and Vedius Pollio, for example). But as I understood it those were personal acts of magnanimity on part of the emperor in question that made him look very good and benevolent in contemporary eyes, not matters of formal law.

[Thanas]

Unmarried women are protected as members of the household of the father, as in all ancient societies. You don't really think there was no protection for daughters back then?

No, I think the protection was informal and not enumerated in the law. As such, it becomes a) Difficult to discern anything certain about it, b) Likely that it was unevenly applied and/or subject to variation, and c) Not a matter of the laws or the courts, which was what we were discussing. Even the very most primitive societies quickly develop some form of informal justice (often related to blood revenge), and in lieu of written law people will tend to draw up their own agreements. But that is a separate matter to the discussion at hand.

Wrong. There are certain legal principles that are so self-explanatory that no nation ever put them into stone, even today we have those principles.

I know that some emperors punished extraordinary brutality on the part of slave owners (such as it is said about Augustus and Vedius Pollio, for example). But as I understood it those were personal acts of magnanimity on part of the emperor in question that made him look very good and benevolent in contemporary eyes, not matters of formal law.

As I said above, at least Hadrian's measures were put into laws. The problem of course is that only a very small amount of Roman law still exists today as most of it was burned under the order of Emperor Justinian.

[Darth Hoth]

Wrong. There are certain legal principles that are so self-explanatory that no nation ever put them into stone, even today we have those principles.

I am not certain I understand what you are saying here; could you give an example? To me, without any formal education in Sumerian-Babylonian history past high school, it seems that if the punishment for rape of young, unmarried women was such a basic principle that the law need not mention it, then so would be, say, murder or rape of married women, yet they are mentioned. The very fact that most of these laws outline specifically different penalties for rape of women depending on their social standing makes the absence of such mention look curious to me. At the least, it seems to indicate that there was no fixed punishment for the crime.

As I said above, at least Hadrian's measures were put into laws. The problem of course is that only a very small amount of Roman law still exists today as most of it was burned under the order of Emperor Justinian.

Not being very familiar with Roman law, I will take your word for it. What did he legislate concerning slaves more precisely in the laws that are preserved?

[Thanas]

Wrong. There are certain legal principles that are so self-explanatory that no nation ever put them into stone, even today we have those principles.

I am not certain I understand what you are saying here; could you give an example? To me, without any formal education in Sumerian-Babylonian history past high school, it seems that if the punishment for rape of young, unmarried women was such a basic principle that the law need not mention it, then so would be, say, murder or rape of married women, yet they are mentioned. The very fact that most of these laws outline specifically different penalties for rape of women depending on their social standing makes the absence of such mention look curious to me. At the least, it seems to indicate that there was no fixed punishment for the crime.

I was alluding to the principle that girls are the property of their father, thus an assault on them is an assault on the father and/or his property.

Not being very familiar with Roman law, I will take your word for it. What did he legislate concerning slaves more precisely in the laws that are preserved?

no forced castration, no cruel punishment, no cruel treatment of slaves etc. The laws do not survive in full, thus we have to take the examples found in the sources.

Finally, the law of Moses was far more restricting and discriminatory against women than any Roman law. You can see this in the fourth century when rome starts to become christian, it forced a radical change of lifestyle on Roman women, though admittedly a great deal of them seemed to have liked it, or so christian unreliable sources tell us.

[Darth Hoth]

I was alluding to the principle that girls are the property of their father, thus an assault on them is an assault on the father and/or his property.

Obviously, yes, but the same would be true of a man's wife as well, as she was considered the property of her husband in most ancient societies. Yet crimes against wives are specifically enumerated.

no forced castration, no cruel punishment, no cruel treatment of slaves etc. The laws do not survive in full, thus we have to take the examples found in the sources.

Is there any chance that you could link me to an English translation of the source texts?

Finally, the law of Moses was far more restricting and discriminatory against women than any Roman law. You can see this in the fourth century when rome starts to become christian, it forced a radical change of lifestyle on Roman women, though admittedly a great deal of them seemed to have liked it, or so christian unreliable sources tell us.

That is a whole other question, and I really do not know enough myself to compare Roman law and Mosaic in its treatment of women generally.

[Thanas]

no forced castration, no cruel punishment, no cruel treatment of slaves etc. The laws do not survive in full, thus we have to take the examples found in the sources.

Is there any chance that you could link me to an English translation of the source texts?

The CIC is not translated into english afaik, at least not in the internet. For the Historia Augusta, you could simple google vita hadriani. Vespasians and Trajans vita also talk about it.