Date of Graduation
Summer 2025
Degree
Master of Arts in Religious Studies
Department
Languages, Cultures & Religions
Committee Chair
Victor H. Matthews
Abstract
In this thesis, I propose a causal relationship between ancient societies’ mythic corpuses and their law codes. I begin by presenting the histories and historiographies of ancient Israel and Mesopotamia to highlight important themes in their development. Then, I place their creation and flood myths side-by-side for comparison, yielding key differences in the way each group conceptualizes human form, value, and purpose. Once these key differences have been established, I compare each group’s set of slave laws to demonstrate how each law code remains philosophically consistent with its respective set of myths and diametrically opposed to the set from the other group.
Keywords
myth, law, slavery, ancient Israel, Babylon, Mesopotamia, Genesis, Enuma Elish, Hammurabi
Subject Categories
Biblical Studies | Ethics and Political Philosophy | Legal | Near Eastern Languages and Societies | Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion
Copyright
© Joshua Mackenzie Luna
Recommended Citation
Luna, Joshua Mackenzie, "The Mythic Seeds of Human Rights" (2025). Graduate Theses/Dissertations. 4100.
https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/4100
Open Access
Included in
Biblical Studies Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Legal Commons, Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons
