Clivedurdle

Moses is alleged to have brought the ten commandments down from Sinaii on stone tabets, the Koran is thought to be carved on stone in heaven.

Isn't this idea of a perfect god given fixed law actually quite late - did Plato start it or did he pick up a generally held idea?

Does the concept of carving God's word on stone give a clue to the date of the idea? It sounds quite a sophisticated idea with strong Greek influences.

Does it help date Moses alleged writings?

Diogenes the Cynic

Hammurabi's Code was carved on large stone columns for public display c. 1750 BCE. The Code had been supposedly divinely revealed.

The story of Moses getting the law on stone tablets is a direct echo of Hammurabi.

Clivedurdle

But The Bible Unearthed is commenting all this stuff is much later - isn't the connection to Hammurabi dependent on an early writing of the Moses stories? Isn't it more likely that the actual connection is to Plato than to a guy 1000 years earlier?

Diogenes the Cynic

I disn't mean it was that direct. I just think that Hammurabi established a precedent for engraved public displays of "inspired" law and that the image of "God's law" carved into stone became a fixed mythic icon.

Or something like that.

John A. Broussard

Don't prophets generally get the word in written form. Seems to me there was some more currently inspired being who got the whole divine message on golden tablets--which somehow disapeared.