In ancient Babylon, there was a set list of laws called the "Code of Hammurabi", that dates back to 1700 BC.
See King, Letters and Inscriptions of Hammurabi, iv.
But it is uncertain how far the doctrines of Judaism were influenced by Christianity, and it is even disputed whether the Talmud and Midrashim may be used to estimate Jewish thought 1 There are many details in the Talmud which cannot be dated; if some are obviously contemporary, others find parallels in Ancient Babylonia, for example in the code of Hammurabi.
The view formerly maintained by the present writer (Laws of Moses and Code of Hammurabi, 1903, pp. 204 sqq., 279 seq., &c.) relied upon the difference between the exilic or post-exilic sources which unambiguously reflect Babylonian and related ideas, and the absence in other biblical sources of the features which an earlier comprehensive Babylonian influence would have produced, and it incorrectly assumed that the explanation might be found in the ordinary reconstructions of Israelite history.
