Christine Hayes of Yale examines the legal material embedded in the Pentateuch, tracing how the Covenant Code in Exodus, the priestly laws of Leviticus and Numbers, and the Deuteronomic code each treat law differently. She opens with the Sinai narrative and the two versions of the Decalogue before turning to a comparative reading against Ancient Near Eastern collections like the Code of Hammurabi, weighing shared conventions such as case law formulas against genuine divergences. The lecture argues that Israelite law's distinctive features, including its claim of direct divine authorship and its treatment of human life as sacred rather than merely a matter of property compensation, set it apart from Mesopotamian precedents. Chapters move from the giving of the law at Sinai through comparative legal analysis to a close look at how biblical law inverts surrounding legal norms on questions of bodily harm and homicide. Recorded at Yale in 2006 as part of Introduction to the Old Testament.