The author of my source was Hammurabi, but was translated to English by L. W. King. Hammurabi was the king of Babylon.

Hammurabi's code was made between 1792-1750 B.C. in Babylon (modern day Iraq). This affects the meaning of the source in the sense that the idea of a set of laws was ahead of its time.

Some prior knowledge I had about Hammurabi's code included sharia law, where if caught stealing, the hands of a thief are cut off. This is also apparent in rule 253 of Hammurabi's code dealing with crop theft.

The translated Hammurabi's code was meant for students and scholars so that we could better understand this time period. I feel this makes the source more reliable than someone just taking a guess at what Hammurabi's code means.

Hammurabi's code was produced due to the need for order in the cities of Babylon. There were issues in trade and between people that needed rules and regulations to be settled, so rules and regulations were made.

The main Idea of Hammurabi's code is stealing is bad, getting along with others is good, and you should follow the rules listed or else.

Hammurabi's code is significant because it was advanced for its time when it came to laws at the time. Most of the rules described in the code are fair, but the Babylonians still had slaves, and gender equality wasn't yet a thing. I can inference that Hammurabi's code has had an influence on the modern day middle east as evident from similar laws in Sharia law.

Some impacts of political idea contained in Hammurabi's code include the idea of "eye for an eye" or justice, as well as I have mentioned before punishment for stealing in Sharia law. Hammurabi also used fear of "God" to justify his laws, which is used later in history by other civilizations and in fact is still used today in the middle east. One last thing that Hammurabi's code influenced was social classes, from the rich and powerful, to the poor and weak, to the poorer and weaker slaves.

Work Cited:

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp