Elaborate legal enactments codified in Babylonia by the 20th century B.C. find striking parallels in Hebrew, late Jewish (Talmudic), Syrian and Mahommedan law, or in the unwritten usages of all ages; for even where there were neither written laws nor duly instituted lawgivers, there was no lawlessness, since custom and belief were, and still are, almost inflexible. Various collections are preserved in the Old Testament; they are attributed to the time of Moses the lawgiver, who stands at the beginning of Israelite national and religious history. But many of the laws were quite unsuitable for the circumstances of his age, and the belief that a body of intricate and even contradictory legislation was imposed suddenly upon a people newly emerged from bondage in Egypt raises insurmountable objections, and underestimates the fact that legal usage existed in the earliest stages of society, and therefore in pre-Mosaic times. The more important question is the date of the laws in their present form and content. Collections of laws are found in Deuteronomy and in exilic and post-exilic writings; groups of a relatively earlier type are preserved in Exod. xxxiv. 14-26, xx. 23-xxiii., and (of another stamp) in Lev. xvii.-xxvi. (now in post-exilic form). For a useful conspectus of details, see J. E. Carpenter and G. Harford-Battersby. _The Hexateuch_ (vol. i., appendix); C. F. Kent, _Israel's Laws and Legal Enactments_ (1907); and in general I. Benzinger, articles "Government," "Family" and "Law and Justice," _Ency. Bib._, and G. B. Gray, "Law Literature," ib. (the literary growth of legislation). Reference may also be made, for illustrative material, to W. R. Smith, _Kinship and Marriage_, _Religion of the Semites_; to E. Day, _Social Life of the Hebrews_; and, for some comparison of customary usage in the Semitic field, to S. A. Cook, _Laws of Moses and Code of Hammurabi_.