Other legal codes dictate precise values of different body parts but do so in money or other goods. For example, the Code of Ur-Nammu, written 4,100 years ago in ancient Nippur, present-day Iraq, ...

Take a look at your body. All the parts you can see, as well as all those on the inside, have been given a name at some point in history. There are plenty of descriptive, fairly innocuous names. But ...

The Bible’s lex talionis – “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (Exodus 21:24-27) – has captured the human imagination for millennia. This idea of fairness has been a model for ...