The idea of written laws goes back to ancient Mesopotamian culture that prospered long before the Bible was written or the civilizations of the Greeks or Romans flowered. In fact, the oldest known evidence of a law code is tablets from the ancient city Ebla (Tell Mardikh in modern-day Syria). They date to about 2400 BCE. However, most scholars credit Hammurabi’s Code as the origin of written laws and a formal legal system.