It is argued that these communities, where service to God and humanity superseded personal concerns, were significant in making Christianity a worldwide religion as well as preserving much of the knowledge of ancient Graeco-Roman civilization that could have been lost during the Middle Ages. In addition, the contribution of monasticism to the understanding of egalitarian communal life, to art, music and architecture, and to scholarship is considered. Bibliography lists 5 sources. This 7 page research paper looks at the 'prisons' of ancient biblical lands - Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, lands of the New and Old Testament. Rather than physical structures to keep people incarcerated, 'prisons' were primarily slavery, banishment, or death.
Bibliography lists ten sources.
A 10 page research overview of Mesopotamian, Spartan, and Hebraic Law, and the Code of Hammurabi. The writer argues that the ancient laws were directed toward commerce and social control, but were most often based on reference to religious deities. The writer provides examples of the laws and the rulers that created or enforced the laws. Bibliography lists 13 references. A 6 page research paper on the extent of the oldest 'secular' legal code in history.