Noahide Laws

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The Noahide laws, also called the Brit Noah (Covenant of Noah) are the mitzvot (commandments) and halakhot (laws) that Judaism teaches that all non-Jews are morally bound to follow. They are listed in the Talmud and elaborated on by post-Talmudic authorities. Opinions differ on the reach of these commandments and the laws derived from them, but all contemporary authorities agree that there are seven commandments. These commandments and laws are based on exegesis of Genesis 2:16 and 9:4-6.

Contents

Origin

According to the Biblical narrative, the Deluge covered the whole world killing everyone except Noah and his family and the creatures of the ark. After the flood, God seals a convenant with Noah with the following admonitions (Genesis 9):

  • Food: "Also, flesh with the life -the blood- in it do not eat." (9:4)
  • Murder: "I will also inquire about your blood, your life, from all animals, and from each human I will inquire about his brother's blood. Who sheds the blood of man, by man his blood will be shed, because in the image of God was man made."

The Talmud (tractate Sanhedrin 56a/b, quoting Tosefta Sanhedrin 9:4) states that the instruction to not eat "flesh with the life" was given to Noah, and that Adam and Eve had already received six other commandments in Paradise. The remaining six are derived from a seeming superfluous sentence in Genesis 2:16.

The seven laws

The seven laws are:

  1. Shefichat damim - Do not murder.
  2. Gezel - Do not steal/kidnap.
  3. Avodah zarah - Do not worship false gods/idols.
  4. Gilui arayot - Do not be sexually immoral (forbidden sexual acts are traditionally interpreted to include incest, sodomy, male homosexual sex acts and adultery)
  5. Birkat Hashem - Do not blaspheme.
  6. Dinim - Set up righteous and honest courts and apply fair justice in judging offenders and uphold the principles of the last five.
  7. Ever min ha-chai - Do not eat anything of the body of an unslaughtered animal (given to Noah)

The Talmud also states: "Righteous people of all nations have a share in the world to come" (Sanhedrin 105a). Any person who lives according to these laws is known as "the righteous among the gentiles". Maimonides states that this refers to those who have acquired knowledge of God and act in accordance with the Noahide laws.

Definition of Noahides

According to rabbinic Judaism, as expressed in the Talmud, the Noahide Laws apply to all humanity through their descent from one paternal ancestor who in Hebrew tradition is called Noah (the head of the only family to survive during The Flood). In Judaism, B'nai Noach (Hebrew, "Descendants of Noah", "Children of Noah") refers to all Humans, but Noahide has come to refer to non-Jews who live in accord with the seven Noahide Laws; the term "observant Noahide" would be more precise but is infrequently used. A non-Jewish person of any ethnicity or religion is refered to as a bat (daughter)/ben (son) of Noah but usually an organization calling itself B'nai Noach would most likely be composed of gentiles believing that they are keeping the Noahide Laws. There is some controversy concerning whether or not a gentile may declare him/herself to be a keeper of the Noahide Laws or whether such a qualification can only be bestowed upon a gentile by a Beth Din (rabbinical court). Those adamant that B'nei Noah can only refer to noahides who believe they are keeping the Brit Noah take the stance that a Gentile can declare oneself to be a keeper of the Brit, while more orthodox parties feel rather than deciding for themselves Gentiles must submit themselves to the qualification stipulated in revelation but this consequently leads to the necessity for Torah Scholars (usually 3) to test identify and confer such status upon them.

Judaism holds that gentiles (non-Jews) are not obligated to follow the same halakha that Jews are obligated to follow. Though there is at least one well-documented case in which a Jewish state required all subjects to conform to Jewish beliefs and practices (in effect, to become Jewish), Rabbinic Judaism and its modern-day descendents discourage proselytization and interprets the historical data as evidence of the Jewish mission to "noahidify" gentiles. Noahide Laws may be considered the way to have a meaningful relationship with God or at least comply with a minimum threshold of divine law.

Maimonides states in his work Mishneh Torah (The laws of kings and their rulership 8:11) that a Geir Toshav who is precise in the observance of these Seven Noahide commandments is considered to be a Righteous Gentile and has earned the afterlife. This follows a similar statement in the Talmud (tractate Sanhedrin 105b). However, according to Maimonides, a share in the World to Come is only earned if a person follows the Noahide laws specifically because they consider them to be of divine origin (through the Torah) and not if they simply consider them a good way to live (in which case they would simply be wise, a Nochri). Other authorities do not make this distinction.

Noahide law differs from the Roman law for gentiles (ius gentium) because the latter was an enforceable judicial policy. Rabbinic Judaism has never adjudicated any cases under Noahide law (per Novak, 1983:28ff.), although scholars disagree about whether the Noahide law is a functional part of Halakha (cp. Bleich).

Subdividing the seven laws

Various rabbinic sources have different positions on the way the seven laws are to be subdivided in categories. Maimonides (Melakhim 10:6) lists one additional Noahide commandment forbidding the coupling of different kinds of animals and the mixing of trees. Radbaz expressed surprise that he left out castration and sorcery which were listed in Baraita (Sanhedrin 56B). The tenth century Rabbi Saadia Gaon added tithes and levirate marriage. The eleventh century R. Nissim Gaon included listening to God's Voice, knowing God and serving God besides going on to say that all religious acts which can be understood through human reasoning are obligatory upon Jew and Gentile alike. The fourteenth century R. Nissim ben Reuben Gerondi added the commandment of charity. The sixteenth century work Asarah Maamarot by Rabbi Menahem Azariah of Fano (Rema mi-Fano) enumerates thirty commandments, listing the latter twenty-three as extensions of the original seven. Another commentator (Kol Hidushei Maharitz Chayess I, end Ch. 10) suggests these are not related to the first seven, nor based on Scripture, but were passed down by tradition. The number thirty derives from the statement of the Talmudic sage Ulla in Hullin 92A though he lists only three other rules in addition to the original seven, consisting of the prohibitions against homosexuality and cannibalism, as well as the imperative to honor the Torah. Talmud commentator Rashi remarks on this that he does not know the other Commandments referred to. Though the authorities seem to take it for granted that Ulla's thirty Commandments included the original seven, an additional thirty laws is also possible from the reading.

The tenth century Rabbi Shmuel ben Hophni Gaon's list of thirty Noahide Commandments is based on Ulla's Talmudic statement though the text is problematic. He includes the prohibitions against suicide and false oaths, as well as the imperatives related to prayer, sacrifices and honoring one's parents. The commandments, according to Shmuel ben Hophni Gaona , cover:

  • Idolatry
    • No idolatry
    • To pray
    • To offer ritual sacrifices only to God
  • Blasphemy
    • To believe in the singularity of God
    • No blasphemy
    • No witchcraft
    • No soothsayers
    • No conjurers
    • No sorcerers
    • No mediums
    • No demonology
    • No wizardry
    • No necromancy
    • To respect father & mother
  • Murder
    • No murder
    • No suicide
    • No Molech worship (infant sacrifice)
  • Property
    • No stealing
  • Sexual Immorality
  • Food Laws
    • Not to eat a limb of a living creature
    • Not to eat or drink blood
    • Not to eat carrion (for those recognised by a Beth Din)
  • Justice
    • To establish courts and a system of justice
    • No false oaths

The contemporary Rabbi Dr. Aaron Lichtenstein counts 66 instructions but Rabbi Harvey Falk has suggested that much work remains to be done in order to properly identify all of the Noahide Commandments, their divisions and subdivisions.

Theft, robbery, and stealing covers the appropriate understanding of other persons, their property, and their rights. The establishment of courts of justice promotes the value of the responsibility of a corporate society of people to enforce these laws, and define these terms. The refusal to engage in unnecessary lust or cruelty demonstrates respect for the Creation itself, as renewed after the Flood. To not do murder would include human sacrifice as being forbidden.

Recent developments

Judaism does not usually support proselytization, but some Jewish groups have been active in promoting Noahism among non-Jews, particularly the Chabad Lubavitch movement, and the self-styled "Sanhedrin" set up by Haredi rightists in Israel in 2004.

On March 20th, 1991, the 102nd Congress of the United States passed Public Law 102-14 to designate March 26, 1991, as "Education Day, U.S.A."; in the bill Congress recognized

the ... principles ... upon which our great Nation was founded ... known as the Seven Noahide Laws ... without these ... civilization stands in serious peril of .. chaos ... Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, leader of the Lubavitch movement, is universally respected and revered and his eighty-ninth birthday falls on March 26, 1991 ... in tribute to this great spiritual leader ... his ninetieth year will ... turn to education and charity to return the world to the moral and ethical values contained in the Seven Noahide Laws

Several Christian congregations have abandoned traditional Christianity (rejecting the Nicene Creed) and adopted Noahidism in recent years. In the United States a few organized movements of non-Jews (primarily of Christian origin) have been influenced by Orthodox Judaism; rather than converting to Judaism, they have chosen to abandon previous religious affiliation and live by the Noahide Laws. The rainbow is the symbol of many organised Noahide groups, and the best-known group is probably the one led by Vendyl Jones. So far, however, being a Noahide has never been considered to be part of an organized religion.

In September 2005 Arutz Sheva reported Rabbi Michael Bar-Ron's hope, on behalf of the "Sanhedrin", to
transform the Noahide movement from a religious phenomenon - a curiosity many have not heard of - into a powerful international movement that can successfully compete with, and with G-d's help bring about the fall of, any religious movement but the pure authentic faith that was given to humanity through Noach, the father of us all.[1].

In more general Jewish thinking, David Novak, among others, has proposed that Noahide Law could serve as the basis for a more universal Jewish ethics and for cross-cultural moral reasoning (at least with Christians and Muslims).

Other religions as Noahide

From the Jewish perspective, if a non-Jew keeps all of the laws entailed in the categories covered by the Seven Noahide commandments, then he or she is considered a Ger Toshav (sojourning alien) when with a congregation of Israel. In fact, this is considered the ideal level for all humanity by Jewish theology. A Ger Tzedek is a person who prefers to proceed to religious conversion, a procedure that is generally encouraged by all sects of Judaism only after much thought and deliberation over the conversion has taken place.

The term Noahide is not the name of any specific religion but a term used to describe religions and cultures compliant with the Noahide Laws outside of Israel.

Islam

Islam has a different tradition on Noah and his descendants; the Qur'an mentions additional narrative on Noah. As stated before, the Jewish authority Maimonides has maintained that Islam is a Noahide religion, although the Medieval sage Nissim of Gerona disagrees.

Christianity

Within Judaism it is a matter of debate whether or not all Christians should be considered Noahides. The strict view is that Christian theology is considered avodah zarah (loosely translated as "idolatry") for all people, both Jew and gentile, as it subscribes to the Trinity. Therefore most Christians cannot be considered Noahides. However, Unitarian Christians and other followers of Jesus who do not believe that Jesus is God would still be considered Noahides.

The liberal orthodox view is that Christian theology is only considered avodah zarah for Jews, but it is permissible for gentiles. The Tosafists (early commentators on the Talmud) R. Jacob Tam (Rashi's grandson), in Bekhorot 2b and Sanhedrin 63b, ruled that trinitarianism could be permitted to gentiles as a form of shittuf ("association"). This view was echoed by R. Isaac b. Sheshet (Responsa No.119) and accepted by R. Moses Isserles (Rema, Orah Hayyim 156:1.). However, no Jewish source allows the worship through any form of shittuf, rather, all worship must be directed to the one and only Creator.

The view of Maimonides is difficult to ascertain due to text alterations in different editions of his Mishneh Torah (code of Jewish law), Ma'akhalot Asurot 11:7. In any case, in this view Christian theology is not forbidden to gentiles, and all Christians are Noahides. Today most of Reform and Conservative Judaism view all Christians as Noahides.

Traditions of Origin

One tradition is that the Noahide Laws are seven laws from the covenant made between God and Noah after the cessation of the global flood which covered the whole world killing everyone except Noah and his family and the creatures of the ark. They are never explicitly enumerated in the Bible, but the covenant that God made with Noah (Genesis 9) contains these admonitions:

Food

Also, flesh with the life -the blood- in it do not eat. (4)

Murder

I will also inquire about your blood, your life, from all animals, and from each human I will inquire about his brother's blood.
Who sheds the blood of man, by man his blood will be shed, because in the image of God was man made.

A common tradition (mentioned in the Talmud) is that six were given to Adam and Eve in Paradise and one to Noah in Genesis chapter 9.

In the story of Noah we see mention of Sacrifice, Kashrut, and "Uncovered Nakedness" (a biblical euphemism for incest within a patriarch's family). In the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) Heaven puts an end to the experiment in dictatorship (indicated by the phrases "the people is one") when it had replaced the plurality intended in the original Law-Court system. Others have interpreted it that the command for a plural legal system instead of any dictatorial system was initiated at this time.

Christian criticism

Christian critics of the Noahide laws contend that insisting upon a basic set of moral laws is contrary to religious pluralism. Some believe that their existence implies that Jews may set up a legal system that would outlaw Christianity. The Jewish community responds by noting that it makes laws and customs for its own members (like all faiths) and does not set up governments to force Jewish beliefs on non-Jews; in contrast, some non-Jewish faiths have carried out such actions in practice. In addition, with their minimal threshold of morality, the Noahide law may be compared to Catholic social teachings.

While many Christians would consider the Ten Commandments to be binding on them (except, for some traditions, the Sabbath commandment and sects that are antinomistic or New Covenant only) and would see some of the Noahide laws as essentially a subset of these (though the requirement to set up courts, and the dietary regulation, are not explicit in the commandments), many Jewish thinkers consider Noahide Laws as "general categories of commandments, each containing many components and details," the execution of which is left to Jewish rabbis. This, in addition to the teaching of the Jewish law that punishment for violating one of the seven Noahide Laws includes a theoretical death penalty (Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin 57a), is a factor in the opposition of the notion of a Noahide legal system. The Jewish community responds by noting that Jews today no longer carry out the death penalty, even within the Jewish community. Jewish law, in contemporary practice, sees the death penalty as an indicator of the seriousness of an offense; violators are not actually put to death.

Christian adoption of the Noahide Laws?

The term "Early Jewish Christians" is often used in discussing the Early History of Christianity. Jesus, his Apostles, the Elders, and all or essentially all of his early followers were Jewish or Jewish Proselytes. The Council of Jerusalem, according to Acts of the Apostles 15, determined that circumcision was not required of new converts, only avoidance of "pollution of idols, fornication, things strangled, and blood" (KJV, Acts15:20). The basis for these prohibitions as found in Acts 15:21 states only: "For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day,". A common Christian interpretation is that because the ancient Law of Moses is preached in the synagogues where the Christians live, the Gentile Christians should be taught to avoid giving offense to the Jews by observing this small set of restrictions.

Some interpretations restrict them to ground rules for table fellowship between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.

However, others have interpreted these as being an application of Noahide laws to gentile believers. The Apostolic Constitutions 6.64[2], part of the Ante-Nicene Fathers collection, dated to the 4th century, states: "Wherefore my sentence is, that we do not trouble those who from among the Gentiles turn unto God: but to charge them that they abstain from the pollutions of the Gentiles, and from what is sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; which laws were given to the ancients who lived before the law, under the law of nature, Enos, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Job, and if there be any other of the same sort." Sir Isaac Newton in The Chronology of Antient Kingdoms Amended, (Dublin, 1728, p. 184), states: "This law [of abstaining from blood] was ancienter than the days of Moses, being given to Noah and his sons, long before the days of Abraham: and therefore when the Apostles and Elders in the Council at Jerusalem declared that the Gentiles were not obliged to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses, they excepted this law of abstaining from blood, and things strangled, as being an earlier law of God, imposed not on the sons of Abraham only, but on all nations, while they lived together in Shinar under the dominion of Noah: and of the same kind is the law of abstaining from meats offered to Idols or false Gods, and from fornication." (Italics original). The Jewish Encyclopedia article on Paul states: "According to Acts ... Paul began working along the traditional Jewish line of proselytizing in the various synagogues where the proselytes of the gate [for example Exodus 20:10] and the Jews met; and only because he failed to win the Jews to his views, encountering strong opposition and persecution from them, did he turn to the Gentile world after he had agreed at a convention with the apostles at Jerusalem to admit the Gentiles into the Church only as proselytes of the gate, that is, after their acceptance of the Noachian laws (Acts xv. 1-31)."

However, despite Acts, the extent to which Jewish law in general was binding on gentile Christians was a matter of dispute in the early church, as is clear from the letters of Paul, especially Galatians (written before Acts, though referring to some of the same events). For more information see Pauline Christianity, New Perspective on Paul, Marcionism, Antinomianism, Supersessionism.

Notes

Further reading

  • Bleich, J. David. “Judaism and natural law” in Jewish law annual, vol. VII 5-42
  • Bleich, J. David. “Tikkum Olam: Jewish Obligations to Non-Jewish Society” in Tikkun olam: social responsibility in Jewish thought and law. Edited by David Shatz, Chaim I. Waxman and Nathan J. Diament. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1997. ISBN: 0765759519
  • Broyde, Michael J. “The Obligation of Jews to Seek Observance of Noahide Laws by Gentiles: A Theoretical Review” in Tikkun olam: social responsibility in Jewish thought and law. Edited by David Shatz, Chaim I. Waxman and Nathan J. Diament. Northvale, N.J. : Jason Aronson, 1997. ISBN: 0765759519
  • Clorfene C and Rogalsky Y. The Path of the Righteous Gentile: An Introduction to the Seven Laws of the Children of Noah. New York: Phillip Feldheim, 1987. ISBN 087306433X. Online version.
  • Novak, David. The image of the non-Jew in Judaism: an historical and constructive study of the Noahide Laws. New York : E. Mellen Press, 1983.
  • Novak, David. Natural law in Judaism. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1998.
  • Rakover, Nahum. Law and the Noahides: law as a universal value. Jerusalem: Library of Jewish Law, 1998.

See also

External links

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