Noahide Laws

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Do you follow the Noahide Laws, and do you believe the Noahide Laws are biblical?

These are seven laws found in the Babylonian Talmud that suggest Adam and Noah received seven laws from God before Moses received the Ten Commandments. I will list these laws because I was unfamiliar with them before I looked them up.

  1. Not to worship idols.
  2. Not to curse God.
  3. To establish courts of justice.
  4. Not to commit murder.
  5. Not to commit adultery, bestiality, or sexual immorality.
  6. Not to steal.
  7. Not to eat flesh torn from a living animal.

Source: Wikipedia

All but two of these laws are found in the Ten Commandments for the most part. The second one, not to curse God, I see as more to not profane his name, to take his name in vain. The fourth law, to establish courts of justice is not found anywhere in the Commandments that I know of.

Of course, it’s beneficial for society to have courts of justice established. In Israel, it was up to the Kings to make sure justice happened in the land. Before the Kings, the judges did this. Moses set up a system of judges through the elders of Israel in the wilderness based on his father-in-law’s advice (Exodus 18:19-22).

The seventh commandment listed here is biblical. It is based off of God’s command to eat of any tree in the garden of Eden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16). The inferences from what is not said, that Adam and Eve should not eat the animals because only trees are mentioned.

Perhaps this inference is a bit of a stretch. They also ate the plants in the garden. It is not a direct command to not eat the flesh of any of the animals. We don’t know from Scripture whether or not humans were vegetarians and that eating meat was some violation of God’s laws.

I think a more pertinent law is that they weren’t to eat any meat with the blood in it. Life is in the blood, and they were not to eat the life (Genesis 9:2-4). So six of the seven Commandments are biblical. The one about establishing courts of justice is found in the Bible, but there is no law for it.

Even in the New Testament in the book of Acts, Jewish Christians set out a few laws they did want the Gentile Christians to follow, instead of circumcision and following the entirety of Mosaic Law (Acts 15:28-29).

They wanted the Gentile Christians to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from eating blood, from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. You see the second and third having to do with the blood of the animal. So this idea is biblical.

I agree with all seven laws. I find that Scripture talks about them for the most part. Even the one not clearly commanded in Scripture, to establish courts of justice, has the Bible behind it in general. Plus, it is good for supporting social systems.

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