Maart 2013: jaargang 10, nommer 1 - LitNet

LitNet Akademies Jaargang 10 (1), Maart 2013
binding on all humankind. A gentile that adheres to these laws is considered a “righteous
gentile” and deserves a place in the world to come.
The oldest version of the Noahide laws can be found in Tosefta Avodah Zarah (8:4), which
contains six of the seven laws. It has been argued that the missing law (prohibition on the
eating of a limb from a living animal) can be derived from Genesis 9:4 and is omitted due to
a copyist’s error. Later rabbinic texts infer the first six laws on the basis of Genesis 2:16. But
these laws are not inherently part of Genesis 2:16. They are probably inferred by way of
mystical interpretation that is characteristic of the Talmudic era.
Both Nanos (1996) and Tomson (1990), however, argue that the idea behind the Noahide
laws is present in the Book of Jubilees 7:20–1. Although the book can be dated around 160 to
150 BCE, the prohibitions in Jubilees hardly correspond to the seven Noahide laws. This
claim is further weakened by the absence of any requirement that the laws would be binding
on all people; that those concerned would be considered as “righteous gentiles”; or that they
would earn a place in the world to come.
Others argue that the Noahide laws can be identified within the so-called apostolic decree in
Acts 15:19–32; 16:1–5 and 21:25. The prohibitions listed in Acts (abstention from the
pollution of idols, sexual immorality, meat of strangled animals and blood) do not, however,
correspond well to the seven Noahide laws. The prohibition on sexual immorality shows the
only close correspondence to one of the Noahide laws. The so-called apostolic decree rather
had to do with a practical arrangement not to put pressure on Judaean Christ-believers
regarding obedience to the Mosaic law, because this matter would not be resolved quickly.
The idea that the practical arrangement would differentiate Judaean believers from Gentile
believers in some way in terms of their status before God is not present in Acts.
Lastly, it has been argued that the Noahide laws are present in the Didaché. But the dating of
the Didaché remains uncertain. A growing consensus is emerging that it was compiled around
the 1st century CE. The Didaché’s date of origin is inferred largely from its literary
agreement with other early writings of Christ-believers. If the Didaché used Barnabas and
Hermas, it must be dated later than 140 CE. Although most scholars today understand the
Didaché to have developed independently of Barnabas and Hermas, it is conceivable that the
textual agreement between Didaché 1:5 and Hermas represents a common tradition. The
Didaché probably developed largely independently of other early writings of Christ-believers
within a rural congregation in a Greek-speaking part of western Syria or, possibly, in the
borderland between Syria and Palestine at the close of the 1st century. It thus seems safe to
say that the Didaché originated after Paul’s lifetime.
A claim to the existence of the Noahide laws in some form earlier than the Talmudic era rests
in part on the rabbinic doctrine of the existence of the Oral Torah or Oral Law. As part of
rabbinic teaching, the Oral Torah is held to be an orally transmitted legal tradition from Sages
or tanna’im (those who communicated rabbinic teachings), and constitutes one leg of dual
sources of Torah, the one oral and the other written (2nd century CE). The teaching behind
632