B'nai Noach?

[ProudMuslim]

Greetings to All,

I would very much appreciate if someone explained to me who is Noach and his laws. The reason i am asking is because i read in a post that some Jews consider Muslims to be B'nai Noach and i wanted to know more about it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[NoahideHiker]

Greetings to All,

I would very much appreciate if someone explained to me who is Noach and his laws. The reason i am asking is because i read in a post that some Jews consider Muslims to be B'nai Noach and i wanted to know more about it.

Thanks in advance.

The basic premis is that from the time of Adam to Noach mankind followed six basic laws. When G-d made his covenant with Noach he reestablished the six laws and added one. This is found in Gen 9. What most people do not take into consideration is that the covenant with Noach (and thus all mankind) is an ever lasting covenant. Nowhere does it say that it would pass away or be nullified. After Noach's time Hashem made His covenant with the nation of Israel and they began their path with G-d while the rest of the world continued on with their path following the seven laws of Noach.

The Seven Laws are:

1. Do Not Murder.
The edict against murder, and the punishment for this transgression, is stated in Genesis 9:6: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, among man, his blood shall be shed; for in the image of G-d He made man."

2. Do Not Have Forbidden Sexual Relations.
Five of the six types of relations which are forbidden by G-d to Gentiles are covered in Gen. 2:24: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife and they shall become one flesh." This verse explicitly forbids relations with one's mother, one's father's wife, a wife of another man, another male, and an animal. A Gentile is also forbidden to have relations with his maternal sister, which is learned from Gen. 20:13: "Moreover, she is indeed my sister, my father's daughter, though not my mother's daughter; and she became my wife." (Note that Abraham said this to appease Abimelech. It was actually only figuratively true in his case, since Sarah was the daughter of Abraham's brother. So they had the same paternal grandfather, who people often referred to as "father".) It also was universally accepted that father-daughter relations would be included, as evidenced by the disgrace of Lot after he had relations with his two daughters, following G-d's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:29-36, and Rashi's explanation of Gen. 20:1). Relations of a female with a female are likewise an abomination to G-d which is included as one of the subjects of the verse Lev. 18:3, which speaks against the immoral practices of the ancient Egyptians and Canaanites, and which Lev. 18:30 refers to as "abominable traditions." About these the Midrash (Sifra) specifies: "A man would marry a man, a woman would marry a woman, and a woman would be married to two men."

3. Do Not Commit Theft.
The prohibition of theft is contained within the permission which G-d granted to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:16 to eat from the trees of the garden. This implies that if the permission had not been granted, they would have been forbidden to do so, because the property did not belong to them. This applied specifically to the fruit of the Tree of "Knowledge of Good and Evil" which was forbidden for them to take, under penalty of death (Genesis 2:17). This Noahide commandment was cited explicitly by Jacob in Genesis 31:37.

4. Establish Laws and Courts of Justice.
This can be learned from the story of Shechem, Dinah, and the sons of Jacob. In Genesis 34:2 it relates, "Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivvite, the prince of the land, saw her; he took her, and he lay with her, and violated her." His "taking" her against her will was a form of kidnapping, which was forbidden as a type of theft. Since the men of Shechem's city did not convene a court of justice and convict him for his crimes, they failed to obey this commandment and also collectively became accomplices to his crime. Jacob's sons therefore formed a court, convicted them, and executed them. It should also be noted that all the men of Shechem were also guilty of the sin of idolatry, as evidenced by the idols which the sons of Jacob removed from the city (Gen. 35:2,4).

5. Don't Eat Flesh Taken From a Live Animal.
Adam and Hava (Eve) were not given permission to kill animals for food, and this remained in effect until after the Flood. G-d permitted the eating of meat for the first time to Noah and his family after they left the Ark, which is why G-d at that time added the seventh commandment, which prohibits the eating of flesh removed from a living animal. This commandment given to Noah is recorded in Genesis 9:4. ("Nevertheless, you may not eat flesh with its life, which is its blood.")

6. Do Not Commit Blasphemy.
Leviticus 24:10-17 relates the incident of a Jew who violated the injunction of Exodus 22:27 and blasphemed in anger, and the Divine edict proclaiming this to be a capital offense. Moreover, it states there "ish ish (any man) who curses his G-d shall bear his sin." Why the double expression of ish ish (literally: a man, a man)? To include all mankind, Jews and Gentiles. This demonstrates that blasphemy thus is prohibited to Gentiles as a capital offense even as it is for Jews. (Tractate Sanhedrin, p. 56a)

 

[NoahideHiker]

Continued...

The source for the remaining Noahide commandment, which prohibits worship of false gods, is explained below.

But first note thatthe recounting and recording of the Seven Noahide Commandments by Moses took place at Mt. Sinai, two days before G-d spoke the Ten Utterances in Ex. 20:1-14. In Exodus 24:3, it says "Moses came [before G-d spoke the Ten Utterances] and told the people all the words of G-d and ALL THE LAWS ..." The words "all the laws" refer to the Seven Noahide Commandments and three additional Jewish Commandments, which the Children of Israel had already been commanded before they arrived at Mt. Sinai. (Moses told this total of 10 commandments to the Israelites at Marah, after they crossed through the sea - see Exodus 15:25.) The next verse, Exodus 24:4, states that "Moses wrote all the words of G-d ..." These words were the Book of Genesis, which contains the verses which inform us of the earlier Covenant of the Rainbow and the Noahide Commandments, and the Book of Exodus up to that point. G-d thus commanded the Jewish People to publicize the Noahide Commandments, to teach them to all the nations of the world for all generations (whenever possible), and to require acceptance of the Noahide Commandments by all Gentiles who choose to live in the Land of Israel under Jewish authority.

In the Oral Torah, given to Moses at Mount Sinai and passed down through the Jewish prophets and sages and recorded in the Talmud, it is explained (Tractate Sanhedrin, p. 56b) that all these Seven Noahide Commandments are coded within the verse Gen. 2:16 ("And L-rd G-d commanded to the man, saying, 'Of every tree of the garden you may surely eat.") In Hebrew, the verse reads, "Va-y'tzav Havaye E-lokim al ha'adom laymor mikol aits hagan achol tochayl." One of the 13 specific rules of authentic Torah exegesis is by a tradition of an analogy between two laws established on the basis of identical Hebrew expressions. The Seven Noahide Commandments are coded into Gen. 2:16 as follows, as explained by the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yochanan:

1. The word E-lokim is one of the holy divine Names which mean "G-d." But the same word is used in the non-holy plural sense to refer to physical or conceptual idolatries (other "gods"), as in the verse "You shall have no other gods ..." (Ex. 20.3). Thus the statement to Adam in Gen. 2:16 implies that only G-d should be worshipped, but not an idol. According to this, a Gentile is liable for making an idol, even without worshipping it.

[Note: the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yitzchak offered an alternative derivation. He suggested that the word tzav ("command") in the verse points to a prohibition of worship of false gods. The verse would then teach that only G-d, the One True G-d, is the source of all true commandments, and therefore only G-d is to be served. The connection to idolatry is evident from Hosea 5:11: "Ephraim is plundered, shattered by his judgment; for he has willingly followed after their command/tzav" - i.e., the command of idolatrous priests.]

2. The unspoken four-letter Divine name in this verse, transposed to spoken form as Havayeh, points to a prohibition against cursing G-d, as evident from Leviticus 24:16. ("And one who pronounces blasphemously the Name of the L-rd/Havayeh shall be put to death, the entire assembly shall surely stone him; convert and native alike, when he blasphemes the Name, he shall be put to death." Note: in the painless mode of execution translated from Hebrew as "stoning", the convicted criminal was drugged and thrown to his death from a high tower onto a stone pavement, as explained in Tractate Sanhedrin.)

3. The words al ha'adom ("to the man") point to the prohibition against murder, which is stated in Gen. 9:6 (see above).

4. The prohibition of the six forbidden sexual relations (see above) is pointed to by the word laymor ("saying"), as evident from Jeremiah 3:11 ("Saying/laymor: if a man divorces his wife, and she goes from him and marries another man, can he return to her again [while she is married to the other man]? Would that not bring profound guilt upon the land? Yet you have committed adultery with many lovers and would now return to Me [without repenting] - the word of the L-rd.")

5. The prohibition of theft is contained within the general sense of the verse, as explained above.

6. The word va-y'tzav ("He commanded") in the verse points to the requirement for courts of justice, as seen from the similar wording in the verse Gen. 18:19: "For I know him, that he will command ("y'tzaveh") his children and his household after him that they may keep the way of the L-rd, to do righteousness and justice."

[Note: the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yitzchak offered an alternative derivation. He suggested that the commandment to establish laws and courts of justice is pointed to by the word E-lokim/G-d, which also means "judges." This is evident from Exodus 22:27, which uses this word to simultaneously prohibit cursing G-d and cursing judges - as explained for example by Maimonides in his Book of the Commandments.]

7. The verse concludes, "you may surely eat" - of the trees of the garden, but not meat removed from a live animal.

Source: AskNoah - The Seven Laws of Noah

But to even say that the Noachide Covenant is a religion is a bit confusing because you are not required to change your religion in order to be considered a B'Nai Noach. If, through your own religion, you already do not violate the seven laws then you already are a B'nai Noach. B'nai Noach simply means "Son of Noach".

 

[Zardoz]

Greetings to All,

I would very much appreciate if someone explained to me who is Noach and his laws. The reason i am asking is because i read in a post that some Jews consider Muslims to be B'nai Noach and i wanted to know more about it.

Thanks in advance.

Actually, if one takes the Noah story literal then everyone on earth is B'nai Noach!

It is assumed that all 'people of the book' that is to say Jews, Muslims, and Christians, should honor these laws as they are perpetually in force as the covenant that G-d made with Noah and his seed is perpetual and cannot be abolished or replaced by subsequent covenants but only expanded and refined.

 

[ProudMuslim]

Thank you very much for your answer.