thumb|upright=1.2|The [[rainbow is the unofficial symbol of Noahidism, recalling the Genesis flood narrative in which a rainbow appears to Noah after the Flood. It represents God's promise to Noah to refrain from flooding the Earth and destroying all life again.]]
In Judaism, the Seven Laws of Noah (, Sheva Mitzvot B'nei Noach), otherwise referred to as the Noahide Laws or the Noachian Laws (from the Hebrew pronunciation of "Noah"), are a set of universal moral laws which, according to the Talmud, were given by God as a covenant with Noah and with the "sons of Noah"—that is, all of humanity.
The Seven Laws of Noah consist of prohibitions against worshipping idols, cursing God, murder, adultery and sexual immorality, theft, eating flesh torn from a living animal, as well as the obligation to establish courts of justice.
According to Jewish law, non-Jews (Gentiles) are not obligated to convert to Judaism, but they are required to observe the Seven Laws of Noah to be assured of a place in the World to Come (Olam Ha-Ba), the final reward of the righteous. The non-Jews that choose to follow the Seven Laws of Noah are regarded as "Righteous Gentiles" (, Chassiddei Umot ha-Olam: "Pious People of the World"). with some of the sages, such as Ulla, going so far as to make a list of 30 laws. The Talmud expands the scope of the seven laws to cover about 100 of the 613 mitzvot.
Punishment
In practice, Jewish law makes it very difficult to apply the Jewish death penalty. No record exists of a Gentile having been put to death for violating the seven Noahide laws. considered one of the lightest capital punishments. Other sources state that the execution is to be by stoning if he has intercourse with a Jewish betrothed woman, or by strangulation if the Jewish woman has completed the marriage ceremonies, but had not yet consummated the marriage. In Jewish law, the only form of blasphemy which is punishable by death is blaspheming the Ineffable Name (). Some Talmudic rabbis held that only those offences for which a Jew would be executed, are forbidden to gentiles. The Talmudic rabbis discuss which offences and sub-offences are capital offences and which are merely forbidden.
Maimonides states that anyone who does not accept the seven Noahide laws is to be executed, as God compelled the world to follow these laws. For the other prohibitions such as the grafting of trees and bestiality he holds that the sons of Noah are not to be executed. Maimonides adds a universalism lacking from earlier Jewish sources. According to some opinions, punishment is the same whether the individual transgresses with knowledge of the law or is ignorant of the law.
Some authorities debate whether non-Jewish societies may decide to modify the Noahide laws of evidence (for example, by requiring more witnesses before punishment, or by permitting circumstantial evidence) if they consider that to be more just. Whilst Jewish law requires two witnesses, Noachide law, as recorded by Rambam, Hilkhot Melakhim 9:14, can accept the testimony of a single eyewitness as sufficient for use of the death penalty. Whilst a confession of guilt is not admissible as evidence before a Jewish court, it is a matter of considerable dispute as to whether or not it constitutes sufficient grounds for conviction in Noachide courts.
There is also some debate as to whether the ideal punishment for violation of these laws is the death penalty, or if it is up to the court's discretion to decide which punishment is most fitting. While a simple reading of the Talmud might suggest that the ideal punishment is the death penalty, a number of prominent commentators, including Rav Yosef Eliyahu Henkin, have argued that it is up to the courts to decide.
Subdivisions
Various rabbinic sources have different positions on the way the seven laws are to be subdivided in categories. Maimonides, in his Mishneh Torah, included the grafting of trees. David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra, a commentator on Maimonides, expressed surprise that he left out castration and sorcery which were also listed in the Talmud.
The Talmudist Ulla wrote of 30 laws which the sons of Noah took upon themselves. He only lists three, namely the three that the gentiles follow: not to create a Ketubah between males, not to sell carrion or human flesh in the market and to respect the Torah. The rest of the laws are not listed. Though the authorities seem to take it for granted that Ulla's thirty commandments included the original seven, an additional thirty laws are also possible from the reading.
Two different lists of the 30 laws exist. Both lists include an additional twenty-three mitzvot which are subdivisions or extensions of the seven laws. One from the 16th-century work Asarah Maamarot by Rabbi Menahem Azariah da Fano and a second from the 10th century Samuel ben Hofni which was recently published from his Judeo-Arabic writings after having been found in the Cairo Geniza. Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes suggests Menahem Azariah of Fano enumerated commandments are not related to the first seven, nor based on the written Torah, but instead were passed down by oral tradition.
Ger toshav (resident alien)
During biblical times, a Gentile living in the Land of Israel who did not want to convert to Judaism but accepted the Seven Laws of Noah as binding upon himself was granted the legal status of ger toshav (, ger: "foreigner" or "alien" + toshav: "resident", lit. "resident alien"). A ger toshav is therefore commonly deemed a "Righteous Gentile" (, Chassid Umot ha-Olam: "Pious People of the World"), He conjectures that, according to Maimonides, only a full ger tzedek would be found during the Messianic era. which he believes is contrary to what Maimonides thought and the Torah teaches,
Maimonides' view and his critics
During the Golden Age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula, the medieval Jewish philosopher and rabbi Maimonides (1135–1204) wrote in the halakhic legal code Mishneh Torah (tractate Hilkhot Melakhim) that Gentiles must perform exclusively the Seven Laws of Noah and refrain from studying the Torah or performing any Jewish commandment, including resting on the Shabbat. He also states that if Gentiles willingly perform any Jewish commandment besides the Seven Laws of Noah according to the correct halakhic procedure, they are not prevented from doing so. According to Maimonides, teaching non-Jews to follow the Seven Laws of Noah is incumbent on all Jews, a commandment in and of itself. Nevertheless, the majority of rabbinic authorities over the centuries have rejected Maimonides' opinion, and the dominant halakhic consensus has always been that Jews are not required to spread the Noahide laws to non-Jews. According to Maimonides, such non-Jews achieve the status of Chassid Umot Ha-Olam ("Pious People of the World"),
Some later editions of the Mishneh Torah differ by one letter and read "Nor one of their wise men"; the latter reading is narrower. In either reading, Maimonides appears to exclude philosophical Noahides from being "Righteous Gentiles".
The 15th-century Sephardic Orthodox rabbi Yosef Caro, one of the early Acharonim and author of the Shulchan Aruch, rejected Maimonides' denial of the access to the World to Come to the Gentiles who obey the Noahide laws guided only by their reason as anti-rationalistic and unfounded, asserting that there is not any justification to uphold such a view in the Talmud.
The 18th-century Ashkenazi German philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, one of the leading exponents of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah), strongly disagreed with Maimonides' formulation of the subject in the Mishneh Torah (tractate Hilkhot Melakhim), citing a letter sent by Maimonides to the Jewish translator Abraham ben Samuel ibn Hasdai ha-Levi of Barcelona, and instead contended that, in conformity to the letter itself, Gentiles which observe the seven Noahide laws out of ethical, moral, or philosophical reasoning, without necessarily believing in the Jewish monotheistic conception of God or knowing the Torah, retained the status of "Righteous Gentiles" and would still achieve salvation.
According to Steven Schwarzschild, Maimonides' position has its source in his adoption of Aristotle's skeptical attitude towards the ability of reason to arrive at moral truths, and "many of the most outstanding spokesmen of Judaism themselves dissented sharply from" this position, which is "individual and certainly somewhat eccentric" in comparison to other Jewish thinkers.
The 20th-century Ashkenazi Orthodox rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, first Chief Rabbi of the British Mandate of Palestine, cited many rabbinical authorities in ruling leniently that a non-Jew who follows the seven commandments due to philosophical conviction rather than revelation (what Maimonides calls "one of their wise men") would also have a part in the World to Come (Olam Ha-Ba). This would be in line with Maimonides' general approach, he said, that following philosophical wisdom spiritually "advances an individual even more than righteous behaviour".
Modern Noahide movement
Menachem Mendel Schneerson encouraged his followers on many occasions to preach the Seven Laws of Noah, Since the 1990s, including The Temple Institute,
In 1982, Chabad-Lubavitch had a reference to the Noahide laws enshrined in a U.S. Presidential proclamation: the "Proclamation 4921", signed by the U.S. President Ronald Reagan. signed by then-U.S. President George H. W. Bush.
In March 2016, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Yitzhak Yosef, declared during a sermon that Jewish law requires that only non-Jews who follow the Noahide laws are allowed to live in Israel: "According to Jewish law, it's forbidden for a non-Jew to live in the Land of Israel – unless he has accepted the seven Noahide laws, [...] If the non-Jew is unwilling to accept these laws, then we can send him to Saudi Arabia, ... When there will be full, true redemption, we will do this." Yosef's sermon sparked outrage in Israel and was fiercely criticized by several human rights associations, NGOs and members of the Knesset;
Noahide law differs radically from Roman law for gentiles (Jus Gentium), if only because the latter was enforceable judicial policy. Rabbinic Judaism has never adjudicated any cases under the Noahide laws,
Some modern views hold that penalties are a detail of the Noahide Laws and that Noahides themselves must determine the details of their own laws for themselves. According to this school of thought – see N. Rakover, Law and the Noahides (1998); M. Dallen, The Rainbow Covenant (2003) – the Noahide laws offer humankind a set of absolute values and a framework for righteousness and justice, while the detailed laws that are currently on the books of the world's states and nations are presumptively valid.
In recent years, the term "Noahide" has come to refer to non-Jews who strive to live in accord with the seven Noahide Laws; the terms "observant Noahide" or "Torah-centered Noahides" would be more precise but these are infrequently used. Support for the use of "Noahide" in this sense can be found with the Ritva, who uses the term Son of Noah to refer to a gentile who keeps the seven laws, but is not a ger toshav. Some modern scholars dispute the connection between Acts 15 and the seven Noahide laws.
The Jewish Encyclopedia article on Paul of Tarsus states:
The article on the New Testament states:
The 18th-century rabbi Jacob Emden hypothesized that Jesus, and Paul after him, intended to convert the gentiles to the Seven Laws of Noah while calling on the Jews to keep the full Law of Moses.