Which Old Testament laws apply to non-Jews?

Which Old Testament laws apply to non-Jews? July 9, 2015

VALERIE’S QUESTION:

Do God’s laws apply to Gentiles, including foods that should not be eaten, i.e. pigs, fish without scales?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Valerie raises a broad topic but focuses on the ritually prohibited foods in the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament) as listed in Leviticus 11 and  Deuteronomy 14. For traditional Jews, kosher observance involves both obedience to God and identity with their people and heritage across thousands of years. However, Judaism does not call upon non-Jews (“Gentiles”) to do the same (more below on what behavior it does expect). In addition to the listings, biblical commandments against eating blood lead to kosher slaughtering methods and draining and salting of meats. Also, the biblical law against boiling a goat in mother’s milk was later extended to bar meals that mix meat and dairy products.

Christianity from the start did not apply these food laws to Gentiles, as shown in two key New Testament passages. It’s generally assumed Jesus as a faithful Jew would have observed the common dietary practices. However, in the Gospel of Mark 7:14-19, Jesus teaches, “Do you not see that whatever goes into a man from outside cannot defile him, since it enters, not his heart but his stomach, and so passes on?” Here Jesus is making a general point about the sinfulness of the human heart, but Mark adds an editorial comment on one way the earliest Christians understood his words: “Thus he declared all foods clean.”

Jesus’ implicit message turns explicit in the Book of Acts chapter 10, which depicts the Christian conversion of the Roman soldier Cornelius. This was one of the formative episodes in Christianity’s rapid expansion, underscored by the fact that it is repeated in chapter 11 and referred to obliquely in chapter 15. Cornelius was a “God-fearer,” one of many in the Roman Empire who were attracted to Judaism’s one God but did not formally convert.

An angel directs Cornelius to meet Peter, who simultaneously receives a trance vision in which heaven opens, “all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air” descend while a voice says “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.” Peter declares he has never eaten any foods the Scriptures forbid as unclean. This occurs three times. Upon meeting Cornelius, Peter realizes “I should not call any man common or unclean” so he teaches the soldier and other Gentiles about Jesus and when they believe has them baptized as pioneer converts. After hearing about this, Peter’s fellow Jewish Christians “glorified God” and agree on outreach to Gentiles without mandating Jewish observances. That same policy is suggested in Philip’s baptism of the Ethiopian official in chapter 8.

Turning to other laws, another major controversy in the founding era was whether Gentile men must observe the biblical commandment of circumcision when they convert to the one God of Judaism through Christian evangelism. That leads to the all-important council in Jerusalem recorded in Acts 15. There some Jews said Gentile converts should be required “to keep the law of Moses.” Peter recounts his experience, Paul tells of his Gentile mission, and then James, the leader of the Jerusalem church, agrees that “we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God.”

The assembly endorses James’s proposal to require only commitment to Jewish sexual morals, and abstinence from foods that are offered to idols, or not drained of blood, or taken from animals that are strangled instead of properly slaughtered. For Valerie’s purposes, this answer leaves aside the question of whether Jews who convert to Christianity should still follow the Old Testament’s traditional 613 mitzvot (commandments).

These  laws in the Hebrew Bible fall into several obvious categories. There are ritual regulations that haven’t been operative since Rome destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in the 1st Century, though Orthodox Jews still carefully study them. The same holds for many civil laws for the self-governing Israelite regimes of Bible times. Modern-day Israel seeks to apply some of these and Christians value them for teaching principles of justice and governance. Then there are moral tenets taught by traditional Judaism that Christians believe apply to all of humanity in all times.

Of special interest is Leviticus 18, with its laws against adultery, incest, and child sacrifice that Judaism and Christianity have always upheld through to the present day, and also against homosexual relations, on which Jews and Christians are now deeply divided (see the immediately prior “Religion Q & A” item).

Jewish tradition compiled in the Talmud teaches that the biblical 613 are for Jews only, whereas God expects all humanity to observe seven laws from the primordial days of Noah, some of which are found in the later Ten Commandments:  Do not blaspheme against God or curse in his name, do not spurn the one true God or worship idols, do not kill innocent life, do not commit adultery (also applied to the other sexual sins), do not steal, do not eat flesh torn from a living animal or otherwise abuse God’s creatures, and establish courts to administer fair and impartial justice. The late Lubavitcher Rabbi promoted these tenets among Gentiles and there’s now a small Internet-driven movement of “Noachide” Gentiles who observe these basic laws and otherwise revere Jewish tradition without formally converting to Judaism.

 

 


Browse Our Archives