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Every man, even the non-Jew, is precious to God, for the Gentile also is a descendant of Adam, and thus is able to declare that for his sake, too, the world was created. Whoever kills a man is regarded as if he had destroyed the entire population of the world, and whoever saves a man from death is regarded as if he had saved the entire population.
Answer for yourself: But how is the non-Jew, not possessing the Torah, to know right from wrong, so as to be enabled to make a choice for righteousness?
The answer, arising from Scripture, distinguishes between a limited set of obligations (the Covenant of Noah) incumbent universally on men and the unlimited obligations (the Covenant of Moses) incumbent on the Jews. On the Gentile there are incumbent the seven "laws of Noah" (Gen. 9:3-4). These laws, so it was held, had originally been revealed to Adam, though at that time they numbered only six." They were the prohibitions of idolatry, blaspheming the name of God, cursing judges, murder, sexual misdeeds, and robbery. Noah was given a seventh prohibition; in the context of permission to eat the flesh of animals, a prohibition was specified against eating flesh with the blood still in it. Thus, a Gentile had a limited number of laws, and it was presumed that he knew them; the sources do not specify how he knew. Presumably the seven laws were transmitted orally from Noah to succeeding generations. It is observed in the Rabbinic literature that there are righteous men among the Gentiles; their observance of the limited set of seven laws qualifies them for divine reward; that is that they have a place in the world to come.
Scripture, in its unfolding account due to progressive revelation from God, tells that the law of circumcision was enjoined on Abraham (Gen. ch. 17...himself a non-Jew), and that on Jacob was enjoined the prohibition against eating the "sinew that shrinks" (Gen. 32.33). Thus there was a growth in number of the laws from the early patriarchs to the high point in the revelation to Moses at Sinai, resulting in an encompassing totality, including both the Written laws arid the Oral. Understand that in this progression of revelation to these people who we term "Jews" was the giving of more Laws and Commandments and these were both framed and accepted in a Covenant with God and them at Sinai.
But, parenthetically, a question can arise (as it should for the conscientious reader of Scripture).
Answer for yourself: What was the relationship of the patriarchs, who lived before Moses, to those laws which awaited the time of Moses for their promulgation? Synagogue interpretation, as early as the Book of Jubilees did not hesitate to ascribe to the encompassing laws of Moses an antiquity much earlier than the time of Moses. A verse (Gen. 26.5) speaks of Abraham as having hearkened to God's voice and as having observed the divine "charges, commandments, statutes, and torahs"; it was clearly to be inferred from this verse, with torah in the plural, that Abraham had observed the two Torahs revealed at Sinai, the written and the oral, even in advance of that great event. The conclusion, with its sanction in a biblical verse, is common to the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, the New Testament, and Philo, as well as to the Rabbinic literature, that Father Abraham was not only the ancestor of the Jews, but was, as it were, the first Hebrew. He was therefore conceived of as personally embodying, in perfection, that fullness of piety which his later descendants viewed as commendable or obligatory. Abraham is, indeed, the example of full piety. There remained, however, the residual question as to whether the norm was Abraham, or, instead Moses. In general terms the Palestinian literature regard Moses and Sinai as the norm, and in their interpretation Abraham reached the norm. On the other hand, Philo and Paul make Abraham the norm and estimate Moses and Sinai in the light of Abraham.
That is to say, the expectations from pious Jews were greater than from the pious Gentile, the difference being the multiplicity of commandments incumbent on the Jew as contrasted with the seven laws of Noah. What distinguished the Jews from the Gentiles was the encompassing revelation at Sinai of both the written and the oral Torahs.
The term Torah creates some confusion for the modern, over-logical student. It can mean the Ten Commandments; it can mean the Five Books of Moses; it can mean the totality of Scripture; it can mean, in a general way, the gracious act of revelation at Sinai, as if beyond both the Ten Commandments and the Five Books. The passage (which begins the Chapters of the Fathers), "Moses received the Torah at Sinai," means something more than merely the Ten Commandments or even the Pentateuch. Torah, so we might say, takes on the force of the very fullest inheritance of God's gracious revelation. The inheritance and the possession of Torah, then, marked the difference between the Israel of God and the nations of the world; as it yet does today.