Q&A: The Seven Noahide Commandments
The Seven Noahide Commandments
Question
Hello and blessings!
How is it possible that human beings were commanded in the seven Noahide commandments before the giving of the Torah, dating back to the time of Adam (six commandments for Adam and one commandment for Noah)? What would make them believe that they really had been commanded in these commandments, and why would they observe them?
And especially in light of the words of medieval authorities (Rishonim) such as Maimonides, who holds that the commandment of legal systems is to impose the death penalty on anyone who violates the six commandments—yet even basic human morality does not require acting that way?!
Or in light of the view of Nachmanides, that legal systems refers to the commandments written in our Torah—so how could there be a command to observe the laws of the Torah before the Torah was given?
And there are also opinions in the Talmud that they were commanded not to make mixtures of species and not to practice sorcery; what would make people believe that they had in fact been commanded in such unusual commandments?
Answer
I didn’t understand the question. Why shouldn’t they accept the command? They were commanded by the Holy One, blessed be He. And even someone who didn’t hear directly would receive it from Adam or Noah, who did hear.
They certainly weren’t commanded in all the details of Jewish law before those details even came into being. At most, they were obligated to observe the law according to however it had been formulated at that stage (that is, to go study in a Jewish religious court). The Jewish people, too, did not observe these laws before they came into being. To be sure, regarding the Torah-level foundations of the laws, one could say that there was some kind of giving of the Torah to Adam and Noah that included not only the command itself but also the contents. But all this is unnecessary pilpul. We are dealing with a picture that the Sages describe, and there is no reason to assume that it happened this way historically. It also isn’t important.
Discussion on Answer
This kind of skepticism is not a decree of fate, nor is it some necessary rational conclusion. If a person comes to you and tells you that God appeared to him, and you know him to be a serious person and have no reason to suspect that he is lying—you believe him. All the more so if there are various supporting signs. You’re talking about descendants of Adam, who was alone in the world after having been created by God Himself. Comparisons to our present-day reality are a pointless anachronism. But as I said, these are hair-splitting discussions that really aren’t worth spending time on.
A. Any person, no matter how serious he is, if he tells me that God appeared to him, I would suspect that he is imagining things or lying, and of course I would not act based on what he says (unless there were proofs or signs).
B. Why is that a pointless comparison? In the distant past, didn’t people also ask who says that what so-and-so is telling us is true? It’s a very basic question; you don’t have to live in our times to ask it.
This issue came up during a lecture I heard, so that’s why I’m asking, even though there is no practical difference in all this.
Thank you very much
Noah and his sons heard directly from God; their children were already raised, or were supposed to be raised, with that kind of education. True, after these commandments were forgotten it became almost unrealistic to reconstruct this, but originally they were supposed to hear it from their fathers.
After the giving of the Torah, gentiles can receive this anew from Israel.
That itself is the question: why would people believe Adam and Noah that they had been commanded by God regarding these commandments? After all, they came and said that God appeared to them and commanded them about these commandments, but there was no mass event or anything of that sort that would prove that God really appeared to them and commanded them to observe these commandments.