DIRECT QUOTES
At the conclusion of the flood narrative, Noah is given a set of commandments forbidding the taking of life and the consumption of blood (Genesis 9:4-6). These were interpreted and expanded within Judaism during the Second Temple period, particularly to include moral as well as ritual prescriptions.11 The assumption was that, as Noah was the mythical ancestor of all humanity who survived the flood, prescriptions given to him by God were incumbent on all humanity. The criterion of righteousness for gentiles was therefore observance of the Noachide laws. This tradition was to play an important role in defining the place of gentiles in early Christianity, as we shall see....
...It is clear that their ethnic
and cultural identity did not need to be abandoned before Gentiles could be
accepted into the Church, and that, while they were not required to
proselytise into Israel, they were required to bring their lives into
conformity with certain cultic and moral prescriptions, presumably in the
tradition of the Noahide laws27 How this was to work out in practice was
very much more difficult, and it was at this point that the conflict became
more serious.28
FOOTNOTE 28: Whether the text known as the Apostolic Decree, which clearly does reflect the tradition of the Noahide laws, was formulated at the gathering reported in Galatians 2:1-10 and Acts 15:6-21, or represents a later attempt to resolve the problem, conflated into the account of this meeting, is disputed in scholarship. The majority of scholars would argue that the Apostolic Decree reflects further deliberations, after the previous agreement had been found to be inadequate, and Paul had left Antioch (cf. Galatians 2:11-14; Acts 15:36-41). Cf. Dunn, Partings of the Ways; Taylor, Paul, Antioch and Jerusalem....
...The other provisions represent developments in the Noachide traditions which are similarly not specifically Christian, but which formed the basis for fellowship between Jews and their gentile neighbours...
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