We have seen how there are attempts by both Jews and Muslims to bring Islamic Sharia Law under the rubric of Noahide Law which could prove to be a dangerous synthesis (here). We have also seen how there is a "shituf deception", Noahide apologists saying that Christians and other non-Jews are not "idolators" and can practice their own religion, which is not true (here). However, there are also attempts to state that Christianity is a Noahide religion on the part of both Jews and Christians, that Christianity teaches and demands the Noahide Laws. The Noahide Laws do not come from the Bible but the Talmud (here). Below are some quotes from both Christians and Jews which seek to paint Christianity as demanding Noahide Law, they want the Christian seal of approval. Like shituf, this is another deception, Christianity can very easily be construed as idolatry (here).
Jewish Groups Noahidizing Christianity
Jewish group The Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding (CJCUC) presumes to speaks for Christians, they are Noahides?
Christians see themselves not merely as members of the Noahide covenant, but as spiritual partners within the Jewish covenant. At the same time, they believe that God does not repent of his covenantal gifts and that the Jewish people continues to enjoy a unique covenantal relationship with God in accordance with its historical 2000 year traditions.
SOURCE: "CJCUC’S STATEMENT ON A JEWISH UNDERSTANDING OF CHRISTIANS AND CHRISTIANITY". THE CENTER FOR JEWISH–CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING & COOPERATION. 24 May 2011. Retrieved 10/09/2020 from: https://www.cjcuc.org/2011/05/24/cjcuc-statement-on-a-jewish-understanding-of-christians-and-christianity/
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Arthur Goldberg, Co-Director of the American based Jewish Institute for Global Awareness says Christianity and Islam teach Noahide Law is "imperative"
Individuals within the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are taught that all of humanity should follow the Noahide Code, a set of imperatives given by G-d as a binding set of laws for the Children of Noah and which serves as the foundational premise of their individual faiths.
SOURCE: Arthur Goldberg (2019). "Sight and sound: A US appeals court upholds use of technology to inform choice in abortion". Mercatornet. 1 May 2019. Retrieved 10/09/2020 from: https://mercatornet.com/sight-and-sound-a-us-appeals-court-upholds-use-of-technology-to-inform-choi/24278/
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Rabbi says goal of Christian founders was to institute the Noahide Laws
Rabbi Eisen gives a Biblical tour to Christians in Jerusalem
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Because most people don’t realize that when Jews teach the Bible (in its original form) to Christians, it’s actually a form of returning Christianity to its roots. That’s because one of the goals of the original founders of Christianity was to “institute the Noahide covenant for non-Jews”
SOURCE: Israel365 (2020). "ONE RABBI OFFERS CHRISTIANS THE CHANCE TO UNDERSTAND THE BIBLE FROM ITS ORIGINAL HEBRAIC ORIGINS". Breaking Israel News. 4 February 2020. Retrieved 10/09/2020 from: https://www.israel365news.com/144535/one-rabbi-offers-christians-the-chance-to-understand-the-bible-from-its-original-hebraic-origins/
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The Institute of Christian Jewish Studies - Jewish led interfaith group pushes the Noahide Laws for Christians
At an earlier meeting led by Rabbi Lehmann, group members learned Jews believe non-Jews are bound by the seven Noahide laws -- the commandments that God gave to the sons of Noah. Jewish tradition holds that these laws, which include prohibitions against idolatry, blasphemy, sexual immorality, murder and robbery, provide a way for anyone to earn salvation.
"We Jews believe all humankind has a message to offer the world," Rabbi Loeb told the meal-time membership. "If we are faithful to our respective covenants, we are all the children of God."
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The institute's Christian groups study the history of the early church and Jesus in a Jewish context. They also examine why the church became anti-Jewish and how its early polemics paved the way for persecutions -- including the Nazi genocide.
SOURCE: Diane Winston (1991). "Christian and Jewish study groups nourish interfaith understanding--with lunch". The Baltimore Sun. 7 July 1991. Retrieved 10/09/2020 from: https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1991-07-07-1991188056-story.html
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Jewish professor of Christianity David Flusser says the church asked Christians to follow Noahide Law
V The Law
The first adherents to the new faith among the Gentiles were recruited from among non-Jews who were already close to Judaism. These were the “Godfearers”,16 who accepted certain basic Jewish obligations, at least the so-called Noachide precepts; I hope to show elsewhere that the western text of Acts 15:29, giving the decree of the Apostles, is the original one. According to this, idolatry, shedding of blood, and grave sexual sins were forbidden to Gentile believers. These were originally the Noachide precepts accepted also by the Synagogue on which the Gentiles were obliged.17 It is logical that the Apostolic Church of Jerusalem should accept the view of the Synagogue on the conditions which Gentiles needed to fulfill in order to be saved. It can easily be shown that, according to Jewish opinion, the fulfilment of other commandments of Judaism was not prohibited to Gentiles. On the contrary, the Noachide precepts were only seen as the minimal condition for Gentiles to be recognized as God-fearers. They were so understood by the God-fearers themselves, who were attracted to the Jewish way of life and accepted many Jewish commandments without becoming full proselytes. This was also the attitude of Christian God-fearers, as may be seen from the Epistle to the Galatians;18 many of them wished to observe as many Jewish precepts as they could. It is evident that, while the leadership of the Mother Church decided to lay no burden upon the Gentile believers beyond the Noachide precepts (Acts 10:28-29; see Gal. 2:6), it did not object to their voluntarily observing more. Among the figures of the primitive Church who instructed Gentile Christians to observe more precepts than these essential ones was Peter, as we know from Paul’s criticism of him for demanding that Gentiles live like Jews (Gal. 2:14). Rather than interpreting the apostolic decree as a minimum, Paul evidently saw in the Noachide precepts the maximal obligations of Gentile Christians,19 even if he always strongly recommended a sympathetic understanding of individual Christians who observed personal restrictions. But at the same time, speaking about the incident with Peter at Antioch, he says (Gal. 2:15-21), among other things, that “no man is ever justified by doing what the law demands, but only through faith in Christ Jesus: so we too have put our faith in Jesus Christ, in order that we might be justified through this faith, and not through deeds dictated by law; for by such deeds, Scripture says, no mortal man shall be justified... If righteousness comes by law, than Christ died for nothing.” If this was what Paul thought about the Jewish way of life and of worship, we can easily understand why he did not accept the view that Gentile Christians should or could accept Jewish ritual obligations.
SOURCE: David Flusser. "THE JEWISH CHRISTIAN SCHISM (PART I)". NEW TESTAMENT AND FIRST CENTURIES JUDAISM. Retrieved 08/12/2020 from: http://www.etrfi.info/immanuel/16/Immanuel_16_032.pdf
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Christians Noahidizing Christianity
Presbyterian pastor, like Vatican, claims the Noahide Laws are in the New Testament, but they aren't [The Noahide Laws do not come from the bible, see (here)]
Ty Silzer, a former pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America, responds:
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Paul expounds on the Jewish teaching of Noahide Laws (whereby the ‘outsiders’ enter heaven) in Romans 2, speaking that even Torah, by which the world is put back together, is written on their hearts, much like eternity (Ecclesiastes 3) and the Golden Rule (Matthew 7, Luke 6)."
SOURCE: Rabbi David J.B. Krishef (2011). "Ethics and Religion Talk: What happens to a Secular Humanist who lives by the Golden Rule?". The Rapidian. 30 January 2018. Retrieved 10/09/2020 from: https://www.therapidian.org/ethics-and-religion-talk-what-happens-secular-humanist-who-lives-golden-rule
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Christian Action Institute says Noahide Laws are a revelation from god
If we desire to develop a positive habit, we need to perform an action repeatedly, over time, until it becomes an automatic reflex. The same process occurs when we fall into sin. When we sin, we reject God’s authority. If we repeat our sin, over time, the rejection of God’s authority becomes an automatic reflex.
Even unbelievers, who innately know God’s general revelation, such as his invisible attributes, the creation ordinances, and the Noahide Laws, begin to deny such knowledge because of sin. Paul says that by our unrighteousness we suppress the truth. They think they are wise, but their sin makes them foolish. Eventually, God gives them over to their debased minds. (Rom. 1:24)
SOURCE: JOE CARTER (2016). "What Christians (Should) Mean When We Talk About Conscience". Action Institute. 19 April 2016. Retrieved 10/09/2020 from: https://blog.acton.org/archives/86311-what-christians-mean-by-conscience.html
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In the 2019 Volume 31 of the "Scottish Episcopal Institute Journal" writer Nicholas Taylor makes it clear that according to him non-Jewish Christians are bound to the Noahide Laws through the Apostolic Decree (Acts 15:23-29) and that early Christians followed the Noahide Laws.
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
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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
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The issue was resolved between the churches of Jerusalem and Antioch by what became known as the Apostolic Decree, an adaptation of the Noahide laws preserved in Acts 15:23-29. This includes provisions concerning idolatry, sexual morality, murder, and diet. The last two are included in the Genesis narrative, in which Noah and his descendants were forbidden to commit murder and to eat meat with the blood of the animal (symbolising its life) still in the flesh (Genesis 9:1-17)...
...The brief account in Acts gives no indication of controversy in Antioch, a city in which the Jewish community was well-established and accustomed to interaction with its neighbours. How the common life of a community of Jews and gentiles was ordered is not known, but we can assume that some version of the Noachide laws guided their coexistence, and that patterns of accommodation which had evolved in the Jewish community for centuries formed the basis for Christian fellowship
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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...
SOURCE: Nicholas Taylor. "Scripture and Mission". Scottish Episcopal Institute Journal. Volume 3.1 Spring 2019 ISSN 2399-8989. Retrieved 08/10/2020 from: https://www.scotland.anglican.org/wp-content/uploads/2019-31-SEI-Journal-Spring.pdf
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Church of England publishes suggestion that Christian "natural law" is Noahide Law
One of the formative and most enduringly influential works of Anglican theology, Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, begins with a rich exposition of the theology of law, drawing on medieval Catholic thought including that of Thomas Aquinas, which includes a specific place for the divine commandments in Scripture.139 It also articulates an understanding of natural law that is in continuity with medieval tradition. Continuing common ground between Anglicans and Catholics in this area is discussed in Life in Christ, one of the agreed statements of the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission, while it has been argued by David Novak, a Jewish scholar, that Christian conceptions of natural law parallel the Jewish idea of the Noahide laws.140 In both cases, revelation is taken to affirm the existence of moral norms that are available to all, and that people of faith can affirm both to and with those who do not share their faith.
SOURCE: "God’s Unfailing Word: Theological and Practical Perspectives on Christian–Jewish Relations". Published 2019 for the Faith and Order Commission of the Church of England by Church House Publishing. Retrieved 08/10/2020 from: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2019-11/godsunfailingwordweb.pdf
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"Richard Douglas Harries, Baron Harries of Pentregarth, FRSL (born 2 June 1936) is a retired bishop of the Church of England and former British Army officer. He was the Bishop of Oxford from 1987 to 2006. From 2008 until 2012 he was the Gresham Professor of Divinity." In 2016 in the House of Lords Hansard, he introduced the Noahide Laws as " imperatives given to all humanity".
This was, of course, the starting point for John-Paul Sartre and the post-war existentialists. It is not a view I share. Everyone, whatever they believe or do not believe, has some inkling of the good, some capacity for moral discernment, some ability to take others into account. It is part of what is meant by being made in the image of God, from the Christian point of view. The Jewish tradition has its own equivalent in the concept of the Noachide laws, according to the Talmud, the seven imperatives given to all humanity. So does Islam. As for humanism, the very name indicates the possibility of values and virtues simply by reason of our shared humanity, as does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
SOURCE: Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB). "National Life: Shared Values and Public Policy Priorities". 02 December 2016. Volume 777. Retrieved 08/12/2020 from: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2016-12-02/debates/37E807CF-3A7E-4060-B139-8A30257E770F/NationalLifeSharedValuesAndPublicPolicyPriorities
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Claims Apostles Paul and James
demanded Christians follow Noahide Law
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Claims Apostle Paul demanded Christians follow the Noahide Laws
Some Jewish Jesus-movement activists said that their pagan acolytes had to convert to Judaism before they could join the movement. Paul disagreed in the strongest possible terms (he did everything in the strongest possible terms). He maintained that these gentiles had to follow only the pre-rabbinic equivalent of the Noahide laws—the seven edicts against idolatry, adultery, etc., that all non-Jews are expected to follow.
SOURCE: JUDITH SHULEVITZ (2009). "Was Paul a Jew?". Tablet Magazine. 11 November 2009. Retrieved 10/09/2020 from: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/who-was-paul
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Claims apostle James asked Christians to follow Noahide Laws
"The second group comprised Jewish Christians and Gentiles (led by the Apostle James) who did not insist on Mosaic Law but instead deemed the observance of the seven Noahide Laws (Genesis 9) – do not deny God; do not blaspheme God; do not murder; do not engage in illicit sexual relations; do not steal; do not eat of a live animal; and establishing a legal system to keep the law – as sufficient for acceptance as a follower of Jesus. An example of this group is found in Acts 15, during the Council in Jerusalem, which was called to resolve questions relating to whether Gentile followers of Jesus were supposed to adopt Jewish laws. The Apostle James sets down the Noahide Laws in Acts 15:13–21."
SOURCE: Tleane, L.C., 2018, ‘N.T. Wright’s New Perspective on Paul: What implications for Anglican doctrine?’, HTS Teologiese Studies/ Theological Studies 74(1), a4754. https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v74i1.4754. Affiliation: 1 Change Management Unit, Office of the Vice-Chancellor, University of South Africa, South Africa
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