The Biblical Noah is one of the most famous personalities of Western civilization, and his story, recounted in chapters 5-9 of the Book of Genesis, includes some of the most influential moments in Western narrative, from the infamous ark to the “Curse of Ham.” (For a fascinating new account of this “curse” and its importance to history, check out David Goldenberg’s new book The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.) However, the Talmudic Noah also plays an important role in something most often associated with Moses: the Law. The Law of Moses (or the “Mosaic” Law) includes the Ten Commandments as well as 613 “mitzvot” or additional commandments given in the Torah. These laws cover everything from judicial procedure to the proper procedure for collecting eggs from a bird’s nest. However, these laws only bind the Jewish people, with whom (the Torah claims) God has a special relationship, or “covenant.” There were also a set of laws given to Noah, but Noah’s Laws (or the “Noahide” Laws) did not apply only to the Jews. They applied to all humankind.

The Noahide Laws do not appear in the Torah. They are codified in the Talmud, which includes the Mishnah (a transcription of the “Oral Laws” of the Jews) and the Gemorrah (a commentary on those laws). Unlike the hundreds of laws given to Moses, there are only seven Noahide laws:

“seven precepts were the sons of Noah commanded: social laws [i.e., establishing courts of justice]; to refrain from blasphemy, idolatry; adultery; bloodshed; robbery; and eating flesh cut from a living animal.” – Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 56

The extremely detailed Mosaic Laws were meant to fulfill God’s covenant with the Jews. The far broader Noahide Laws are meant to establish the most general baseline for civilization as such. (Because everybody else was wiped out during The Flood, the “sons of Noah” refers to all humanity.) Remarkably, these laws bear a great resemblance to another fundamental text of Western civilization: Homer’s Odyssey. In his travels, Odysseus encounters many groups explicitly described as barbaric, and their barbarism was often demonstrated by their violation of the very precepts given to Noah, from the Cyclops eating a living goat to the philandering of Circe. In two very different cultures, then, the baseline for civilization was seen in almost exactly the same way. But then again, the authors of the Talmud and the Homeric Epics were much closer to the birth of civilization than we are today.

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