Footnote 2 – What the Babylonian Flood Stories Can and Cannot Teach Us About the Genesis Flood

The oral tradition of Israel (as reflected in the rabbinic writings) has developed and expanded the laws given to Noah and his sons after the flood into a somewhat elaborate system of “the seven Noahide commandments”. The traditional enumeration of these is the prohibition of idolatry, blasphemy, bloodshed, sexual sins, theft, eating from a living animal, and the commandment to establish legal systems. Additional laws are sometimes included among the commandments to Noah and his sons, and the system of Noahide commandments can best be understood as a system of universal ethics, a “Natural Law” system in which the laws are given by God. Genesis itself, however, does not contain a list of all seven of these commandments.