Texts in Conversation
Acts 15 instructs Gentiles to avoid sexual sin and idolatry, similar to Jubilees, where Noah gives these commands after the flood. Both follow Jewish traditions that outlined expectations for Gentiles who did not have to follow all of the Torah.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Jubilees 7:20
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
19 The sons of Japheth: Gomer and Magog and Madai and Javan, Tubal and Meshech and Tiras: these are the sons of Noah. 20 And in the twenty-eighth jubilee [1324-1372] Noah began to teach his grandsons the ordinances and commandments, and all the judgments that he knew, and he urged his sons to observe righteousness, and to cover the shame of their flesh, and to bless their Creator, and honor father and mother, and love their neighbor, and protect themselves from sexual immorality and impurity and all iniquity. 21 For because of these three things the flood came upon the earth, namely, because of the sexual immorality in which the Watchers against the commandments prescribed for them pursued sexual relations with human women, and married whichever women they chose: and they began the practice of impurity.
Date: 170–125 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Acts 15:20
New Testament
15 The words of the prophets agree with this, as it is written, 16 ‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the fallen tent of David; I will rebuild its ruins and restore it, 17 so that the rest of humanity may seek the Lord, namely, all the Gentiles I have called to be my own,’ says the Lord, who makes these things 18 known from long ago. 19 “Therefore I conclude that we should not cause extra difficulty for those among the Gentiles who are turning to God, 20 but that we should write them a letter telling them to abstain from things defiled by idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood. 21 For Moses has had those who proclaim him in every town from ancient times, because he is read aloud in the synagogues every Sabbath.”
Date: 70–90 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Jewish texts set forth similar requirements for righteous Gentiles (Jubilees 7.20); the Noachide Laws (an expansion of the covenant with Noah in Genesis 9:1–17, which according to Jewish understanding is thereby incumbent on all human beings) require Gentiles to refrain from idolatry, blasphemy, murder, incest, stealing, and consuming flesh from a living creature, and to establish justice in an orderly legal system (Tosefta Avodah Zara 8.4; b. Sanhedrin 52b; Genesis Rabbah 16:6). Leviticus makes similar declarations regarding strangers dwelling in the land (Leviticus 17–18) ..."
Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds., The Jewish Annotated New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 229.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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