Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [388]
Some Rabbis, represented by Rabbi Eliezer, said that only Israel will be saved. Others, represented by Rabbi Joshua, said that the righteous gentiles would be saved as well. The positions attributed to Rabbis Eliezer and Joshua b. Hananiah are typical of other remarks that Rabbinic literature has attributed to them. Rabbi Eliezer was a severe critic of gentiles. Rabbi Joshua b. Hananiah was more liberal. He removed all distinctions between Jew and gentile in attaining salvation through the doing of good deeds. He said: “Everyone who walks in blamelessness before his Creator in this world will escape the judgment of hell in the world to come.” He even disagreed with Rabbi Gamaliel by maintaining that the blameless children of wicked heathen will also have a share in the world to come. Though Rabbi Joshua probably did not allow conversion without circumcision, he at least looked at the positive side of the issue, saying: “Baptism without circumcision makes one a ger (that is, “a proselyte,” a person in the process of converting) (b. Yebam. 46a).
The status of the gentiles is discussed in later Rabbinic Judaism through at least two different rubrics-the resident alien and the doctrine of the “Noahide Commandments.” These two legal constructions make different assumptions about the purpose of the gentiles and they sometimes imply conflicting approaches which need to be systematically worked out.
The issue of the resident alien derived from the Biblical rules incumbent upon “the stranger in your gates.”30 Resident aliens were obliged to abstain from offering sacrifices to strange gods (Lev 17:7-9), from eating blood in any form (Lev 17:10ff.), from incest (Lev 18:6-26), from work on the Sabbath (Exod 2o: 10ff.), and from eating leavened bread during the Passover (Exod 12:18ff.).31
Closely allied with this issue is the Rabbinic doctrine of the “Noahide Commandments.” This Rabbinic doctrine is derived from a sophisticated and theological formulation that some legal enactments were given before Sinai, during the primeval history to all human beings. Furthermore, the sign of the Noahide covenant, the rainbow, is available to all humanity to symbolize God’s promise of safety. And it was completely outside of the special covenant with Abraham and his descendants. The covenant with Noah is expanded to the entire primeval period, encompassing all the revealed commandments preceding Sinai. The Noahide Commandments (e.g., t. ’Abed. Zar. 8.4 and more fully in b. Sanh. 56b) function somewhat like a concept of “natural law,” which any just person can be expected to follow by observation and reason.
In the Diaspora, Jews develop a proselytism and apologetic literature that is designed both to interest gentiles into joining the movement and to encourage Jews not to assimilate. It suggests that what Judaism has over even the greatest philosophers is moral superiority. The sins of the gentiles are always more or less equivalent to three: violence, sexual immorality, and idolatry-three of the sins which Jews must never do, not even to avoid martyrdom. These are three preeminent moral issues in which Jews knew better than their neighbors in Hellenistic literature. And they will be important for understanding how the Noahide Commandments developed.
Once the social significance of the different formulations is outlined, the reasons for the ambiguity become clear. The difference between the Noahide Commandments and the rules for the sojourner alien is clear from a social point of view. The resident alien must, because of his close association with Israelites, observe some of the laws of Judaism, while the Noahide Commandments refer to the ultimate disposition of gentiles and thus entirely to gentiles who were not observant. The resident sojourners may