Editing Seven Laws of Noah (section)

=== Contemporary status ===
Historically, some rabbinic opinions consider non-Jews not only not obliged to adhere to all the remaining laws of the Torah, but actually forbidden from observing them.<ref name="JE3">{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Eisenstein |first1=Judah D. |author1-link=Julius Eisenstein |last2=Hirsch |first2=Emil G. |author2-link=Emil G. Hirsch |url=http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6585-gentile#anchor21 |title=Gentile: Gentiles May Not Be Taught the Torah |encyclopedia=[[Jewish Encyclopedia]] |publisher=[[Kopelman Foundation]] |year=1906 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120118024556/http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6585-gentile |archive-date=18 January 2012 |url-status=live |access-date=9 November 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = http://halakhah.com/pdf/nezikin/Sanhedrin.pdf| title = Sanhedrin| publisher = Halakhah.com 59a-b| access-date = 25 February 2015| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150221053238/http://halakhah.com/pdf/nezikin/Sanhedrin.pdf| archive-date = 21 February 2015| url-status = live}}</ref>

Noahide law differs radically from [[Roman law]] for gentiles (''Jus Gentium''), if only because the latter was enforceable judicial policy. Rabbinic Judaism has never adjudicated any cases under the Noahide laws,<ref name="Novak 1983"/> and Jewish scholars disagree about whether the Noahide laws are a functional part of the ''[[Halakha]]'' (Jewish law).<ref>{{cite book |last=Bleich |first=J. David |author-link=J. David Bleich |year=1997 |chapter=Tikkun Olam: Jewish Obligations to Non-Jewish Society |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6by4AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA61 |editor1-last=Shatz |editor1-first=David |editor2-last=Waxman |editor2-first=Chaim I. |editor3-last=Diament |editor3-first=Nathan J. |title=Tikkun Olam: Social Responsibility in Jewish Thought and Law |location=[[Northvale, New Jersey|Northvale, NJ]] |publisher=[[Jason Aronson]] Inc. |pages=61–102 |isbn=978-0-765-75951-1 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>

Some modern views hold that penalties are a detail of the Noahide Laws and that Noahides themselves must determine the details of their own laws for themselves. According to this school of thought – see N. Rakover, ''Law and the Noahides'' (1998); M. Dallen, ''The Rainbow Covenant'' (2003) – the Noahide laws offer humankind a set of absolute values and a framework for righteousness and justice, while the detailed laws that are currently on the books of the world's states and nations are presumptively valid.

In recent years, the term "Noahide" has come to refer to non-Jews who strive to live in accord with the seven Noahide Laws; the terms "observant Noahide" or "Torah-centered Noahides" would be more precise but these are infrequently used. Support for the use of "Noahide" in this sense can be found with the [[Yom Tov Asevilli|Ritva]], who uses the term ''Son of Noah'' to refer to a gentile who keeps the seven laws, but is not a ''[[ger toshav]]''.<ref name="ET1"/>