THE SEVEN NOACHIDE LAWS

Professor Volokh mentions that some people responded to his post by citing the Noachide Laws. These are commandments which in Judaism apply to non-Jews as well as to Jews. I found a list on the web, which says that these "mitzvot" some from the Talmud--Sanhedrin 58b.

Do not murder.
Do not steal.
Do not worship false gods.
Do not be sexually immoral.
Do not eat the limb of an animal before it is killed.
Do not curse God.
Set up courts and bring offenders to justice.

Professor Volokh notes that these include not worshipping idols, and so are not relevant to his question. They are interesting in themselves, though. I haven't looked up the Talmud reference, but it seems to depart quite a bit from what God tells Noah after the ark lands in Genesis 9:1-7:

And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the heavens; With all wherewith the ground teemeth, and all the fishes of the sea, into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; As the green herb have I given you all. But flesh with the life thereof, [which is] the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood, [the blood] of your lives, will I require; At the hand of every beast will I require it. And at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: For in the image of God made he man. And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; Bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein. (American Standard Version)

That covers Noachide commands 1 and 5, and clearly notes that the Torah's dietary laws-- say, against eating pork--do not apply, but it's limited to that.

Note also what the apostles decide to command Gentile converts to Christianity in Acts 15:19-21. They decide against requiring circumcision or abstention from pork, but:

Wherefore my judgment is, that we trouble not them that from among the Gentiles turn to God; but that we write unto them, that they abstain from the pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from what is strangled, and from blood. For Moses from generations of old hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath.

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