Description: This classic study of the idea of Noahide law traces the concept's historical development and shows how it is relevant to practical discussions of the halakhah pertaining to non-Jews and to relations between Jews and non-Jews. Individual analyses of each of the seven Noahide laws, drawing primarily on classical rabbinic texts by traditional commentators, are followed by a discussion of the underlying theory.
Brief description: David Novak is Professor of the Study of Religion and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is the author of several books, the most recent being The Jewish Social Contract: A Essay in Political Theology (2005), Talking with Christians: Musings of a Jewish Theologian (2005), and Covenantal Rights: A Study in Jewish Political Theory (2000).
Review Quotes:
'Any reader interested in understanding how the non-Jew has been perceived throughout Jewish history should certainly turn to The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism for an authoritative discussion . . . scholarly . . . provides insight, not only into the classical Jewish perceptions of non-Jews and their place in the world, but also into Jewish-Christian and Jewish-Muslim relations and a more sophisticated understanding of Jewish law vis-à-vis the Gentile.'
David Tesler, AJL Reviews