…The
Children of Noah are co-religionists of the Children of Israel.
Together, they are peaceful partners striving to perfect the world and
thereby give God satisfaction. By viewing himself as a Noahite, the Gentile becomes
like the Jew, in that he is a member of a people whose peoplehood (not
just his religion) is synonymous with its relationship to God.
Rabbi
Yakov Fogelman, in his April Torah commentary of 2003 writes:
... Jesus and Paul were good guys,
not out to take Jews away from their religion (see Matt.5, Luke 16), but
to bring non-Jews to theirs – the Noahide Code; all should remain in
their own faith, both Jews and Noahides; later errant Christians
distorted their message, tried to convert Jews and deified Jesus, which
would probably have horrified him.
In Rabbi
Harvey Falk's book "Jesus the Pharisee", he quotes
Rabbi Jacob Emden concerning the formation of Christianity as
saying:
But
for the Gentiles, he reserved the Seven Commandments which they have
always been obligated to fulfill. It is for that reason that were
forbidden pollutions of idols, fornication, blood, and things strangled
(Acts 15) They also forbade them circumcision and the Sabbath. All of
this was in accord with the law and custom of our Torah, as expounded by
our Sages, the true transmitters from Moses at Sinai. It was they who
sat upon his seat (as the Nazarene himself attested [Mt.23]). It was
they (the Sages and Pharisees) who said it is forbidden to circumcise a
Gentile who does accept upon himself the yoke of (all) the commandments.
The Sages likewise said that the Gentile is enjoined not to (fully) to
observe the Sabbath. The Apostles of the Nazarene therefore chose for
those Gentiles who