Jewish tradition attributes the Noahide Laws directly to the Covenant with Noah (Genesis 9), and indirectly to the L-rd's first commandment to ''Adam HaRishon'' (Genesis 2:16). These traditions claim both antiquity and universality for these ancient laws.
We have some information about several ancient legal systems, such as the the Hammurabi, [[Hittite]], or Assyrian Codes due to the preservation of some ancient cuneiform tablets and stones upon which the statutes of these codes were engraved. But no original text of the Noahide code survived, and even the existence of such a text has never been reported. There have been attempts to find traces of the Noahide legal system within other legal systems such as the Hammurabi, [[Hittite]], and Assyrian Codes. Rabbi Aaron Lichtenstein reviews in his book "The Seven Laws of Noah" one such attempt.
Rabbi Aaron Lichtenstein concludes that Philip Biberfeld's study, while interesting, is not conclusive. He says that the earliest sources to give systematic treatment to Noahide Law are talmudic, and the earliest book of the Halakha which undertakes to delineate the Seven Laws is the Tosefta, attributed to Hiyya bar Abba, born circa 160. (Other scholars are of the opinion that the "Book of Acts" of the Christian New Testament refers to Noahide Laws (see [[Noahide Law in the New Testament]]) and was composed around 62 CE, one hundred years before the Tosefta).
Nevertheless, a 1948 study by Philip Biberfeld tries to surmise the existence of an early Noahide legal system from due scrutiny of the extant Near East codes.<ref>Philip Biberfeld, "The Bible and the Ancient Law Codes" (An Appendix), Universal Jewish History. New York: Spero Foundation, 1948, pages 129-56.</ref>
Biberfeld begins by posing the oft-mentioned problem concerning the seeming hodge-podge arrangement of statutes within the Hammurabi Code, the [[Hittite ]] Code, and the Assyrian Code. A second problem he raises centers on the occasional point of great similarity, amidst some wholly dissimilar material, in these three codes. Then Biberfeld focuses attention on the Noahic laws and notes their serial arrangement in the Talmud. As enumerated in the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 56a, the Seven Laws of Noah are:
# '''Justice''' An imperative to pursue social justice, and a prohibition of any miscarriage of justice.
