There is an old saying, “If anything is certain it is that nothing is certain. If this statement is true, it is also false. When nothing is certain, everything is possible (or probable).” Or is it? Is reality a personal construction or a collective set of reconstructions? Sometimes the uniqueness of one requires the redefinition from many. Suddenly certain uncertainties are made certain through associations and disassociations. When the needs of many outweigh the needs of one, rules come into play. One of the first documented set of rules are found in Genesis. These are the 7 Rules that God gave Noah or the rules of Noah. They may be the foundation that made survival through history possible. Yet, they’ve been debated through time.

The notion of individuality seems like an American concept. Originally drafted by the American psychologist George Kelly in 1955, Personal Construct Theory states that personality development is a function of an individual’s set of cognitions. It is how one construes, or makes meaning of, events in one’s life and of the lives around. According to Kelly’s therapeutic approach, freedom is the ability to develop alternatives and to revise constructs for greater control of one’s decisions and actions of life. Kelly might have said that, “No person needs to be a victim of his or her own biography.”

This was a radical departure from the earlier psychological approaches focusing on analysis and behavior. From categorical approaches, an individual-specific therapy was introduced by Kelly. While Kelly is known by psychologists as a personality theorist, few psychology groups recognize his validity. Was he too individualistic?

Personal constructs are how a person defines reality. While those are born with certain sets, constructs are acquired through memories and associations. Elizabeth Loftus studies human memory. Her experiments reveal how memories can be changed by things that we are told. Facts, ideas, suggestions and other post-event information can modify our memories. Loftus believes that personal constructs and observations can be false. As a frequent witness in litigations, Loftus has shown that memories, associations, motives, and actions vary by individuals but notions of conflicting ideas may “color” a personal construct of an event.

Individuality is a relatively new notion. Early humans found that survival often required enjoinment with others. If you were too short to reach an apple on a tree, you needed an alliance with a tall person to reach for you. Joint cooperation was necessary to survive. Relationships were the key to survival but, in any relationship, individuality is often compromised and the inability to do so leads to conflict. Relationships were less altruistic and based more on reciprocal AL As groups enlarged, individuals would attempt to seek and fulfill individual desires, often in contempt of others. Group sovereignty and stability required rules to temper individuals.

The rules of Noah seem to be significant in that it invoked a direct relationship with God. God implied them to all people instead of merely one group (though after the flood, who else was left?). That is, if all different groups agreed. In the early millennia of survival, individuality was suppressed in favor of survival in groups. Rules and laws, like the rules of Noah, were often tested and retested. Where there are no rules, like the rules of Noah, no group can survive or flourish.

The irony of the rules of Noah is that the rules of Noah don’t fully appear in the Old Testament. They seem to have originated in the Jewish Talmud, thousands of years later. According to theory, the Old Testament was an oral extension among generations and wasn’t written until scroll and ink technology was invented. There may have been many different constructs of the Bible through the years with some very unique and varied interpretations that makes one wonder how valid those stories are.

The rules of Noah are relatively simple. God says to be fruitful and multiply. Eat all food from vegetables, meat, and fish but honor the life and drain the blood. According to the Jewish Virtual Library the Noachide laws are outlined this way:

1.Do Not Deny God
2.Do Not Blaspheme God
3.Do Not Murder
4.Do Not Engage in Incestuous, Adulterous or Homosexual Relationships.
5.Do Not Steal
6.Do Not Eat of a Live Animal
7.Establish Courts/Legal System to Ensure Law Obedience

According to Hassidic thought, “At the dawn of human history, G-d gave man seven rules to follow in order that His world be sustained.” According to them, those 7 Noachide laws are:

1 – Acknowledge that there is only one G-d who is Infinite and Supreme above all things. Do not replace that Supreme Being with finite idols, be it yourself, or other beings. This command includes such acts as prayer, study and meditation.

2 – Respect the Creator. As frustrated and angry as you may be, do not vent it by cursing your Maker.

3 – Respect human life. Every human being is an entire world. To save a life is to save that entire world. To destroy a life is to destroy an entire world. To help others live is a corollary of this principle.

4 – Respect the institution of marriage. Marriage is a most Divine act. The marriage of a man and a woman is a reflection of the oneness of G-d and His creation. Disloyalty in marriage is an assault on that oneness.

5 – Respect the rights and property of others. Be honest in all your business dealings. By relying on G-d rather than on our own conniving, we express our trust in Him as the Provider of Life.

6 – Respect G-d’s creatures. At first, Man was forbidden to consume meat. After the Great Flood, he was permitted – but with a warning: Do not cause unnecessary suffering to any creature.

7 – Maintain justice. Justice is G-d’s business, but we are given the charge to lay down necessary laws and enforce them whenever we can. When we right the wrongs of society, we are acting as partners in the act of sustaining the creation.

These are very interesting laws for the time, although documentation came years later. God separates from those that worship idols and the other prevalent Gods of the times and area, such as Baal or Dagan . These Gods were to be prevalent in non-Abrahamic cultures and problematic competition until the latter post-Mosaic books of the Old Testament.

Respecting human and animal life was another interesting law. Prior to the flood, sacrifices used live animals and people. God forebode his followers to follow this in the covenant. Yet, generations later, God requested that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac. At the opening of Leviticus, Moses met with leaders to discuss correct, humane guidelines of sacrifice. Again, this was to distinguish the Hebrew God over other Gods in the region.

Respecting marriage and property of others was a major step in countering social criminal acts that might arise in a group. The really monumental law is that the group should set up codes of justice, an innovative concept in an area filled with monarchic dictatorships that followed no specified codes.

The basic differences found in the 10 Commandments are honoring parents, keeping Sabbath holy, and bearing false witness (obviously a problem in the justice system).

What makes the rules of Noah so interesting is how they divinely dealt with group dynamics. Yet, even after God set forth the covenant, a divisive relationship developed over the three sons of Noah’s progeny, where Ham’s descendants were to be slaves of Shem and Japheth. After biblically accounted generations, it appeared that the Old Testament rules of Noah (or Noachide laws) were all but forgotten as evidence shows the rise of idol worship and perverse behaviors throughout many cultures at the time of Abraham. Through time, individuals tend to regress to the mean.

The rules of Noah are probably the oldest documented rules pertaining to individuals within a group structure. The tale of Noah and the rules of Noah aren’t specific to the Old Testament. Variations of the Noah tale are accounted in other mythologies of the early Mediterranean region. The flood could have been a typhoon or hurricane or some other cataclysmic natural disaster of the time that myths could only explain as divine. Nonetheless, the rules of Noah and its applicability to all people is a strong guideline for protecting the sovereignty of groups as a meaning to individuals.

The rules of Noah are less commonly known than the Ten Commandments. Moses’ efforts (with God’s leadership) in emancipating slaves from Egypt offers advances in thought, particularly the prohibition of observing false gods. The group of slaves were likely not merely descendants of Israel but also a mix of other non-Egyptian cultures and conquered slaves. The addition of this commandment was to control the predilection of most slaves toward idol worship, as recounted in the Golden Calf episode. One might ask whether the commandment not to worship false gods was actually in the first set of commandments that Moses destroyed. The indivisible quality of one God over all further strengthened group integrity, especially as the former slaves encountered many other cultures on the road to Canaan. The Ten Commandments, unlike the rules of Noah, were aimed for use by the former Egyptian slaves as part of creating a unique, independent group with God. It was not aimed for all people.

Most of the remainder of the Bible deals with issues of justice and rule appendices related to the Ten Commandments for fostering and solidifying the power of the group and individual responsibilities to support the group.

Yet, both the rules of Noah and the Ten Commandments, are stories that were documented many years later, possibly a couple thousand years later. They most likely date somewhere between the Persian and Roman occupation of near East Asia. Prior to those times, they were popular legends, tales, and myths propagated by different groups. Groups were selling group-life to some individuals who possibly weren’t in full agreement with group rules and customs. The few sentences that make up the rules of Noah as God’s covenant were actually embellished in later years for time-based applicability.

In those early times, being part of a group was essential for shared support and protection. Being exiled from a group, as Moses was, meant fending for yourself as an individual and falling as possible prey to other individuals or groups. The theme is one of the most popular literary plots. It is repeated several times in the Old Testament. The story of Samson and Delilah is one of the more popular ones. It supports the claim that remaining in one’s own group was better than wandering from it.

Joseph Campbell spent most of his life studying and sharing mythology. In his view, the biblical tales were myths. Later but early cultures, like the Greeks and the Romans, created mythologies based on individual gods with divine human-like attributes. These myths took individualism into account but empowerment came through group identity. Many believe these myths as gospel. The endurance of these myths offer documented glimpses into early history. Many connect with them whether they are true or not. Myths are part of the collective conscious, a term coined by early psychologist Carl Jung. The collective consciousness is generally accessible to everyone. However, people come from a wide variety of backgrounds in trying to understand it. As a result, people hold a broad range of differing beliefs. These beliefs influence their assumptions about, and perceptions of, what is “real”. Here we have the bridge as to how individual constructs of reality connect (and conflict) with group identity.

Using Gods as a group control was easy. God was used to explain the unexplainable, taking the responsibility away from human group leaders. Alongside God groups, philosophers delved into scientific explanations of the unexplainable and were often ostracized by the dominant god groups. Recently, science began to discover germs, genetics, environmental tectonics, and many others that offered credible explanations and treatments for diseases that were previously unexplainable. New myths were sort of displaced.

The validity of some events of the Old Testament have been given credibility by scientific, archaeological evidence and theories. These have tried to reconstruct, for example, the probabilities of the possible truths behind the miraculous stories of how the slaves left Egypt and how it is accounted in the Old Testament.

That the more current rules of Noah still claim to apply to all human groups is a sign of discontent among post-Roman era religions, such as Islam and Christianity. Biblically, in the book of Genesis, those rules are based on God’s covenant with Noah that were notably different. Was Noah actually Jewish? Who else but Noah’s family was around after the great flood? Many of these time-tested tales were likely more fiction than fact. Faith in them was passed through enduring groups that were eventually able to record them. But were all those documents preserved intact? How accurate are they?

The modern era shifted focus from many god groups and secular ones began to replace them. In those, the 7 rules of Noah or the 10 Commandments were less applicable. Traditions, however, was a way to avoid the voids experienced with complete disconnection from the god concepts.

After World War II, we’ve been witnessing the return to god groups, some gaining new strengths from old ways and other forming new ways. The accounts and the myths began to resurface and attract adherents. These groups were less based on survival but at providing connections for unconnected individuals.

While conflicts arise among individuals daily, the more pervasive source for harm, anguish, and world-change is the rise of conflicts between groups. Those conflicts arose then and continue now in the midst of modernity. Civil unrest continues within Islamic countries, matched with aversions to Christianity and Judaism. Even among Christians and Jews there are some unhealing wounds. Then there are numerous subgroups, both religious and secular, competing in the mix.

In this age of reason, individuals still align themselves as being members of groups, even though they may not be active members. New groups arise as part of social media, such as Facebook or Twitter, that may not be the core for survival but allow individuals to share their constructs of reality.

Individuals and groups are both attracted and repulsed by one another. Yet someone like Steve Jobs couldn’t have created the iPhone and iPad without his group affiliation with Apple. There is a lean-away and lean-towards active dynamic.

Individual personal constructs and collective consciousness exist alongside one another and carve new realities. From a divine set of rules of Noah, to the United States Constitution that is amendable for current updates, rules and laws help individuals survive and flourish while aligning to groups.

One might say the rules of Noah are the result of combined personal constructs of what history may have been and how we got here from there. Faith helps keep those written constructs real. Is reality and God subjective? Are they products of personal constructs?

In Godfather II, Michael Corleone says, “If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyone.” The certainty of constructs and groups today may be uncertain tomorrow. Uncertainty is not a void. It’s a continuum. It’s merely an infinite space in time where momentary certainties are recreated in a constant process, a matrix as it might be. Perhaps that’s part of the attraction to God. We’ve reached this point from the elemental rules of Noah.

Somehow and somewhere those principles still exist. It’s at least an inspired set of constructs that somehow helped create the realities that we think we remember from our pasts and see today and tomorrow. Our realities are the myths and legends of tomorrow. True or false?

When faith, reason, individual, and groups struggle, the only certain outcome is uncertainty.