GOLDEN RULE. The expression Golden Rule has come into use in various modern European languages over the past few centuries as a popular reference to the dictum, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you," best known in Western culture from its formulation in the New Testament (Matt. 7:12, Luke 6:31). Identical or similar axioms of moral behavior are nearly universal, however, appearing in a wide variety of cultural contexts from oral folk wisdom to ancient scriptural and philosophical writings. The written canonic versions most frequently cited as examples of golden-rule thinking include those found in early Jewish sources, both in the Mishnaic and Talmudic corpus (Pirḳe-Avot 2:10, Babylonian Talmud: Shabbat 31a) and in the apocryphal and pseudepigraphic literature (e.g., Ben Sira 31:15, Tobit 4:15, Jubilees 36:8); additional passages in the New Testament (Rom. 13:8-10, Gal. 5:14, Acts 15:20 [Western recension, codex D]); Qurʾanic and post-Qurʾanic Islamic...