Loading...Is it possible that some of the writings of the New Testament are cut-and-paste jobs, where several writings have been combined together, instead of one writing done by one author at one time? I decided to get to this question by referring to another early Christian writing, outside the New Testament, for which this is almost certainly the case, the Didache (Did-ah-kay).
Yesterday I reminded (or minded) y’all what the Didache is all about. Today I want to explain why scholars widely think that our surviving version is in fact several texts that were written by different authors that have been cut and pasted together.
Here is what I say about the matter in my (Greek-English) edition of the of Didache in the first volume of the Apostolic Fathers in the Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press, 2003).
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The Didache obviously addresses several discrete topics: the two paths, the “church order” (which may comprise two distinct units, one on liturgical practices and the other on the treatment of itinerant “apostles and prophets”), and the apocalyptic discourse. Moreover, there is no necessary connection between them, except that provided perhaps by an editor, for example, the indication in 7.1 that the teaching of the two paths was to be given prior to the performance of baptism.
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Did the letters of Paul influence the author(s) of the Didache? Some of the chapters seem to reflect some of Paul’s teachings.
It’s possible, but the connections are hard to trace if there are any.
Dr Ehrman, do you think the Didache is entirely Proto-Orthodox or could it preserve traces of the sort of Jewish Christianity that later became regarded as heretical? I think James Tabor (in his book on Paul) argues that the Didache has more in common with the Epistle of James than the letters of Paul.
The prayers certainly are jewish Christian. that would not make them necessarily anti-orthodox though. The text as a whole is certainly proto-orthodox.
What is the scholarly consensus for the gospel of John in regards to its historicity and applicability to the historical Jesus? Is it something we ought to use to build up His historical image or is it too far removed that it is essentially more pseudo/myth status now like Thomas. Most books I read don’t even touch it (lol)
It is almost always recognized as the least historical of the Gospels, but scholars interested in historical information use *all* of our sources, including John. But taken on the whole it’s narratives and discourses are widely seen as largely non-historical among critical scholars. The issue is specific items, all of which have to be examined individually.
The Didache had a recent big influence on a group of former Campus Crusade for Christ leaders in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In their attempt to recreate the New Testament Church (as a counter to the numerous Protestant denominations that were a confusion to new believing Campus Crusade student converts after graduation), they eventually formed into a sect called The Evangelical Orthodox Church with the leaders all serving as Bishops (based on their understanding of 1st-2nd Century Church hierarchy). They published a Living Bible style paraphrase of the Didache, the Epistle to Barnabas, and some other early Christian writings for apologetic purposes and to gain new converts. Jump ahead to the mid-1980s and a very long convoluted story, and these leaders and their scattered congregations were accepted en masse into the American branch of the Antiochian Orthodox Church (whose Patriarch resides in Damascus, Syria) as the Antiochian Evangelical Orthodox Mission. The Bishops were all received as priests under existing Antiochian Bishops in various American dioceses. By the mid-Aughts, the AEOM was dissolved and incorporated fully into Antiochian Orthodox Church.
Professor, you quoted the ending as:“Then the world will see the Lord coming on the clouds of the sky,” which was similar to most others except an alternative on an Episcopal website:
“Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth
will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ with power and great glory.”
All of which brought up the… confusion thought I had resolved over the Son of Man as not Jesus but the angel in charge of defeating all the apocalyptic evil. Did that confusion occur late First Century to early Second?
there are lots of issues involved. I think Jesus hmself expected some other divine (angelic) being to come to judge the earth; but after his death his followers came to think *he* was that one, long before the Didache and ever after.
Off topic.
I just found out that Dale Martin had dies. I’m surprised you didn’t do a post on this.
Yes, it was very sad indeed. And still is.
Yes.
I watched his Yale series on the New Testament, along with Christine Hayes on the OT, which were both excellent. I also remember you mentioning a trip to Priam with him, which inspired your writing ‘When Jesus became God’. We have also been there, and I saw the inscription to Augustus you mentioned.
Maybe when you’re ready.
*Priene
Thanks for letting us know about Dr. Martin.
I have made a donation to this blog in memberance of him.
Thanks so much.
“One of these groups was the so-called Pythagoreans who preached the “Pythagorean” way of life and had a Y as their symbol. It was the sign of the crossroads where man had to choose the path to take between good and evil. In the Hellenistic period, we find this doctrine of the two paths, which was very ancient (appearing in Hesiod) in a popular philosophical treatise, the Pinax of Cebes, which describes the image of the two paths found among the votive offerings of a temple…
The oldest Christian catechism, discovered in the 19th century and known as the Didache or Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, offers the same teaching of the two paths… The same extensive use of the “two paths” is found in the Letter of Barnabas… It seems evident that both have the same source… a Jewish moralizing pamphlet, and certainly, the doctrine of the two paths has little or nothing that can be called specifically Christian. The neo-Pythagorean Pinax of Cebes, which contains the same moral doctrine, proves without a doubt that it ultimately comes from a Hellenistic source that was neither Jewish nor Christian.”
(from “Early Christianity and Greek paideia by Jaeger, Werner”)
Given the association with the Manual of Discipline, the Gospel of Matthew and references to Jewish groups and practice, should we then assume that the Didache sprang out of a Jewish-Christian milieu rather than from Gentile converts? If so do you detect any sort of anti-Pauline subtext (for example in 11 – 13) ?
The prayers almost certainly show that the author stood in some kind of jewish-Christian context, but I’m not aware offhand of any obviously anti-Pauline statements.
Speaking of the apostles, two questions:
1: Is Paul ever mentioned in a creed as an apostle (or something else)?
2: Paul goes around claiming that he is an Apostle, and orthodoxy accepts his claim. There were clearly others who claimed also to be apostles. Do we know anything about any them?
1. No. Creeds only expressed what people were to believe as Christians 2. We know about some of them. Some are named (Barnabas, Junia, Andronicus), others are referred to (the “Superapostles” of 2 Corinthians) — all of them appear to have claimed to have been “sent” (the meaning of “apostolos”) from God / Christ to declare the Gospel, possibly on the basis of having seen the resurrected Jesus.
Isn’t “didache” Greek for the noun, “teaching”?
The part concerning the ceremonies of baptisms, Eucharist, etc., remind me of the order of service found in the Book of Common Prayer or a hymnal.
Yes.
My understanding is that early Christians, say, before Constantine, were pacifists. Is it possible to summarize why that changed—in particular how that was reconciled with Jesus’s teachings about loving enemies, not resisting evil, and his own example of accepting crucifixion?
Participation in war and not “selling all you have and giving it to the poor” seem like massive departures from NT ethics.
Admittedly, I myself am not personally a total pacifist or advocate and practitioner of total sacrifice on behalf of the poor and suffering.
But didn’t Jesus insist on complete submission to and trust in God? How, for example, can thoughtful, well-educated young people participate in Christian churches which depart so radically from Jesus’s ethics?
It was a debated issue even in ealry Christianity, whether it was possible to serve as a soldier if a Christian. The big problem was not what you might think: soldiers were required to participate in pagan sacrificial practices, and that was a conflict.
I didn’t realize that participation in pagan sacrifices was the big problem.
War still seems extremely inconsistent with Jesus’s teaching. Is it correct that the traditionally and currently pacifist Christian denominations mainly originated with the Anabaptists/Radical Reformation, and maybe the Quakers?
I would think that they would be very attractive to Christians, though probably only a small minority, who are truly trying to follow Jesus’s ethics. But they aren’t growing, are they?
I’m afraid I don’t know.
Why do you even call this document “Christian”? It was obviously authored by someone who was not a Christian. Christians were people who had been dead under the law and its curse, had transitioned out of the old covenant and were restored to eternal life (a restored relationship with their god) via Christ’s new covenant (Rom 11:26-27, Heb 8:8). They were descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel who were being gathered into Christ before the end of the age of the old covenant religious system and temple community.
Some were referred to as gentiles because they had stopped being Torah observant and had stopped practicing circumcision. Whether circumcised Jews or uncircumcised Israelites (gentiles), That in a nutshell is what the entire New Testament is about.
After the need for the gospel ended in AD70, Greek so-called ‘church fathers’ hijacked bits and pieces of ancient Israel’s redemptive narrative and adapted it to their Greek culture. Theirs was just one of many competing faux versions of what would later become an institutionalized, non-Israelite faux Christian cult that eventually led to today’s fake Christianity.
Hi Bart. I know recently you’ve been discussing Abortion, and If I remember correctly I thought the Didache specifically mentions abortion and it is against the idea. Does that seem accurate?
Yup! I’ll be dealing ith that in my two-lecture course (this coming weekend!) on “When Does Life Begin” (see http://www.bartehrman.com/courses)
Professor Ehrman:
You mention several sources that discuss the two paths. I infer from what you said that there may be a common or original source.
The two paths symbolism is such a simple idea that it could have arisen independently over many times and places. The same is true as the battle between good and evil, a single God, heaven and hell…
A long time ago, I read a book called “The River of God” where different ideas and theologies are tributaries into the river. I remember thinking,” Why not two or more rivers.”
It’s long been noted that the “Two Ways” appears in both Jewish and Christian texts, and it is often assumed there’s some kind of widespread traditoin beind the trope. Certainly the Didache and Barnabas have some kind of common source, given their verbatim agreements in places.
Sorry, technical question: is this article (and others) meant to be read as a pdf? Because when I click on that link (from my phone) I just get blank pages….
Click on Help and ask Support. Normally that means there’s a simple problem with your subscriptoin.
Thank you! The problem was I wasn’t paying it 😉
Prof Ehrman,
q1. As the movement of Jesus shifts from its Jewish roots, do we have borrowings of Jewish practices, specifically tithing as a practice in the early Christian communities?
q2. If not, when does the concept of tithing become a key feature in Christendom?
Thank you, as always, for your time and dedication.
Yes, in some circles here and there over time. But in most of our early authors, starting with Paul, the idea was to “give as much as you can” rather than, “give 10%.” In part that was because some people would die of starvation if they gave 10% and in part it was because other bpeople were encourated to give far *more* than 10%!