The Didache Discoveries

Description

This groundbreaking study digs beneath the surface of one of early Christianity's most enigmatic documents, the Didache, and finds there two texts hidden side by side for nearly two millennia. The first, compiled by James the brother of Jesus and the twelve apostles in 48 CE, is the Apostolic Decree. This document, partially described in Acts 15, was treated as foundational Christian Scripture by the writers of the New Testament. In that role it provides the starting point for interactions across Paul's letters, the Synoptic Gospels, and the Johannine literature--enabling solutions to previously unanswerable questions about Paul's theology, the infamous synoptic problem, and the origins of Johannine theological creativity. Crucial to the story of the latter is the discovery of the Didache's second hidden document: the Missing Epistle of John. This text, referenced in 3 John 9, reworks the sometimes eccentric instructions of the Apostolic Decree and makes them more generally applicable--a move that provides an insight into the ways the writers of the New Testament handled their own sacred text. The Didache Discoveries promises to have an impact on every major aspect of the study of the New Testament and early Christianity.