REVIEWS
64 January/February 2018
The World of Early Christianity
The Didache: A Missing
Piece of the Puzzle in
Early Christianity
Early Christianity and Its Literature 14
Edited by Jonathan A. Draper
and Clayton N. Jefford
(Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature
Press, 2015), 631 pp., $75.95
(softcover), $95.95 (hardcover)
Reviewed by Tony BurkeThe Didache, also
known as the Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles, is mentioned
by several church fathers
of the fourth century, but it
was not available to scholars
until 1873 when it was dis-
covered in an 11th-century
Greek codex. In the decades
since, other sources have been
found, including fragments in
Greek and Coptic, a complete
Georgian translation, and
excerpts in Latin, Ethiopic, and
Syriac. Scholars are still divided
over its origins, with suggested
dates ranging from prior to 50
C.E. to the third century. How-
ever, they are largely united
in characterizing the Didache
as a composite work, combin-
ing a set of moral instructions
about the “Two Ways,” which
juxtaposes the “way of life,”
or a manual of church order
and practice, and the “way of
death,” or an apocalypse.
Jonathan A. Draper and
Clayton N. Jefford’s essay col-
lection is intended as a capstone
for the efforts of a series of
seminars on the Didache held atthe annual meetings of the Soci-
ety of Biblical Literature from
2003 to 2011.^1 In his introduc-
tion, Jefford calls the Didache
“a hobby interest for only a
scattered few scholars” and
laments that nonspecialists have
only vague notions about its role
within early Christianity.
It is becoming increasingly
apparent that the Didache
originated in an early Jewish-
Christian community with a
keen interest in ritual purity
and holiness, striving for “per-
fection” in Torah observance
but welcoming gentile converts.
It is closely aligned with the
Gospel of Matthew, drawing on
either pre-Matthean oral tradi-
tions or the Gospel of Matthew
itself—or both—at various
stages of its development.
Particularly striking is the
Didache’s lack of interest in
essential tenets of Pauline
Christianity. Not only does it
affirm Torah observance, but
it also makes no mention of
the death and resurrection of
Jesus, and its Eucharist cel-
ebration makes no connection
of the meal with the body and
blood of Christ. This position
suggests alignment of the com-
munity with, once again, the
Gospel of Matthew and with
the anti-Pauline “faith with-
out works is dead” theology
of the Epistle of James. The
Didache imagines Jesus as the
servant of God, not a dying
and rising son of God whoseeschatological return ushers in
a new kingdom.
Of interest also are the
numerous connections between
the Didache and other early
Christian texts—arguments
in the book are made for the
Epistle to the Hebrews and the
Book of Revelation—most likely
at the level of oral transmission
and community interaction
rather than from knowledge
of the texts. One aspect of the
Didache that the essays neglect
is its instructions for traveling
apostles, a sure indication of
early composition for at least a
portion of the text.
The points of agreement
should not obscure the dif-
ferences that separate the
contributors to this volume.
While there is near-universal
agreement that the Didache is
a combination of at least two
earlier works, some prefer to
study it as a unified text writ-
ten by a single author over
several stages.
Draper opens his conclusion
to the volume with the state-
ment that “if [the Didache] is
indeed a genuine document of
the first or even early second
century C.E., it is hard to see
how pessimism with regard to
its use in the reconstruction of
the emergence of early Chris-
tianity can be justified.” He is
certainly correct. This com-
prehensive collection of essays
demonstrates how the Didache
needs to be placed front and