Vinnie

When does Doherty date the Didache too?

A new work on x-talk was referenced which posits Matthean dependence on the Didache.

http://www.didache-garrow.info/booki...lecontents.htm

First, if you've never read the Didache go here and do so:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...e-roberts.html

Also some background info provided by Kirby:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/didache.html

At any rate, where do mythicists place the Didache? Would Matthean dependence upon it hurt their view?

Also the silence of the Didache. Upon my reading, this text NEVER mentions the cross of Christ. What is up with that silence? Why not a single reference and why does it instead mention and allude to a lot of the "sayings" traditions of Jesus and show contact with an "itinerant movement"? IS this a plausible motive for dating it earlier rather than later?

Can we count this as a clear "HJ text"?

Vinnie

Peter Kirby

Doherty's book discusses the Didache in some detail. According to the index, the Didache is discussed on pages 28, 51, 64, 67, 68, 192, 198 n.30, and 321-326. The most important is this last, an appendix entitled "The absence of an historical Jesus in the Didache," appendix no. 8 from pp. 320-326.

There are also several mentions of the Didache on Doherty's site.

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/partone.htm
When Hebrews talks of the "voice" of Christ today (1:2f, 2:11, 3:7, 10:5),
why is it all from the Old Testament? When Paul, in Romans 8:26, says that
"we do not know how we are to pray," does this mean he is unaware that Jesus
taught the Lord's Prayer to his disciples? When the writer of 1 Peter urges,
"do not repay wrong with wrong, but retaliate with blessing," has he
forgotten Jesus' "turn the other cheek"? Romans 12 and 13 is a litany of
Christian ethics, as is the Epistle of James and parts of the "Two Ways"
instruction in the Didache and Epistle of Barnabas; but though many of these
precepts correspond to Jesus' Gospel teachings, not a single glance is made
in his direction. Such examples could be multiplied by the dozen.

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/partthre.htm
. . . Jesus is the heavenly High Priest of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the
non-suffering intermediary servant of the Didache, the mystical
Wisdom-Messiah of the Odes of Solomon. . . .

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/supp10.htm
That is, a reference or turn of phrase may be changed to reflect the version
that is most widely familiar (e.g., a change of some of the teachings in the
Didache's "Two Ways" section to agree with the wording in Jesus' mouth found
in Matthew), and this can extend to the very presence of such elements.

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/BkrvEll.htm
Nor is there anything conclusive in the Didache to disprove a mid-first
century dating, and certainly not for its "core parts," even though most
place it toward the end of the century, some even well into the second
century.

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/BkrvEll.htm
Let's take the Didache. In my review of J. D. Crossan's The Birth of
Christianity (and in Appendix 8 of my book), I have demonstrated that none
of the teachings found in the Didache, many of which are placed in Jesus'
mouth in the Gospels, are attributed to him. All references to "the Lord"
are to God, which places the source of even the Lord's Prayer at the feet of
God, not Jesus. In Chapter 11, which discusses the criteria by which the
teachings and behavior of wandering prophets are to be evaluated, there is
no mention of a standard based on Jesus himself as a prophet and teacher.
The sole references to Jesus are in the eucharistic prayers of chapters 9
and 10, which present Jesus as a "child/son" of God who "makes known"
certain (unspecified) mystical insights about "life and knowledge"
proceeding from the Father. In the face of the blanket silence about a human
Jesus which resounds in the rest of the document, these references are
better interpreted as referring to a divine Son regarded as a revealer and
channel of God on a spiritual level.

. . . All and sundry would have been placed in his mouth, and thus when we
encounter documents like the Didache, the movement's doctrines and sayings
would be attributed to the Teacher (whether he was named Jesus or anything
else). . . .

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/supp01.htm
And not all groups or individuals decoded in the same manner, or arrived at
a Savior who had undergone suffering and death. The early Christian record
is full of documents which offer a Son without these features: The Epistle
of James, the Didache, the Odes of Solomon, the Shepherd of Hermas, many
second century apologists.

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/BkrvPric.htm
The Galilean Q scene of itinerant apostles and homeless radicals comes alive
in Price's hands. He calls our attention to the 'freeloading' dimension to
the wandering prophets whom the Didache, for one, must caution the settled
community against (chapter 11).

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/jhcjp.htm
In the Didache, Jesus is reduced to a non-suffering intermediary
servant/child of God. . . .
. . . And yet, there are major Christian writings of the second century
which fail to present an historical Jesus. Both the Didache (which may have
roots in the late first century) and the monumental Shepherd of Hermas are
devoid of any such figure; the latter never utters the name Jesus.

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/supp09.htm
The great Day of the Lord in Jewish prophecy and expectation was turned by
certain early Christian preaching into the coming of Jesus, the spiritual
Christ. (But not all: some epistles, such as James and 1 John, as well as
the Didache, retain the idea of the arrival of God himself, with no sense of
a Parousia of Christ.)

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/rfset14.htm
I'll quote a few paragraphs from a passage in my book which summarizes
arguments that have been made in much greater detail earlier:
. . . However, in reviewing the evidence, we find that the early layers of Q
contain strong indications that no Jesus figure was known at that time:
passages which pointedly make no mention of him [where such a mention would
be expected], the lack of hero-fixation that such a founder should have
generated, the void even on his name in the early strata. The extended
anecdotes concerning him are demonstrably later constructions. Indeed, if
the later stage of Q was amenable to recording such anecdotes embodying
Jesus' name and a touch of biography, why was early Q not so inclined,
especially at a time when the memory of the preaching founder would have
been closer and stronger? It is in the early stages that we would expect to
find such things. . . .
Considering the movement as a whole, if a prominent teacher stood at
its genesis, as speaker of a seminal body of sayings, that teacher should be
a given in all the expressions of the movement found in the documentary
record. We have seen that the Didache stands in some line with the Q
community, yet the figure of a teaching, miracle-working Jesus is not to be
found there. Revealingly, the Didache includes a body of ethical maxims
which are often very similar to the Q1 sayings, and yet there is no
attribution to a Jesus figure. This in itself indicates that their
association with a Jesus in the Q document is a separate or local
development, one the Didache did not share in, and that the introduction of
a founder figure in Q came later than the Didache community's own tangential
[in a different geographical area] development. In the Gospel of Thomas,
Jesus' hold on the sayings is tenuous, being limited to little prefaces
which could well be secondary [later] additions. In fact, Jesus made so
little impact on the Thomas community that not even a primitive integration
of him with the material itself, such as we find in Q3, was effected. Nor is
there any trend toward biography in Thomas.
This review of the evidence provides strong indication that there was
no Q founder in the initial stages of the movement, but that he was later
added by some of the communities involved on the larger Kingdom [of God
preaching] scene.
I also put forward arguments in my discussion on Josephus that the famous
Testimonium, which many scholars try to claim has an 'authentic' core, is
entirely a Christian construction since Josephus makes no mention of Jesus
as the founder and inspiration of the widespread Kingdom of God preaching
movement evidenced by Q and the Didache. Such a role, if Mack's position
rather than mine is true, is one that should have been known to Josephus.

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/siltop20.htm
[ We might point out that the turn of the 2nd century Christian document
known as the Didache (Teaching) also shows a stunning silence on Jesus'
establishment of the Eucharist. In chapter 9, community prayers attached to
a thanksgiving meal are quoted, and they contain no sacramental element
whatever. The bread and the wine in this communal meal in no way signify
Jesus' death. Jesus did not institute this ceremony. It is attached to no
incident in his life, certainly not the eve of his sacrifice. Jesus' role in
the theology of this community seems to be nothing more than a kind of
(spiritual) conduit from God, as indicated by this passage, quoting a verse
from the prayers:

"At the Eucharist, offer the eucharistic prayer in this way. Begin with the
chalice: 'We give thanks to thee, our Father, for the holy vine of thy
servant David, which thou has made known to us through thy servant (or
child) Jesus.'" In fact, the Didache in its entirety is notably silent on
any aspect of Jesus' life and death. ]

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/siltop20.htm
We might compare the Didache, chapter 11, which contains a lengthy
discussion about how to judge the legitimacy of wandering apostles, both in
their teaching and their charismatic activities. No part of this judgment is
based upon any links with apostolic tradition; there is no question of
tracing authority or correctness back to Jesus, or to a group of apostles
who had known and followed him on earth.

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/supp06.htm
(We should also note that the establishment of the Eucharist is missing in
other places in the rest of the early Christian record where we would expect
to find it, such as the eucharistic prayers in the Didache, chapters 9 and
10, and in Hebrews 9:15-22 and even 7:1-3: see Supplementary Article No. 9:
A Sacrifice in Heaven.)

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/sil20arg.htm
A similar corollary also applies here. If Paul is describing words and a
scene which he claims have come to him through a revelation from the Lord
himself, this would rule out any circulating tradition about such an event
throughout the Christian world, as Paul could hardly claim to know about it
through personal inspiration. Indeed, as the present feature has pointed
out, there seems to be a complete ignorance in the rest of the documentary
record about any such Supper and any such establishment of a eucharistic
sacrament (for example, in the Didache's thanksgiving meal of chapters 9 and
10, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews' discussion of the Mosaic covenant in
9:19-20-see "Top 20" #12).

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/siljampe.htm
And what do these observations do for the theory of oral transmission? How
are Jesus' teachings kept alive through the decades before the composition
of the Gospels by being "absorbed into the general stock of ethical
material"? Nor does Laws make any attempt to theorize why such a bizarre
development would have taken place, especially among people who had
presumably experienced the Master himself. Why would they choose to give him
no credit for his revolutionary teachings, to make no witness about him to
fellow-believers and converts? Yet the probable explanation is too
unpalatable. If all these teachings are never attributed to Jesus in the
early documents (compare the equally profound silence on Jesus as the source
of the many teachings found in the Didache), then the logical conclusion is
that they come from other sources and were only attached to such a figure
later.]

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/CarrierComment.htm
While my Attic is very rusty (I never work with it now), and I get the
impression that Carrier's knowledge of Koine may be superior to mine, I can
only point out that kuriotes is defined by Bauer's Lexicon as "The essential
nature of the kurios, the Lord's nature, w[ith] ref[erence] to God,
D[idache] 4:1." And Bauer supplies secular sources to support "of the
special meaning of a thing." Further, Kirsopp Lake (in the Loeb Apostolic
Fathers) translates the Didache clause "hothen gar he kuriotes laleitai" as
"for where the Lord's nature is spoken of."

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/review1.htm
Teachings resembling or identical to those of the Gospel Jesus are found all
over the place in the first century documents with no attribution to Jesus:
James, 1 Peter, the Johannine epistles, the Two Ways sections of the Didache
and even the later Epistle of Barnabas. Paul shows the same silence, even
attributing some of these teachings to God, while his few paltry 'words of
the Lord' are now generally recognized as personal revelations he believed
he had received from heaven.

[A more extensive treatment of the Didache is found in the same review of
Mack:]

---- QUOTE Doherty
A Teaching Document Without a Teacher

In connection with the idea of apostolic tradition, Professor Mack examines
the document known as the Didache (p.239f). This he dates (more or less
correctly, though this is probably a layered piece of writing) to the turn
of the second century, and it requires something of a juggling act on his
part. The word means "Teaching" and later its contents were associated with
the Twelve Apostles as a body. Mack labels it as part of the development of
apostolic tradition whose purpose is to "trace back to Jesus." But he is
caught in a bind here. On the one hand, Twelve Apostles or no, this is a
manual of instruction for a network of Christian congregations reflecting
the teachings, views and practices of the community(s) which produced it. It
contains a "Two Ways" section, that is, a version of the traditional Jewish
set of Right vs. Wrong ethics. Parts of this collection of moral maxims,
etc., are clearly related to teachings attributed to Jesus in the Gospels.

And yet one looks in vain for an attribution of anything to Jesus in this
document. In fact, a careful analysis of the use of the term "Lord"
throughout the Didache (it always refers to God), shows that even the
so-called Lord's Prayer has been attributed to God, as part of the inspired
message the community preaches (i.e., the "gospel", a term which some
commentators admit does not refer to any written document). God is the
source of all "commandments" in the Didache. We note further that in chapter
11, when the legitimacy and proper teachings of travelling missionaries and
charismatic prophets are under discussion, no reference is made to the idea
of apostolic tradition, no appeal to any authority or correctness of
doctrine going back to Jesus or any inaugurating phase of the movement.

So we have a "manual of instruction for Christian communities" wherein the
authority of Jesus himself as one source of such instructions is an idea
which is never mentioned. This in itself is astonishing. On the other hand,
Mack places the Didache in his line of development to apostolic tradition.
Yet neither the latter idea nor a single name of an apostle is anywhere in
evidence. Mack thus assigns the document to some limbo region, "a period of
transition" (p.239) when it was not necessary to spell out apostles' names
or their specific instructions. So the Didache has no human Jesus as the
source of anything and no apostles handing it on.

But we find a further complication here. There is no death and resurrection
of Jesus in the Didache. The community has a eucharistic meal (its prayers
are recited in chapter 9) which has no sacramental significance to any death
of Jesus, thus no pronouncement of Jesus' words over the bread and cup, and
there is no mention of any establishment of this meal by Jesus. (In this
document, "Jesus" puts in his sole appearance in these prayers, as the
"servant/child" of God who has made known God's "life and knowledge". This,
I suggest, is a reference to Christ as a spiritual intermediary like
personified Wisdom, nothing more.)

All this, in Professor Mack's eyes, makes the Didache community a Jesus
movement, a non-cultic, Jesus-was-our-teacher/founder type. And yet there is
no teaching Jesus on its pages. Added to this conundrum is the fact that
there seems to be some connection between the Didache and the community that
produced the Gospel of Matthew, because the two texts "have much in common"
(p.241). Not in regard to the Gospel story or the cultic picture of
Jesus-which are nowhere in sight in the Didache-but in some of the 'teaching
' material. (This can be explained by seeing some copyist at a later date,
familiar with the Gospel of Matthew, altering the Didache's text in the
direction of Matthew's wording, but without inserting any references to
Jesus himself.) Mack postulates that the Didache and Matthew "stem from the
same or closely related communities," and yet his respective dates put the
Didache perhaps a decade later. So now he has to explain why "the Didache
does not make a point of the 'teaching' coming from Jesus at all." What
happened, he asks, between the time of Matthew and the time of the Didache?

His answer (p.242) lies in a type of interpretation which is one of my
reservations about all of Mack's recent books. So much of what he offers is
simply too clever, too 'modern' in its sophisticated analysis. It is the
expression of an intelligent, subtle 20th century scholarly mind, and I
think it would go over the head of any first century Christian writer.

The Didache, he says, has formalized the teaching into daily and weekly
rituals. It "is interested in behavior, not mood." Whereas, "Matthew's
strategy was to reduce the impact of Jesus' teachings to attitudes and
motivations..." Presumably, one required an attribution to Jesus, the other
didn't.

Does this 'explanation' really mean anything? If the writer is instructing
the community, advocating certain rituals and practices for a network of
churches, how does this any less require or persuade him to quote the basis
of these practices in the things Jesus said? Certainly, the instructions and
the exhortation would thereby be strengthened. And to think that a community
"rooted in a Jesus movement", which had no Christ myth, no death and
resurrection theology, would abandon the one thing it did have-namely the
tradition of Jesus as its teacher and founder-as something of no interest,
as unnecessary to plug, even to give a single, solitary mention to in the
course of this whole manual, is simply beyond belief.

Mack does not assuage that disbelief by declaring that this community was so
secure in itself (another too modern touch) that it didn't need to push
"links to special charismatic leadership" (p.242). Nor does it seem
reasonable that mentioning Jesus as the source of the community's teaching,
its one claim to fame and identity, would be "to make extravagant claims
about Jesus." As for its unique prayers, which are not found in any other
Christian document, Mack suggests: "And, come to think of it, it may have
distinguished itself consciously from other Christian groups simply by
crafting its own prayers to God." This kind of improvisation does not confer
the legitimacy he is seeking to impose on material which is clearly
broadcasting quite another message. It is anything but "self-evident" that,
even though they are not mentioned, the authority of the traditions
contained in the Didache include "the teachings of Jesus and the Gospel
story of Jesus."
---- /QUOTE

[By far, the largest section on the Didache is in the review of Crossan's
book. I reproduce it here in full.]

http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/crossbr.htm
---- QUOTE Doherty
The Didache

If the sayings of early Q and the Gospel of Thomas largely reflect the voice
of the itinerant prophets, Crossan now goes on to examine a document which
sounds the reverse side of the coin. The Didache is the voice of the
householders, the settled sympathizers who receive and deal with the
itinerants. The title of this 'church manual' means "Teaching" or better
"Training", and in later times its authorship was assigned to the "Twelve
Apostles". But at its inception around the end of the first century (the
usual dating, though elements may go back further than that) there was no
sign in the document itself-and still isn't-of any followers of Jesus of
Nazareth or indeed of any concept of apostolic tradition.

Crossan places the Didache earlier than the "finished Q" which ended up in
Matthew and Luke. He asks if the Didache knows the Q Gospel at a stage
between the basic CST and the final version of Q. This is difficult to
establish without a source text for Q, but even a comparison with our texts
of Matthew and Luke has led scholars to an impasse. Most of the studies
Crossan quotes [p.835-6] are doubtful of the Didache's dependence on the
Synoptics, though one passage (1:3-5) is so close to the corresponding
section in Matthew's Sermon on the Mount that someone like Koester (Ancient
Christian Gospels, p.17) regards it as drawn basically from Matthew with
some harmonization with Luke. However, on these grounds, he regards it as a
mid-2nd century interpolation.

That passage is part of a "Two Ways" preface to the document. This is an
ethical compendium of do's and don't's which has roots in Jewish tradition
and which is found in other early Christian writings like the Epistle of
Barnabas. The problem is, and it throws a monkeywrench into Crossan's
careful presentation of this document, there is no attribution of this
particular passage, or of the whole Two Ways compendium, or indeed of
anything of a teaching nature in the entire Didache, to a Jesus figure.

Thus Crossan's presentation of the Didache as the voice of the householder
community (in some unknown location, probably in Syria) in response to the
wandering charismatics who owe their origins and traditions to the Galilean
Jesus suffers from a fatal flaw. It may be that the Didache community stands
in a general line of development from the sort of context Crossan has
established for rural Galilee (and probably beyond). And it is still
"profoundly Jewish" in character [p.372], though it has admitted many
gentiles to its ranks. Being several decades distant from the movement's
inception in the 20s and 30s, it is now exercising control and imposing a
structure on the activities of the itinerant prophets who visit it,
codifying within the Two Ways format the radical ethic of the original
period. But where in all this is the man who was supposed to have begun it
all?

Crossan admits several times that the Didache does not cite Jesus as the
source of its sayings, though he never attempts to resolve this curious
conundrum. How ironic that while the other Twin of the dual tradition,
responding only to Jesus' death and resurrection, is supposed to be
characterized by a lack of interest in Jesus' life and work, when we turn to
its opposite sibling we find the same void! Within the Two Ways compendium,
1:5 directs the reader to "give to everyone who asks you," a sentiment
coming from the Q1 layer, as it appears in Jesus' mouth in Matthew 5:42 and
Luke 6:30. Yet the Didache can only say that this comes from God; it is "the
will of the Father." In the preceding verses we have the most radical of
Jesus' alleged ethical innovations: "If a man strikes you on the first
cheek, turn to him the other cheek also," along with admonitions to go the
extra mile, to give both shirt and coat. No attribution to a Jesus figure.
"Blessed is he who gives" according to the commandment, or "rule", it says
later. Would it have been too much to ask that the writer or redactor of
this passage have said, "according to Jesus' commandment"?

The second Mandate of the Shepherd of Hermas contains a very similar passage
about giving to all who ask, and it too cites this commandment as coming
from God, not Jesus [see p.394]. Does this not point to the real source
envisioned throughout the Didache, to the likelihood that Crossan's
"context" movement had no single innovator as its fountainhead, but was a
general grassroots response to the conditions of the time, one which
regarded God as its inspiration and the source of the radical ethic it
proclaimed? The same lack of focus on a Jesus in the earliest layer of Q
suggests the same thing, with perhaps a view toward Wisdom as an
intermediary channel. Crossan wants to suggest [p.392] that this "manifesto
of the itinerant prophets" was accompanied by a "Jesus said." But this is
wishful thinking. If the wandering prophets cited their ethic as the "words"
of Jesus or a summary of his "ways" [p.392], declaring that this is what
Jesus wanted or recommended [p.382], and the Didache was the response of the
householders who sought to place on 'paper' some kind of workable limit on
the preaching of the itinerants, it is unlikely that the question of what
Jesus had actually said, wanted, or was going to have to settle for in the
real world, would not have received some attention in its pages.

[Note: The following section devotes considerable space to examining a
secondary, if important, point in the Didache's content. Those who wish to
continue on with the main thread of the Review may jump directly to the next
heading, A Messiah in the Didache.]

"The Lord" in the Didache

From the orthodox point of view, one of the curiosities of the Didache is
its use of the title "Lord". If Jesus is never directly cited by name
(except in the eucharistic prayers of chapter 9, which I'll look at in a
moment), is he perhaps to be included some of the time in the frequent
references to "the Lord"? Recognizing the difficulty in reliably making such
a reading, Crossan explains it this way [p.377]: "The Didache has a
calculatedly ambiguous use of Lord to mean "the Lord God" and/or "The Lord
Jesus." He quotes Ian Henderson's styling of the term "Lord" as "the
Didache's ambiguous theo-/christological symbol." This spiriting in of Jesus
under a cloak of alleged ambiguity is suspect, for a careful consideration
of its usage in this document shows that "the Lord" always refers to God,
even in that case in which Crossan is most anxious to claim the meaning
'Jesus' (11:8).

Chapter 11 of the Didache deals with how to judge and respond to the
visiting itinerants. Estimating the validity of their teaching is obviously
of paramount concern, and yet no sentiment is expressed that such teaching
should be judged according to how it conforms to what was Jesus' own
teaching. Crossan does not address this glaring silence. Instead, he falls
back [p.377] on the idea that the itinerants must conform in their behavior
to the lifestyle of Jesus. This is based on 11:8: "Not everyone who speaks
in the spirit is a 'true' prophet but only if he has the character [tropoi]
of the Lord." Maxwell Staniforth, in the Penguin translation, expands that
last phrase to: "unless they also exhibit the manners and conduct of the
Lord." Literally, the Greek is ean echei tous tropous kuriou, "unless they
have the ways-(Crossan offers 'manner, way, kind, guise, way of life, turn
of mind, conduct, character' as possible meanings of tropos)-of the Lord."

What Crossan overlooks, however, is not the possible meanings of the word
tropos itself, but the meaning of the phrase as a whole. First, keep in mind
that this document probably comes from the late first century, long after
Jesus would have passed from the scene. Any lifestyle of Jesus would lie in
the past, and if appealed to would undoubtedly be done in terms of a past
phenomenon. The phrase above lacks this past dimension and has a very
present flavor. Whatever this tropos is, it seems to be a standard which
operates in the present. By way of comparison, look back a few verses to
another phrase, twice repeated. "Receive (the itinerant preacher) as (you
would) the Lord" (11:2), and "Let every apostle who comes to you be received
as the Lord" (11:4). For both the Didache's writer and its readers, there
can be no question of receiving Jesus at this time, since he is long gone,
and yet the sense of present receiving, of present-if theoretical-
opportunity to receive "the Lord" now, is very much there. If the intention
were to draw a parallel between how the householder should receive the
itinerant prophet and how he would have received Jesus in the days when
Jesus himself was travelling from place to place, that past concept would
likely, I think, be reflected in the choice of words.

Two other incidental elements: Both of the above verses have illuminating
antecedents. Before 11:4, verse 3 says: "As regards apostles and prophets,
act thus according to the ordinance of the gospel" [trans. K. Lake, The
Apostolic Fathers (Loeb), p.327]. Lake observes that this ordinance is not
known, nor its source, and "gospel", virtually all would agree, does not
refer to a written gospel but simply to the preached message, the
"euangelion". But if Jesus can be imagined in the very same verse as
arriving at the door, if he can be held up in the key verse 8 (which I'll
get back to in a moment) as the very model by which behavior is to be
judged, surely he as the source of the message and teaching itself would
spring to mind-and pen-here, as the author of the ordinance, rather than the
impersonal word "gospel"!

The second incidental element is the initial half of that verse 2 quote:
"But if the teaching (of the itinerant prophet) be for the increase of
righteousness and knowledge of the Lord . . . (receive him as the Lord)."
Knowledge of the Lord. Especially in conjunction with the term
"righteousness". Could anything smack more strongly of traditional Jewish
concepts, and terminology, about learning of God and his ways? If instead
Jesus of Nazareth were implied here, it seems clear that to distinguish it
from the natural understanding of a phrase like this as referring to God the
Father, a specific departure from Crossan's "calculated ambiguity" would
have to be made. Instead, the constant and pervasive use of "the Lord" with
no designation anywhere that this term also encompasses Jesus, seems to rule
out any such meaning or ambiguity.

I'll return to an overall analysis of the Didache's term "Lord" in a moment,
but first back to our 11:8 verse and its tropoi of the Lord. If the
sentiment seems to lie very much in the present, what could the phrase mean?
One might think that the writer is not likely to be speaking of God's manner
and conduct; although an earlier verse which I will examine shortly seems to
say that very thing, and even 1 Peter 1:15 can speak of being "holy in all
your behavior, even as the One who called you is holy," which the scriptural
reference quoted makes clear is a reference to God. In any case, there is a
much more natural way of interpreting it. Bauer's Lexicon (unnoted by
Crossan) offers as a translation of exein tous tropous kuriou, "have the
ways that the Lord himself had, or which the Lord requires of his own" (my
italics). Just as we would say that "following the ways of the church" does
not refer to the actual behavior of the church hierarchy, but rather to the
requirements laid down by the church, so surely does the Didache's phrase
mean that the itinerant prophets must exhibit-not Jesus' past behavior, but
a conduct in their own present as required now by "the Lord." Crossan's
"lifestyle of Jesus" thus evaporates into the wind, and we are left with no
reference at all in Didache 11 to either the example of Jesus' conduct or
his teachings in relation to that of the itinerant prophets.

I am devoting a lot of space to this document, simply because Crossan has
placed it on the table as one of the people's main exhibits in evidence for
an historical Jesus at the roots of his Galilean resistance movement. If in
fact this document can be shown to contain no such figure, his case must of
necessity collapse. So let's look a little further at the term "Lord" in the
Didache, and the light it throws on the nature of the community and its
origin.

A careful examination of the roughly two dozen times the title is used leads
to the conclusion that it is exclusively a reference to God, never to Jesus.
Some uses are obviously so, and since the writer or redactor fails to make
any distinction for a separate application to Jesus, we are led to assume
uniformity. Here is a passage from the Two Ways section which opens the
document (using Staniforth's Penguin translation with the odd alteration in
the direction of the literal):

"Never speak sharply (to) servants who hope in the same God as yours, lest
they cease to fear the God who is over you both; for he comes not to call
men according to their rank, but those who have already been prepared by the
Spirit. And you, servants, obey your masters . . . as the representatives of
God . . . See that you do not neglect the commandments of the Lord, but keep
them as you received them. . . ." (4:10-13)
This is clearly an unbroken chain of reference to God the Father, complete
with Old Testament allusions. God is spoken of as "coming", and acting
through the Spirit. This is a community which regards its message as God's
product, imparted by revelation. It is silent on any figure of Jesus in its
past as arriving or imparting anything. Its commandments, its rules of
behavior, have been received from God, not Jesus. A little earlier, it says:
"Give him (he who speaks the word of God) the honor you would give the Lord;
for wherever the Lord's attributes (or nature, kuriotes) is spoken of, there
the Lord is present." (4:1)
Kuriotes is a word referring to God (see Bauer's Lexicon); the context is
entirely of God. This meaning and these sentiments cast their long shadow
over the verses in chapter 11 considered earlier, where "receive him as the
Lord," and perhaps even "unless they have the ways of the Lord," would seem
to be a reference to God. Again, this is a community which sees itself as
emissaries of God and recipients of his direction. The personality and
direction of Jesus is nowhere evident.
Not only are the Didache's apostles welcomed as one would welcome God, not
Jesus, they come and speak in his name, not Jesus' name: "Everyone who comes
in the name of the Lord is to be made welcome." Parts of the eucharist
prayer tie the concept of "name" unambiguously to the Father, again with Old
Testament allusions:

"Thanks be to thee, holy Father, for thy sacred Name which thou hast caused
to dwell in our hearts." (10:2)
"Thou, O Almighty Lord, hast created all things for thine own Name's sake."
(10:3)

Therefore, we can make a clear interpretation of this earlier part of the
prayer:
"No one is to eat and drink of (the) Eucharist but those who have been
baptized in the name of the Lord; for concerning this also did the Lord say:
'Give not that which is holy to the dogs.' " (9:5)
Not only is baptism conferred in God's name (see also below), but a saying
attributed to Jesus in the Gospels (Mt. 7:6) must be regarded as attributed
to God in the Didache. Those who would balk at this need merely look at
14:3, which offers another 'saying' of "the Lord," this time a quote from
Malachi. Scripture is the word of God, and the saying in 9:5 (above) is
probably, prior to its induction into Matthew, from some writing now lost.
Furthermore, we have in the Didache two references to the "gospel" of "the
Lord." One is general: "Be guided by what you have (echete: "have", not
"read" as Staniforth fancifully translates) in the gospel of our Lord"
(15:4). Koester acknowledges that such references are unlikely to mean a
written Gospel, but rather the oral message and instruction issued by the
charismatic apostles of the community. This extends even to the other
reference, a specific citing of the Lord's Prayer (8:2), which is a little
different from Matthew's and is considered earlier. This citing is prefaced
by: "Pray as the Lord commanded in his gospel. . . ."

In view of the continuous and unqualified use of the term "Lord" as applied
to God in this document, and the lack of any general appeal to the teaching
of Jesus, we have every reason to take this as a reference to God, to the
message and instruction the itinerants carry which is regarded as coming
from him, whether through inspiration or scripture. (See also my argument
above that since "the gospel" in 11:3 is not attributed to Jesus, that it
has no specific sense other than God's gospel.)

A prayer like this, probably formulated at some time in the community's past
or contained in the traditions they have inherited, would now be part of
such a gospel, seen as "commanded" by God. (Note above, 4:13's reference to
"the commandments of the Lord," which the context identifies as God.)

Chapter 16 shows an understanding of the "coming of the Lord" as that of
God, not Jesus, for "Lord" is quoted in a Zechariah passage about the coming
Day, and no switch in application to Jesus is indicated. (It goes without
saying that the Didache displays no knowledge of Jesus as the Son of Man,
which calls into question any direct line of development from the Q
community.) Finally, we must take 14:1's reference to "the Lord's Day" not
as a Christian commemoration of Easter and a reference to Jesus, but simply
as the Jewish Sabbath, for the "sacrifice" referred to which is embodied in
the thanksgiving meal is an Old Testament type "offering", with no hint of a
connection to Jesus or his death.

A Messiah in the Didache

If, then, "Lord" in the Didache is universally a reference to God, what role
does this leave for a Jesus in the document's thinking? He is confined
solely to the eucharistic prayer, in a context like that, for example, of
the second verse:

"We give thanks to thee, our Father, for the life and knowledge thou hast
made known to us through thy servant (or child) Jesus." (9:2)
In the absence of any concept of Jesus' death and atoning sacrifice, any
idea of his resurrection, we are left with a "servant" who fills an
intermediary role, who "makes known" the things of God which confer life and
knowledge. In other words, a spiritual figure who is little more than an
extension of personified Wisdom. Under the influence of current philosophy,
this figure has become, for this Christian circle, the mediatorial "Son",
and as such he is part of the baptismal formula quoted in 7:1:
". . . immerse in running water 'In the Name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.' "
But here we have run up against a fundamental problem, which Crossan shows
no sign of being aware of. This view of Jesus as a spiritual figure in the
background of the Didache's thinking is further suggested by another,
somewhat puzzling reference in 12:5. Following on chapter 11's void on any
appeal to Jesus as the originator of the teachings, or any appeal to the
Jesus of the past as providing guidance, archetype or example in the conduct
of those preaching the faith, the writer makes this cryptic comment [as
Crossan translates it, p.374]: "If someone (i.e., the itinerant) does not
wish to cooperate, he (or she) is a Christ-peddler." (Staniforth offers: "he
is only trying to exploit Christ," while Lake translates: "he is making
traffic of Christ.")
Christ? This is certainly a curiosity. Outside the eucharistic prayers,
where it appears once, the term "Christ" is used only here in the Didache.
More important, it is a term which never appears in either Q or the Gospel
of Thomas. Indeed, one would not expect to find it in the latter documents.
Certainly as Crossan presents his "texts" within his "context", the Galilean
movement is not concerned with a Messiah, and would be unlikely to elevate
its Jesus to that level-certainly not without doing so in words and showing
the very focus on the powerful hero-figure which I demonstrated was in
missing in Q1. Even less would the movement be likely to elevate its Jesus
even higher, to full divinity, and thus what would the divine title "Lord"
be doing in the Didache as including, right beside God himself, the figure
of an historical head of a resistance movement, no matter how heroic?

By a similar token, what is the name "Christ" doing in the Didache? If the
itinerants could be said (at least the bad ones) to be "peddling" Christ,
and this is supposedly the same person who originated the movement and
provided its radical teachings, why is such a role and attribution so
resoundingly missing in the rest of the document? Why here would such a
designation be used for him? Why, indeed, in those eucharistic prayers we
dipped into earlier, in addition to designating Jesus as a "child/servant"
who reveals life and knowledge of God, does it say, "Thine (i.e., God's) is
the glory and the power, through Jesus Christ, for ever and ever." This
clearly refers to the divine, cosmic Son, in whose name the baptismal rite
is also performed, along with those of the Father and the Holy Ghost.

I am surprised that Crossan has ignored this entire question, or not taken
refuge in suggesting that such a reference may be a later interpolation,
since this elevation of Jesus to part of the Godhead should not belong in
his picture of the Didache community. Is this not a leakage into the
Galilean resistance Tradition of an important element from the other Twin?
And if this heavenly Son lurks somewhere in the thinking of the Didache
community, and he is to be equated with the radical Galilean preacher Jesus,
why is no such equation ever discussed or even hinted at in the text itself?
Considering that he is silent on the whole matter, it would be interesting
to know how Crossan reconciles this element, which emerges in 12:5 and in
the eucharistic prayers and baptismal rite, with his picture of the
illiterate peasant Jesus who began the counter-cultural movement in Galilee.
---- /QUOTE Doherty

---- QUOTE Doherty
Crossan thinks to compare the eucharist in the Q tradition (which he
identifies with the meal of Didache 9-10) with the Lord's Supper found in 1
Corinthians 11:23f, which he regards as absorbed by Paul from the Jerusalem
tradition. But there is a huge gulf between the two. The first is a meal of
thanksgiving very much in the line of Jewish practice; the other is a
sacramental ritual with strongly Hellenistic overtones similar to the sacred
meals of the pagan mystery cults. Crossan declares [p.420] that both go back
to the meal practice of Jesus, but the Didache says no such thing. (Anyway,
why would the eating be adopted in Jerusalem but not the teaching? Are they
really separable?) Finally, he claims that the line of development was from
the more basic, Jewish form of the Didache to the sacramental Lord's Supper
of 1 Corinthians 11, but in terms of the documents they are found in, the
latter predates the former by several decades. And no direct mention of
Jesus' meal practice is found in Q or Thomas, which are supposed to be a
kind of 'ancestor' to the Didache.

Crossan attempts to link the "servant" Jesus of the eucharistic prayers in
the Didache to the "Servant" of Deutero-Isaiah. Because Isaiah's Servant is
a "suffering figure" and perhaps meets the ultimate fate of death in the
third Song (52:13-53:12), this is supposed to indicate that the Didache,
even if it contains no explicit references to such things, is cognizant of
Jesus' suffering and death, and thus (I assume) the Passion probably figures
in the community's theology. By this dubious leap of implication, Crossan
seeks to cast yet another line joining the two Traditions.

I happen to think that they are linked, as I outlined earlier in observing
that the Didache does contain overtones of the cosmic Son and Christ. But
since other documents contain such a Son without any death or sacrificial
concept attached to him (such as the Odes of Solomon, the Shepherd of
Hermas, and even the epistle of James), there is no compelling need to
attach a Passion awareness to the Didache community. Coming at the end of
the first century, I would say that this community's presumed line of
development from the Galilean resistance movement-which still lacks, to
judge by the document itself, a teaching itinerant founder Jesus-has now
come to include certain philosophical elements of the spiritual Christ
concept. Perhaps this is due to its probable location in Syria, where such
an 'intermediary Son' philosophy seems to have been strong.
---- /QUOTE Doherty

I also suggest the use of the JM archives through the link on the project
links & bibliography--even if you don't happen to be a subscriber. A search
for "Doherty" and "Didache" turned up several matches.

http://escribe.com/history/JesusMysteries/m979.html
This kind of argument might be plausible in regard to one particular
passage. It breaks down when one considers that in all the preaching,
discussion and debating, sometimes addressed to non-believers, contained in
the New Testament epistles, not once does any writer call attention to the
"fact" that the Christ early Christians like Paul believed in had a career
on earth, teaching, working miracles, prophesying. [Again, this excepts
three passages I have regularly addressed: 1 Thess. 2:15-16 as a widely
accepted (by critical scholars) interpolation; 1 Timothy 6:13's reference
to Pilate as being in a letter written in the 2nd century, not by Paul; and
1 Cor. 11:23's Lord's Supper scene, which Paul says he got "from the Lord"
indicating revelation and not passed-on tradition about an historical
event, a scene moreover which strongly resembles the mythical
establishments by the savior gods of the mystery cults of *their* sacred
meals, meals very much like the eucharist. It is very significant in this
regard that any mention of the establishment of the eucharist by Jesus is
missing in other early Christian documents, such as Hebrews and the
Didache.]

The Didache does NOT attribute the Lord's Prayer to the gospel that the
Lord, meaning Jesus, preached. 8:2 says "Pray as the Lord directed
(ekeleusen) in his gospel." Considering that Paul and other epistle writers
constantly refer to "God's gospel" (never to Jesus' gospel), this can
certainly be the meaning here, that the "gospel" is something imparted by
God through perceived revelation. There is no specific term in this passage
to suggest "preaching" and certainly not by Jesus. I have also shown that
throughout the Didache, the term "Lord" consistently refers to God, and
never to Jesus. (See for a very thorough consideration of the Didache and
its lack of an historical Jesus, the relevant section of my website review
of Crossan's Birth of Christianity:
<http://human.st/jesuspuzzle/crossbr.htm>

http://escribe.com/history/JesusMysteries/m1948.html
But when two different communities, working with and
evolving the same set of sayings 'traditions' are equally silent on such an
important matter as Jesus' presumed death and resurrection, and when this
is supported by yet another document in yet another community which bears
some relationship to the Q and Thomas milieu, namely the Didache, which is
also silent on a death and resurrection for Jesus (or even, in this case,
as one to whom the community's sayings are attributed at all), this makes
it very hard to support the idea that all these people knew of the Gospel
death and resurrection and yet choose to make no mention of it.

http://escribe.com/history/JesusMysteries/m1975.html
I much prefer the explanation (by such as Koester) for the similarities in
wording (and it's restricted mostly to certain elements in the Two Ways
section of the early chapters) between Didache and Matthew to later scribal
emendation of the former under the influence of the latter, a common
occurrence in manuscript transmission. While an ancient writer might fail
to specifically attribute something to Plato that belonged to him,
something on the order of the mass of teachings found in the Didache's Two
Ways (and Barnabas' and the many Gospel-like teachings in the epistle of
James, passages in Paul, etc.) which include not a hint that this body of
teaching proceeds from the figure they all worship, is highly unlikely.
This is an argument from silence whose strongest support is the
pervasiveness and universality of this lack of attribution.

http://escribe.com/history/JesusMysteries/m1986.html
The silence in Q on alloting any clear reference or significance to the
death of Jesus is seconded in other documents which bear some relationship
to Q, namely the Gospel of Thomas and the Didache. Since it is less likely
that multiple documents and communities could be aware of Jesus' death, let
alone attach some significance to it, and yet remain silent on the subject,
this makes it more probable that 14:27 does not refer to such a subject.

http://escribe.com/history/JesusMysteries/m2764.html
You will have to be more specific about the nature of this "oral tradition"
and its attribution. In clearly first century works, such as the epistle of
James and the Didache, there is no attribution of "Jesus-sounding" teaching
traditions to Jesus, or to any other specific person. The Didache even
attributes the Lord's Prayer to God ("the Lord", which can be consistently
demonstrated throughout this document to be a reference to God, not the
Son). Barnabas, in its Two-Ways section, attributes such ethics to God, not
to Jesus.

http://escribe.com/history/JesusMysteries/m2830.html
I would be curious to know which specific passage(s) of the Didache you
have in mind. Someone also mentioned the Two-Ways section, but note that
there is no attribution of any of this material to Jesus, and Helmut
Koester has a very good explanation for any similarity of wording to the
Gospel of Matthew, that later scribal activity tended to 'align' the
Didache's wording with Matthew's.

http://escribe.com/history/JesusMysteries/m3176.html
To give this concrete form, he
invented (perhaps as an allegory) a 'death and resurrection' for him on
earth, set in Jerusalem. (There could hardly have been any existing
traditions of this to draw on, since there is no sign of any such thing in
Q or Thomas, or the Didache, or several other non-canonical documents of
the latter first century.) This invented addition to the Q Jesus he
constructed out of scripture following the processes of midrash.

http://escribe.com/history/JesusMysteries/m4339.html
Luke's order of "cup and bread" rather than the other way around, as the
others have it, is sometimes said to reflect the structure of the Jewish
thanksgiving meal, cup then bread, as reflected in the Didache prayers,
chapter 9. But Luke is not likely to have been influenced by such a
precursor if there were strong traditions circulating in the Christian
world reflecting the structure of the supposed historical Last Supper--and
how could there not be, if this key ritual had been passed on for more than
half a century at least? It suggests that such a ritual was NOT firmly
established in Christian tradition....

... The Didache: Those eucharistic (thanksgiving) prayers in chapter 9-10
speak
of a cup and bread at the community's meal with absolutely no mention of
any historical Last Supper context, no sacrificial or covenantal
significance, let alone an establishment of proceedings by Jesus. Here
Jesus is simply spoken of as a "child/servant" who has "made known" certain
things. This could be through revelatory channels, from a spiritual Son in
heaven, especially as the things made known are the "holy vine of David"
and "the life and knowledge" (of God). And especially as there is no sign
of an historical Jesus in this entire document. (See my website book review
of J.D.Crossan's "The Birth of Christianity".)

http://escribe.com/history/JesusMysteries/m4569.html
If we are to believe progressive interpretations of Q, and their "genuine"
Jesus, this community didn't even have an interest in a death and
resurrection at all (copied by the Didache, the Gospel of Thomas, the
Shepherd of Hermas, the Odes of Solomon). Did such a death not take place?

http://escribe.com/history/JesusMysteries/m4893.html
They may indicate a *presumed* historical figure of some sort, which I have
allowed for in Mark's own mind, based on Q traditions as stated above
(though only in *some* circles of the Kingdom movement, as a document like
the Didache seems to have no historical Jesus in mind at all).

http://escribe.com/history/JesusMysteries/m5415.html
Look back (from the vantage point of, let's
say, around 150) and see what the previous non-Gospel documents of
Christianity contain about miracle working, ethical teaching, apocalyptic
preaching, and so on. The epistles are full of ethics, but no attribution
of them to Jesus. They have no miracles. The same, on both counts, with
non-canonical works like the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache. Even
Ignatius, who proclaims (the first to do so) basic Gospel biographical
elements about Jesus, has not a word to say about any teachings, nor
miracles.

http://escribe.com/history/JesusMysteries/m5455.html
Please let me clarify. I do not suggest that Mark was in any way dependent
on Q, if the latter is referring to the document of that designation. Mark,
as I see it, is dependent on the Kingdom preaching movement that itself
produced Q. That document was not necessarily disseminated to every area
and community which comprised that movement, one which was spread over
Galilee and at least parts of Syria. The Didache, for example, comes from a
community which is very Q-like, but it clearly does not possess a Q
document itself. And it's evident that Mark didn't, either. Nevertheless,
he was operating from basic 'Q-like' traditions.

(Apparently Doherty considers Didache as being layered but originating from the turn of the second century.)

best,
Peter Kirby

Vinnie

I think you went a little overkill in the quotes. Many of the beginning ones and end ones are entirely irrelvant and hinder further reading. I was looking for a summary. The MAck and Crossan ones and a few others were more pertinent and direct.

Think I got it though out of those 20 pages and 9,000 words you quoted (yes these are accurate numbers) that I skimmed.

Didache does not have any "Jesus saids". That is really all I saw by way of argumentation in my fast skimming. Also God gave the Lord's prayer, not Jesus and so on.

Funny how Doherty fusses about a lack of direct hsitorical attribution here but GThomas has lots of "Jesus saids" yet there Doherty specially pleads and suggests those were added at a later date to the sayings text (see GThmas in Jez Puz) :notworthy

At any rate, this was interesting from Doherty:

""""Teachings resembling or identical to those of the Gospel Jesus are found all
over the place in the first century documents"""

At least he agrees with this. Unfortunately he then goes on to note """with no attribution to Jesus""". How strong is this argument really? Is there really any need to attribute known Jesus materials and summarized ethical teachings of the Kingdom taught by Jesus//used by the community (which may have meant Jesus was behind them--see Josephus and Moses!) and accepted to Jesus? How much oral dialogue and debate an discussion went on in these communities outside the epistles that survive? Background knowledge is key. Are we not seeing simply the historical backdrop of teachings that came frin ca 30 c.e.?

Also, since Jesus "became" (after death!) the intermediary (as Doherty sugests!) isn't it possible to summarize teachings from Jesus and God together in such epistles? Isn't it possible, as noted to include "kingdom instructions" together in such ways? Ethical summaries of community rules and principles? They all come from Jesus // God. Whey the need for special attribution?

Couple this in with the contemporary primary data for some of Jesus' followers, names cross attested independently in source and forms and also the barrels of sayings that are clearly attributed to Jesus in multiple independent works from the first century as well.

I think I'll repeat the cite at any rate:

Doherty: "Teachings resembling or identical to those of the Gospel Jesus are found all over the place in the first century documents . . ."

ALL OVER THE PLACE!

Vinnie

Amaleq13

According to the chart that Doherty included with my book (I don't know if it was published with subsequent editions), he dates Matthew and Didache as roughly contemporary at the beginning of the 2nd century.