BNTS Maynooth 2026 - The Parting of the Ways

​This paper is to be delivered on 25th August, 2026 as part of the Ancient Judaism and Christianity Seminar of the British New Testament Society conference.  

Abstract:
​The Didache has long been recognised as a multi-author text that evolved over a considerable period. This paper observes three stages in that evolution and correlates them to distinct steps in the Parting of the Ways. The first, identified as the Apostolic Decree composed in 48CE (cf. Acts 15), marks a point when the main concern of the Jesus group was to integrate Gentile believers without compromising the Torah-observance of its Jewish members. The second, the Missing Epistle of John (cf. 3 John 9), possibly created in the 50s CE, includes a form of initiation that may provide the first sign of a distinct departure from the parent religion. The third, later in the first century and following the amalgamation of the two earlier texts (the so-called ‘Didache Discoveries’), introduced practices designed to cement and emphasise Christianity’s institutional separation from Judaism.