Alan Garrow's Blog

The Didache: Key to the Acts-Galatians Conundrum

25/8/2017

If you have questions arising from the video 'The Didache: Key to the Acts-Galatians Conundrum' please post them here.

19/12/2017 02:04:03 am

Alan, here are some comments on your video on Galatians.

It is not clear that "Paul is adamant that he has had no contact with Jerusalem apostles in the preceding 14 years." This assumes that Paul's point is that he had minimal contact with Jerusalem, but Debbie Hunn has shown that Paul is actually arguing that he stopped being a people pleaser when he was called: he did not try to ingratiate himself with the church leaders with a view to rising through their ranks.

Paul's first visit to Corinth was in 50. Acts 15 therefore belongs to 48 or 49 at the latests. You place the famine visit two years earlier, which is 46-47. You place Paul's Jerusalem visit of Gal 1:18-19 14 years earlier, which is 32-33. You place Paul's conversion 3 years earlier still, which is 29-30. This puts Paul's conversion before the crucifixion, which is not possible.

The idea that Paul would have appealed to the decree assumes that the Galatians were not already fully aware that the Jerusalem apostles had decreed in favour of Gentile liberty.

Acts would not have been able to get away with presenting only one side of a double-edged document, especially if you are right that the document circulated widely.

The words "Perfected at the final hour" would hardly lead the hearers to believe that the speaker supported the need for circumcision. This is a stretch. The circumcision of Timothy is what led the Galatians to believe that Paul believed in circumcision. We know this because in Gal 2:4-5 Paul says that, in circumcising Titus (which was Timothy's praenomen), he was not yielding the principle, but it was only because the false brothers had found out (by spying on a private meeting) that Titus was uncircumcised.

The discussion of layers to the Didache adds complexity to the theory.

It is not at all clear that participation in the eucharist was the issue at contest in Galatians.

It would be helpful to post the text and translation of the original Didache, you reconstruct it, so that readers can make up their minds on whether it could have a relationship with the decree.

I like that you take Gal 5:11; 1:8 and similar texts seriously.

You ask how anyone could persuade the Galatians that Paul supported circumcision for Gentiles. You say "the only way that they could do that is if they were able to point to a document...". Not so. Paul's circumcision of Timothy explains it. How did the agitators explain why Paul delivered the decree that confirmed Gentile liberty? They said that Paul did so only to please Jerusalem.

If Titus was an ordinary Gentile, then Gal 2:3 does not tell the Galatians that the apostles were supportive of Gentile liberty. This text is ambiguous about whether the apostles asked Paul to circumcise Titus. Indeed, if the Galatians had no prior knowledge of the Titus incident, then the text does not tell them whether he was circumcised.

Peter's eating with Gentiles in Antioch was BEFORE the Jerusalem meeting of Gal 2:1-10, though his withdrawal was after it. See Stephen Carlson's work on the textual variants at Gal 2:12.

If a double-edged decree was the issue, the I WOULD expect Paul to discuss it.

You are right that Acts is historical and independent of Paul's letters.

All in all, you find some important problems with conventional understandings of Galatians, but the solution is to be found in the circumcision of Titus-Timothy, not in an ambiguous decree.

Alan Garrow

19/12/2017 03:11:53 pm

Hi Richard, thank you for your detailed engagement with the paper - and for these interesting ideas to think about and follow up.

Jimmy Akin link

1/11/2018 07:46:57 pm

Just wanted to thank you for a fascinating proposal regarding the role of the Didache in relation to Acts-Galatians. I interact with it here and would welcome any followup discussion.

http://jimmyakin.com/2018/11/is-the-didache-the-key-to-understanding-pauls-controversy-with-the-judaizers.html

Christian Michael

27/5/2021 09:13:20 pm

What a wonderfully thought-provoking idea that The Didache could be based in a decree from 48 written under the auspices of Peter, James and Paul.

I have seen your paper on the relationship between 1 Thess 4,13-18, but have Bot yet read it. Have you considered that the pastoral apocalypse in 2 Thess is reflected in Didache 16? John C Hurd and Paul Foster argues for the Pauline Authorship of 2 Thess, and so does Carl P Donfried, althought he suggests that Timothy was the author.

Kind regards,
Christian Michael

Alan Garrow

28/5/2021 07:20:12 am

Hi Christian, I do think that 2 Thessalonians is Pauline and yes, I do think Didache 16 has a role to play in the background to that letter. In the book I am writing that the moment there is a chapter about this - but it might be a while before it gets published. I hope you enjoy the JSNT article.

Christian Michael

28/5/2021 07:52:44 am

Hi Alan,
I an looking very much forward to that book.
Some further thoughts:
Have you considered integrating your reconstruction of the Acts-Galatians parallels with the chronology of Douglas Campbell (Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography)?
That may resolve the problem with the dating of the famine visit. It will create other issues with the dates of events in Acts since Campbell places the founding visit to Thessalonica and Thessalonian correspondance in 40-42 well before the Didache was composed. Still, Didache 16 was not necessarily composed as an apocalypse at that meeting - Paul may have learned that content on his first visit with Peter in Jerusalem - and may have added the bit about the restrainer in response to the death of Caligula in late 40 (assuming that the death of Caligula triggered the misunderstanding Paul adresses in 2 Thess...)
I know this is highly speculative, but I am just so fascinated with your theory and its implications for a reconstruction of nascent Christianity.

Kind regards, Christian

Alan Garrow

28/5/2021 08:03:58 am

Hi Christian. I'm confident that the Didache apocalypse existed before it was incorporated into the Didache. Nevertheless, my theory requires, I think, that the Thessalonians first encountered this eschatological scheme in the context of a highly authoritative document such as the Apostolic Decree. I believe Jonathan Bernier has a new NT chronology in the pipeline, it will be interesting to see what spanners that throws in the works.

Christian Michael

28/5/2021 09:15:00 am

Hi Alan,
I will read your JSNT article later today and then try to figure out if your argument does or does not necessitate that the original Didache was known in Thessaloniki.
If not, then Campbells proposal that the Thessalonian correspondance was written around 40-42 has potential to explain features of 2 Thessalonians. The Didache material known in Thessaloniki might have been delivered by Paul himself and could have been cleared with Peter in circa AD 37 during Pauls stay with him in Jerusalem.
If Peter and James were behind Didache, it would conceivably contain traditional material although in a new document - the apostolic decree.
If the Thessalonian correspondance is as old as Douglas Campbell (and Gerd Lüdemann) thinks, then it would have been written in close proximity ro the Caligula crisis. This dating seems to me to potentially explain certain differences between Didache 16 and the pastoral apocalypse in 2 Thess and also the misunderstandings of the eschatological calendar in Thessaloniki.
If the apostolic decree was written under the reign of Caludius and after the death of Herod Agrippa I (either of whom might have been cast as restrainig the man of Lawlessness: Claudere = restrain in latin, Agrippa I dissuaded Caligula from placing his statue in the Jerusalem Temple), then the stuff about the restrainer and the man of lawlessness who would defile the temple with the abomination of desolation would be less compelling and was perhaps left out of the apostolic decree (we see Luke 21.20 smooths over this material from the Markan source - perhaps because he did not find this aspect of the Danielic prophecy in the Didache?).
Anyhow - thanks for alerting me to the forthcoming work of Jonathan Bernier. A solid anchor Pauline chronology is very important for such deliberations not to end up in pure speculation - which my comment may well be an illustration of :)

Regards,
Christian

Christian Michael

28/5/2021 12:34:50 pm

A nice graphic of Douglas Campbells Pauline chronology can be found here, side by side with the chronology of Wright:
https://www.dannyzacharias.net/blog/2019/1/16/modern-chronologies-of-Paul

Jonathan Bernier seems to be highly critical of at least some of it: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.15699/jbl.1384.2019.8

Incidentally, it looks Campbell shares my speculation about the Caligula crisis as background for the Thessalonian correspondance. Not sure it it has motivated his dating and thus introduced circularity. I have not read that part.

I should read Jonathans article right after yours :)

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The Didache: Key to the Acts-Galatians Conundrum

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