| Alan Garrow Didache |
The Original Didache/
Apostolic Decree
The Didache: what lies beneath? |
The Didache is widely recognised as a text that has evolved over time. So what did it look like at the start? These videos look beneath the layers of later addition to explore the possibility that the Didache, in its Original form, might have been a lost text of incalculable value. The story of the Didache's evolution is analysed in greater detail in The Gospel of Matthew's Dependence on the Didache (LNTS 254, Bloomsbury, 2004).
Part I: What lies beneath? [2.02 mins]Conservators working on an apparently inauspicious painting discovered that, beneath various layers of repair and restoration lay a hidden masterpiece. Could something similar lie beneath the surface of the Didache?
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Part 2: The case for multi-stage authorship [15.27 mins]The Didache, as discovered by Bryennios, is full of curious contradictions and structural oddities. These suggest a process of evolution has taken place ... gradually obscuring the earliest form of the text.
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Part 3: Peeling back the layers [10.15 mins]Out of the confusion of contradictions identified in Part 2, a coherent story begins to emerge. The Didache, as discovered by Bryennios, has evolved through three developmental stages. First, an attempt to revise the Original Didache's instructions to make life viable for traveling prophets. Second, an attempt to modify the base text's instructions about money - to make life more financially comfortable for teachers. Third, a series of four small insertions designed to reassure the reader that, where the Didache and Matthew's Gospel differ - the Gospel's instructions should be preferred.
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