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Dating the Didache

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  • #16
    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    Van de Sandt argues that the Didache consists of a composition of other earlier writings with the final form coming together near the end of the 1st cent by a final editor he calls the Didachist.

    Source: The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and Its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity


    Throughout our analysis of the Didache, it will become quite evident that this booklet cannot be considered a homogeneous text. The Didache is a compilation of several older sources which are structured into four clearly separated thematic sections: the Two Ways document (Chaps. 1-6 with later additions in 1:3b-2:1 and in 6:2-3), a liturgical treatise (Chaps. 7-10), a treatise on church organization (Chaps. 11-15 with a later expansion in 11-13) and an eschatological section (Chap. 16). Each individual part belongs to a different literary genre, has evolved over a period of time, and makes up a coherent unity.

    © Copyright Original Source



    As to its dating, this seems to be based on his analysis of the Jerusalem Codex as can be seen on page 21 of this work

    Source: The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and Its Place in Early Judaism and Christianity


    First some chronological data with regard to the individual works contained in our manuscript as a whole manuscript are needed. John Chrysostom lived between 347-407 CE and because the Synopsis Veteris et Novi Testamenti was written later, it has been wrongly attributed to him.41 The Epistle of Barnabas was probably composed at the beginning of the second century CE. The First Epistle of Clement was conceived ca. 96 CE while the Second Epistle of Clement stems from the first half of the second century CE. As for the Didache itself, it was surely edited before this date. The secondary, longer version of the correspondence of Ignatius of Antioch was not composed before the late fourth century CE.42

    © Copyright Original Source



    The link above goes to a Google online version of the book. Perhaps you can find more information in it concerning his reasoning but unfortunately I don't have the time right now.


    I should add that in his The Didache: A window on the earliest Christians Thomas O'Loughlin apparently puts it at some point during the mid to late first century
    Thanks!

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    • #17
      Dating the Didache, by J. A. T. Robinson

      Originally posted by John Reece View Post
      None of this can be more than a matter of probability. It is impossibible to be dogmatic about the source of quotations. But I find the presumption against literary dependence to be strong. Yet, though dependence could knock out a very early dating (depending of course on the date of the gospels), independence cannot establish it. The case must rest on the genuine primativeness of the the many indications in the Didache which point to a stage in the life of the church which is still that of the New Testament period itself.
      Audet examines these at length and we cannot go over his arguments in detail, some of which are more convincing than others. The prayers and thanksgivings are full of archaic terminology, echoing not only the servant (παῖς) Christology of the early speeches of Acts (Did. 9.2f; 10.2f; cf. Acts 3.13,26; 4.27,30), later abandoned, but what I have ventured to call 'the earliest Christian liturgical sequence' (Did. 10.6; cf. 1 Cor. 16.22-4). In Did. 9.1-3 the eucharistic cup still precedes the bread, as in 1 Cor.10.16 and Luke 22.17-19, Audet argues that the terminology relating to baptism (7.1; 9.5) is similarly primitive, and that the regulations about food (6.3) presuppose a period and a milieu where the dietary question is still genuinely posed:
      We are in the first Christian generation born of the Gentile mission, at little distance, it seems, in time if not in space, from 1 Cor. 8―10; Rom. 14; Col. 2.16, 20-30; and 1 Tim. 4.3
      Last edited by John Reece; 07-12-2015, 11:57 AM.

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      • #18
        Dating the Didache, by J. A. T. Robinson

        Originally posted by John Reece View Post
        Audet examines these at length and we cannot go over his arguments in detail, some of which are more convincing than others. The prayers and thanksgivings are full of archaic terminology, echoing not only the servant (παῖς) Christology of the early speeches of Acts (Did. 9.2f; 10.2f; cf. Acts 3.13,26; 4.27,30), later abandoned, but what I have ventured to call 'the earliest Christian liturgical sequence' (Did. 10.6; cf. 1 Cor. 16.22-4). In Did. 9.1-3 the eucharistic cup still precedes the bread, as in 1 Cor.10.16 and Luke 22.17-19, Audet argues that the terminology relating to baptism (7.1; 9.5) is similarly primitive, and that the regulations about food (6.3) presuppose a period and a milieu where the dietary question is still genuinely posed:
        We are in the first Christian generation born of the Gentile mission, at little distance, it seems, in time if not in space, from 1 Cor. 8―10; Rom. 14; Col. 2.16, 20-30; and 1 Tim. 4.3
        Above all, we are in an age of itinerant apostles, prophets and teachers (11―13), where 'apostles' designate not a closed body but any men commissioned as missionary preachers and 'prophets' exercise a high charismatic ministry (10.7; 13.3) more honored that that of local appointments. It is still the world reflected in such incidents as that of Acts 19.13-20, where strolling Jewish exorcists might be encountered by any congregation. But we are also 'at a point of transition from the ministry of prophets and teachers to that of bishops and deacons' when the former are not available for regular ministry in the local church:
        Appoint for yourselves therefore bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men who are meek and not lovers of money, and true and approved; for unto you they also perform the service of the prophets and teachers. Therefore despise them not for they are your honorable men with the prophets and teachers (15.1f.).

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        • #19
          Dating the Didache, by J. A. T. Robinson

          Originally posted by John Reece
          Above all, we are in an age of itinerant apostles, prophets and teachers (11―13), where 'apostles' designate not a closed body but any men commissioned as missionary preachers and 'prophets' exercise a high charismatic ministry (10.7; 13.3) more honored that that of local appointments. It is still the world reflected in such incidents as that of Acts 19.13-20, where strolling Jewish exorcists might be encountered by any congregation. But we are also 'at a point of transition from the ministry of prophets and teachers to that of bishops and deacons' when the former are not available for regular ministry in the local church:
          Appoint for yourselves therefore bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men who are meek and not lovers of money, and true and approved; for unto you they also perform the service of the prophets and teachers. Therefore despise them not for they are your honorable men with the prophets and teachers (15.1f.).
          This is not the later transition from a presbyterial to a monepiscopal ministry but the much earlier one from the primacy of the charismatic to the recognition (and that by congregational appointment) of an establish ordained ministry. It is a transition already presupposed by Philippians (1.1) and the Pastorals in the late 50s. In an astonishingly percipient review-article of Harnack's original edition of the Didache, first published in the Church Quarterly Review of 1887, C. H. Turner said:
          The 'Teaching', then, represents a stage or organization intermediate between the Corinthian and the Ephesian letters: parallel, let us say roughly to the Epistle to the Philippians with its earliest mention of episcopi and deacons. It follows from this, that, if the 'Teaching' is to be a factor in the series of the full current of Church development, it ought to be placed about the year 60.

          He hastened to guard himself by saying that 'it does not follow that so early a date is inevitable' but said 'a date between 80 and 100 AD is as late as we are prepared to admit'.

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          • #20
            Dating the Didache, by J. A. T. Robinson

            Originally posted by John Reece
            This is not the later transition from a presbyterial to a monepiscopal ministry but the much earlier one from the primacy of the charismatic to the recognition (and that by congregational appointment) of an establish ordained ministry. It is a transition already presupposed by Philippians (1.1) and the Pastorals in the late 50s. In an astonishingly percipient review-article of Harnack's original edition of the Didache, first published in the Church Quarterly Review of 1887, C. H. Turner said:
            The 'Teaching', then, represents a stage or organization intermediate between the Corinthian and the Ephesian letters: parallel, let us say roughly to the Epistle to the Philippians with its earliest mention of episcopi and deacons. It follows from this, that, if the 'Teaching' is to be a factor in the series of the full current of Church development, it ought to be placed about the year 60.

            He hastened to guard himself by saying that 'it does not follow that so early a date is inevitable' but said 'a date between 80 and 100 AD is as late as we are prepared to admit'.


            With the state of the ministry goes the general theological character of the book. It is content (like the epistle of James) to leave doctrinal issues on one side. There is no polemic (as, for instance, in the Pastorals) against heterodox or gnostic tendencies within the church―merely a concern to maintain a practical mark of difference between Christians and Jews. The final chapter on eschatology breathes much the same apocalyptic atmosphere as I and II Thessalonians (with which it has many parallels) and may represent one of the many fly-sheets of this kind, combining dominical and traditional Old Testament materials, which seem to have been produced by the early church between 40 and 70. Yet in contrast with the synoptic apocalypses (but not Thessalonians), there is no attempt to fuse this material with predictions of the destruction of the temple or the fall of Jerusalem. This suggests that it is composed well before or well after these events. But, in notable distinction from the Epistle of Barnabas or the Jewish apocalypses of Baruch or II Esdras, there is no hint of any such event lying in the past. It seems much easier to see it as early rather that late. Indeed of the book in general I would agree with the assessment of J. A. Kleist:
            If we admit an early date of composition, all the evidence is in favour of it; if we insist on a late date, we have a mass of conjectures and hypotheses.

            Comment


            • #21
              Dating the Didache, by J. A. T. Robinson

              Originally posted by John Reece View Post
              With the state of the ministry goes the general theological character of the book. It is content (like the epistle of James) to leave doctrinal issues on one side. There is no polemic (as, for instance, in the Pastorals) against heterodox or gnostic tendencies within the church―merely a concern to maintain a practical mark of difference between Christians and Jews. The final chapter on eschatology breathes much the same apocalyptic atmosphere as I and II Thessalonians (with which it has many parallels) and may represent one of the many fly-sheets of this kind, combining dominical and traditional Old Testament materials, which seem to have been produced by the early church between 40 and 70. Yet in contrast with the synoptic apocalypses (but not Thessalonians), there is no attempt to fuse this material with predictions of the destruction of the temple or the fall of Jerusalem. This suggests that it is composed well before or well after these events. But, in notable distinction from the Epistle of Barnabas or the Jewish apocalypses of Baruch or II Esdras, there is no hint of any such event lying in the past. It seems much easier to see it as early rather that late. Indeed of the book in general I would agree with the assessment of J. A. Kleist:
              If we admit an early date of composition, all the evidence is in favour of it; if we insist on a late date, we have a mass of conjectures and hypotheses.
              In conclusion, I believe that we are here in a thoroughly primitive situation and though the Didache, as Audet says, was probably formed, like the gospels, over an extended period, I should be inclined to put it between 40 and 60 rather than between 50 and 70. For there is little or nothing of the signs of persecution or 'falling away', and with it the concern for consolidation in doctrine and structure, so characteristic of the 60s. If this is its period, then there are a number of features in the New Testament itself which cannot be argued, as they usually are, to demand a date in the latter part of the first century (if not later). Among these may be mentioned the instruction to baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and The Holy Spirit' (Matt. 28.19; cf. Did.. 7.1,3); the doxology of the Lord's prayer (Did. 8.2) later incorporated into Matthew (6.13, margin); the qualifications of bishops and deacons in the Pastorals (I Tim. 3.2-13; Titus 1.5-9); cf. Did. 15.1); the instructions about Christian hospitality in the Johannine epistles (II John 8-10; cf. Did. 11-12); the use of the term 'the Lord's day' (Rev. 1.10' cf. Did. 14.1); and perhaps the phrase 'the apostle and prophets' in Ephesians and Revelation (Eph. 2.20; 3-5; Rev. 18.20; cf. Did. 11.3). In general, if the Didache is really set before 60 the the placing of the whole of the New Testament before 70 may turn out not to be the wild hypothesis that at first it appeared.

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