10/19/18
Milavec, Aaron. The Didache: Faith, Hope, & Life of the Earliest Christian Communities, 50-70 C.E. New York: The Newman Press, 2003.
I’ve been doing some research reading as I begin work on a Ph.D. Yes, I need another college degree about as much as I need another hole in my head. But there you have it.
My Friday posts, for a good while, I expect, will be based on notes that I’ve pulled from resources used to study the Didache, an early Christian document which I would date in the early part of the second half of the first century. We have numerous references to it in antiquity, but it was considered lost for a very long time. In the 1870s one manuscript was discovered. Since that time, scholars have been busy studying this little document, which takes just a few pages and can be read in under a half hour.
Please remember that I will not necessarily agree with the views of the authors I report on, but I will try to report them accurately.
Milavec, Aaron. The Didache: Faith, Hope, & Life of the Earliest Christian Communities, 50-70 C.E. New York: The Newman Press, 2003.
In his Preface (Milavec 2003, vii) Milavec identifies the Didache as representing “the preserved oral tradition.” It is focused on catechesis of gentiles. The goal is full participation in house churches. Milavec’s view is that the text served as a “pastoral manual” in the time prior to the writing of the canonical Gospels. The document speaks to the adaptation Jewish Christians were making to welcome Gentile converts. “In fact, the Didache was created at the time of Paul’s mission to the gentiles but shows not the slightest awareness of this mission or of the theology that undergirded it” (Milavec 2003, vii).
Milavec, noting the anonymous nature of the document, also finds signs of orality. He asserts authorship via oral tradition. “[O]ne can be quite certain that it was originally composed orally and that it circulated on the lips of the members of this community for a good many years before any occasion arose that called for a scribe to prepare a textual version” (Milavec 2003, vii).
Milavec finds the house church as the context for the Didache. Referring to Crosson, he sees the Didahe as an adaptation of the Christian community by householders for the needs of family and home (Milavec 2003, ix). He sees the context as somehow substantively distinct from that of the testimony of the apostolic community in Jerusalem or the churches nurtured and addressed by Paul.
Milavec speaks in his preface of his view of Scripture. He seems to embrace texts beyond the New Testaent as authentic and, therefore, authoritative. His pemise, as stated, is that “Christians have come to regard the books of the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) as including all the authentic writings produced by the Jesus movement during the first century” (Milavec 2003, ix). He goes on to identify the Gospel of Thomas, the Q Gospel, and Didache, though he omits to mention 1 Clement. It is unclear whether Milavec actually considers the non-canonical documnts as authoritative or simply as authentic and illustrative.
Milavec, Aaron. The Didache: Faith, Hope, & Life of the Earliest Christian Communities, 50-70 C.E. New York: The Newman Press, 2003.
I’ve been doing some research reading as I begin work on a Ph.D. Yes, I need another college degree about as much as I need another hole in my head. But there you have it.
My Friday posts, for a good while, I expect, will be based on notes that I’ve pulled from resources used to study the Didache, an early Christian document which I would date in the early part of the second half of the first century. We have numerous references to it in antiquity, but it was considered lost for a very long time. In the 1870s one manuscript was discovered. Since that time, scholars have been busy studying this little document, which takes just a few pages and can be read in under a half hour.
Please remember that I will not necessarily agree with the views of the authors I report on, but I will try to report them accurately.
Milavec, Aaron. The Didache: Faith, Hope, & Life of the Earliest Christian Communities, 50-70 C.E. New York: The Newman Press, 2003.
In his Preface (Milavec 2003, vii) Milavec identifies the Didache as representing “the preserved oral tradition.” It is focused on catechesis of gentiles. The goal is full participation in house churches. Milavec’s view is that the text served as a “pastoral manual” in the time prior to the writing of the canonical Gospels. The document speaks to the adaptation Jewish Christians were making to welcome Gentile converts. “In fact, the Didache was created at the time of Paul’s mission to the gentiles but shows not the slightest awareness of this mission or of the theology that undergirded it” (Milavec 2003, vii).
Milavec, noting the anonymous nature of the document, also finds signs of orality. He asserts authorship via oral tradition. “[O]ne can be quite certain that it was originally composed orally and that it circulated on the lips of the members of this community for a good many years before any occasion arose that called for a scribe to prepare a textual version” (Milavec 2003, vii).
Milavec finds the house church as the context for the Didache. Referring to Crosson, he sees the Didahe as an adaptation of the Christian community by householders for the needs of family and home (Milavec 2003, ix). He sees the context as somehow substantively distinct from that of the testimony of the apostolic community in Jerusalem or the churches nurtured and addressed by Paul.
Milavec speaks in his preface of his view of Scripture. He seems to embrace texts beyond the New Testaent as authentic and, therefore, authoritative. His pemise, as stated, is that “Christians have come to regard the books of the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) as including all the authentic writings produced by the Jesus movement during the first century” (Milavec 2003, ix). He goes on to identify the Gospel of Thomas, the Q Gospel, and Didache, though he omits to mention 1 Clement. It is unclear whether Milavec actually considers the non-canonical documnts as authoritative or simply as authentic and illustrative.
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