The Didache and the Parting of the Ways

Doering, Lutz

Zusammenfassung

The article briefly reviews some aspects of the literary structure and source-critical questions of the Didache, comments on its genre, and discusses in detail the two selected topics of fasting and prayer in Did. 8.1–3, with a view to what the Didache might contribute to the issue of the so-called “Parting of the Ways”. It is argued that the Didache, directed at a Christ-believing group composed of both Jews and gentiles, attempts to establish boundaries vis-à-vis a specific group of Jews polemically called “hypocrites” which bears some relation with pre-70 CE Pharisees, and that this conversely shows that “the ways” between the Didache group “and Judaism” have not fully parted.