Index of Books Reviewed

Abstract

Author Title Reviewer Page Anderson, B. W. Contours of Old Testament Theology Samuel Hildebrandt 403 Bayer, O. A Contemporary in Dissent: Johann Georg Hamann as a Radical Enlightener Bradley M. Penner 403 Chilton, B., Le Donne, A., & Neusner, J. (eds) Soundings in the Religion of Jesus: Perspectives and Methods in Jewish and Christian Scholarship Michael F. Bird 404 Doole, J. A. What was Mark for Matthew? An Examination of Matthew’s Relationship and Attitude to his Primary Source Paul Foster 405 Georges, T., Albrecht, F., & Feldmeier, R. (eds), Kaden, M., & Martsch, C. (mitarb.) Alexandria Jane Heath 406 Gilmour, M. J. The Gospel According to Bob Dylan: The Old, Old Story for Modern Times Caroline Blyth 406 Elliott, J. K. New Testament Textual Criticism: The Application of Thoroughgoing Principles Juan Hernàndez Jr 407 Hillar, M. From Logos to Trinity: The Evolution of Religious Beliefs from Pythagoras to Tertullian Deborah Casewell 408 Horrell, D. G. Becoming Christian: Essays on 1 Peter and the Making of Christian Identity Paul Foster 409 Hovey, C. What Makes Us Moral? Science, Religion, and the shaping of the moral
landscape Mark Harris 410 Hupper, W. G. An Index to English Periodical Literature on the Old Testament and Near Eastern Studies Volume IX – Parts 1 & 2 H. G. M. Williamson 387 Joyce, P. M. & Lipton, D. Lamentations through the Centuries John Riches 383 Kaiser Jr, W. C. Recovering the Unity of the Bible: One Continuous Story, Plan and Purpose Jesse Nickel 410 Lamdin, K. Finding Your Leadership Style Aaron Janklow 411 Malcolm, M. R. Paul and the Rhetoric of Reversal in 1 Corinthians: The Impact of Paul’s Gospel on His Macro-Rhetoric Paul Foster 412 Martin, G. D. Multiple Originals: New Approaches to Hebrew Bible Textual Criticism Taylor Ince 413 Pardee, N. The Genre and Development of the Didache Alan Garrow 415

What’s the story of the Didache’s composition?

Nancy Pardee, The Genre and Development of the Didache (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012. €69,00. pp. xi + 231. ISBN: 978-3-16-148398-1).

This volume is a revised and expanded version of Pardee’s 2002 doctoral dissertation. It aims to recover the generic identity and composition history of the Didache by applying David Hellholm’s method of text-linguistic analysis. Pardee concludes, with respect to the text’s genre, that it belonged to the form ‘didache’ at first, but that later additions brought it into the genre ‘church order’. She identifies three main stages of development. First, a text designed to instruct Gentiles in the leading of a Christian life comprising: the long title; christianised Two Ways (1.1-5; 2.1-6.2); concluding eschatological warnings (16.1-8). Second, the insertion of instructions on Baptism ([6.3]; 7.1) and Eucharist (9.1-10.6; [10.7]); the whole being re-certified by the addition of 11.1-2. Third, developing ‘church order’ problems are addressed by additions that recognise the authority of [Matthew’s] ‘Gospel’ ([7.4-] 8.1-3; 10.7; 11.3-15.4). Some other verses are regarded as potentially beyond this chain of development, for example: 1.6, and 7.4b. A striking element of these results is the placement of the synoptic-like material within Did. 1 and 16 prior to the recognition of the ‘Gospel’. In consequence Pardee notes that this ‘puts the dating of such materials before the generally accepted dating of Matthew’ (p. 191).

The value of this study is linked with the value of Hellholm’s text-linguistic method. A short introductory example illustrating how this method works, and the results it is capable of achieving, would have been a useful addition. Confidence in its capacity to produce dispassionate results was undermined by the revelation that, unknown to Pardee at the time, Hellholm had applied his own method to the Didache in 1995. His results differ from Pardee’s to the extent that he sees the Didache as being completed in a single stage.

Pardee’s study addresses two questions that are critical to the successful study of the Didache. Her overall observation that the text was composed in multiple stages rings true, but the detailed analysis does not always carry conviction. For example, Pardee does not assign the marker ‘peri de’, which opens sections on Baptism (7.1), Eucharist (9.1) and apostles (11.3), to a single developmental strata. This is not only curious from a text-linguistic point of view, it also places in a post-Matthean setting material that otherwise appears to reflect a very early circumstance – the sending and receiving of ‘apostles’ who are apparently not members of ‘the twelve’.

Is there is a method that can be applied to the Didache to solve the vexed question of its composition (and genre) history? If so, then its success will be revealed in the coherence and credibility of the story that it tells. While Pardee makes several important contributions to teasing out that narrative, not least in her analysis of the long title of the text, the overarching story that she constructs does not yet resolve all the curiosities of this intriguing puzzle.

ALAN GARROW

Bath Abbey