The Gospel of Matthew's Dependence of Didache (Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series)

Rating:
Summary: A pioneering and much-needed investigation
Review: Dr. Garrow argues that nearly all Didache scholars have been examining if/how the Didache depended upon Matthew's Gospel, but no one has seriously entertained the prospect that the dependence is the other way around. As a doctoral student at Oxford, G. undertook this study under the supervision of C.M. Tuckett who, with "unfailing fairness" (p. x) directed a thesis with which "he almost entirely disagrees" (p. x).

Garrow writes with exceptional clarity and precision of thought. At every point, he is a joy to read, and his periodic summaries and charts keep even the most distracted reader on target. Chapters 2 to 4 (in Part I) are of special importance since they supply, even apart from the rest of his study, a lucid introduction, assessable to non-specialists, that reveals the knotty problems of the compositional unity and interpretative integrity that plague Didache studies.

Garrow's book is divided into two large sections followed by a brief conclusion. In Part I, G. painstakingly reconstructs five stages in the compositional history of the Didache. G. argues that Matthew knew only the first three redactional layers of the Didache. By no means, moreover, did Matthew find in his version the four appeals to the "gospel" (euagellion) found in the 1873 Bryennios ms. As G. interprets them, these additions (introduced at stage four) acted as a "redactor's attempt to subordinate the Didache to the superior authority of Matthew's Gospel" (p. 136). The Didache that helped create Matthew's Gospel thus suffered the fate of becoming subordinated to that Gospel.

Part II forms the substance of G.'s study and can be read independently of Part I. Herein G. isolates twenty-six points of contact wherein Matthew introduces "Teaching of the Lord" found in the Didache into his redaction of Mark's Gospel. In examining each point of contact, G. wisely notes that no single instance of parallel texts can definitively decide who borrowed from whom. Yet, when the cumulative evidence is in, G. endeavors to persuade his readers that, in twenty-two instances, the weight of the evidence points in the direction of Matthew citing the Didache version known to him rather than the converse. In the end, G. arrives at the conclusion that "the only credible explanation . . . is Matthew's direct dependence on those elements of the Didache that pre-date the interpolation of the four appeals to [the] external authority of `the gospel'" (p. 251).

For those familiar with how ancient societies gave precedence to authoritative oral recitations, G.'s model of literary composition will appear as too bookish and anachronistic. On the other hand, even champions of redaction criticism may find fault with G. To begin with, some may complain that Part I is largely tangential to his overall argument. G., speaking for himself, allows that these chapters are propaedeutic and that his thesis neither stands nor falls on the basis of his five-stage compositional history. Others, more importantly, may find fault with G.'s one-sided emphasis upon points of contact whereas little or no weight is given to what Matthew failed to borrow, especially in those instances where common concerns are addressed. For example, one might legitimately ask why Matthew ignored the order and most of the content of Did. 1-5 in his summary of Jesus' teaching (Matt 5-7). Overall, however, I suspect that most champions of redaction criticism will find themselves uneasy with G.'s use of metaphors (pp. 244-247) to dismiss the possibility that the Didache and Matthew might have independently drawn from a tradition of sayings (that might well have been passed down orally).

I, for one, have gone on record in arguing that the Didache predates the written Gospels ("Synoptic Tradition in the Didache Revisited," JECS 11/4:445-448 & The Didache: Faith, Hope, and Life of the Earliest Christian Communities, 50-70 C.E. [New York: Paulist Press, 2003] 695-698). Nonetheless, G.'s arguments did not convince me. The enduring value of G.'s study is that he has supplied Didache scholars with a pioneering and much-needed investigation. G. effectively calls into question all the present literature calculated to demonstrate the dependence of the Didache upon Matthew's Gospel. For this reason alone, it will have to be taken into account.

Aaron Milavec, Professor Emeritus, Piqua, OH 45356 ([e-mail], www.didache.info)