'Didaché' is Greek for 'Teaching.' This short title also stands for a truly amazing text with a longer name: 'The Teaching of the Lord, by the Twelve Apostles, to Gentiles.'

In other words, the Didaché is the authentic ‘Gospel’ for Gentiles--as opposed to both the Gospel that the Lord proclaimed only to Israel, and the pseudo-gospel that was dispense to Gentiles by false apostles (Rev. 2.2).

Shown at right is the Jerusalem manuscript (named for where it resides). This is one of several copies and fragments which turned up since 1873, when this was found rather miraculously at Constantinople. This one dates to about 1054; others from Egypt come from the first few centuries A.D.

And now the all-important question: Is this truly, as its title states, the foundational doctrine of the Church, in the mid-1st century?

Scholars' views are still evolving, but the recent trend is clearly to an ever-earlier dating. That assessment is hard to avoid. A growing number of scholars have come out and conceded that the Didache is indeed apostolic in origin. More to follow!

Resistance to an early dating would be natural, for if the Didaché is proven to be so early, the implications are monumental. An authenticated Didaché will undermine and embarrasses certain vast infrastructures. Long-cherished precepts and wrong assumptions will swept away, and portions of the canon are will unravel.

My own discovery of the Didaché began in 1999. At first, like most who stumble upon this under-publicized texts, I did not grasp its significance. But the Lord Himself eventually gave me a dream affirming it, in Oct. 2007; the following morning He directed me to scriptural proof of the Didaché’s early origins, after having shown me the nature of its opponents, its suppression by them, and its role in His unfolding of events. Much more evidence has poured forth since.

May God guide you and lead all who seek His Way. Amen!

--David Engle