From: Kenneth Litwak (kenneth@sybase.com)
Date: Sun Jan 14 1996 - 20:03:54 EST
> >I suspect that the Didache is a Christianization of the Damascus Documents
> >found in Cairo and amonst the Dead Sea Scrolls. Those interested may wish to
> >look into this. Perhaps it will offer some insight to language usage within
> >it.
>
Well, I don't know about the Dasmascus Document-Didache connection,
ubt I do think the Greek of the Didache is interesting. In working
throught he first five chapters, I've noticed a huge number of words
which either do not occur in the NT or do not occur in secular Greek or
both. There are somepalces where the only other known occurence is in
the Apostolic Constitutions, quoting the Didache! Furthermore, while
I generlaly think the Didache in this portion at least says lots of
right-on stuff (except for the bit about bringing a gift for the ransom
of your sins), for the most part it does not seem in these chapters to
be distinctly Christian particularly. It talks about virtues and vices,
but does not root them, as Paul or Peter or James do in their writings,
with who believers are in Christ very much. Paul seems unable to write
very many lines without mentioning Christ or Christ Jesus, etc. The
Didache shows no such tendency. ALso, I've noticed what seems to me to
be a trend of omitting the definite article with a clearly substantive
participle. I don't think, though I don't have statistics for it, that
this is a common NT Greek practice. So it seems to me that even though
the Didache in this section at least quotes the Sermon on the MOunt
(wihtout saying so), overall it does not seem that the author was
interested in imitating NT style, vocabulary or syntax.
Then again, I found the small amount of translation I've done this
last weekend in the Martyrdom of Polycarp to not seem much like NT Greek
either. In fact, MP is some of the hardest Greek I've ever worked on,
Hebrews included.
Ken Litwak
GTU
Bezerkley, CA
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