This Christian Text Predates Much Of The New Testament

So why isn’t it in the Bible?

(By Unknown artist — This photograph was taken with an Olympus E-M1, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=110013900)

The Didache, or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, is a concise Christian text that serves as a manual for early communal life and worship. It provides guidance on living according to “The Way of Life,” contrasting it with “The Way of Death,” and outlines practices such as baptism, fasting, prayer, and the Eucharist. In this, it is one of the first texts to codify such pillars of Christian life into a dedicated document. The text also offers advice on discerning true teachers, prophets, and leaders, emphasizing community ethics, generosity, and vigilance against false doctrine. For these reasons it is considered to be the first and oldest of the so-called Church Orders literature.

The Didache is one of the earliest independent Christian texts not to be included in the Bible. The exact date of composition is unknown, but most scholars place the date between 50 CE and 90 CE. If the earliest dates are accepted, it would make the Didache one of the earliest Christian texts that still exists today. It would also make it considerably older than specific chunks of the New Testament, including some of the Pauline texts and the book of Revelation.

Considering that age was a determining factor in deciding which books were considered canon scripture, it seems…