“The Teaching of These Words”: Intertextuality, Social Identity, and Early Christianity

Jonathan A. Draper, Ph.D. (1984), Cambridge, is Professor Emeritus, University of Natal. He has published widely on topics in the New Testament and early Christianity as well as on subjects for the contemporary church. He is currently writing a new commentary on the Didache. Nancy D. Pardee, Ph.D. (2002), University of Chicago, is administrator for the Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies, University of Chicago. She has publications in biblical and early Christian studies, including The Genre and Development of the “Didache” (Mohr Siebeck, 2012). Shawn J. Wilhite, Ph.D. (2023) Durham University, is Associate Professor of New Testament at California Baptist University. He has published monographs and articles in the field of Early Christianity and Patristics, including The Didache: A Commentary (Cascade, 2019).

Clayton N. Jefford: A Brief Biography


 Susan Sanders Jefford





Abbreviations





Introduction


 Shawn J. Wilhite





1 Diverse and Contrasting Values of Priesthood in Second-Century Christian Texts


 Joseph G. Mueller, S.J.





2 The Social Identity of the Travelers between the Early Communities of Jesus-Followers


 Thomas O’Loughlin





3 Ritual Practice and Identity Formation in Early Christianity


 Jonathan Schwiebert





4 “An Image in Place of an Image”: the Search for Meaning and the Formation of Identity


 Stephen J. Patterson





5 Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and the Catechesis of Gentiles in the Didache


 Jonathan A. Draper





6 Salvation by One Step or Two? The Didache, Acts and the Background to Galatians


 Alan Garrow





7 The “Yoke of the Lord” and the Community of the Didache, The Debate Continues


 Nancy D. Pardee





8 “You Must Love Those Who Hate You”: Social Oppression and the Sectio evangelica in the Didache’s Two Ways


 Shawn J. Wilhite





9 Reading Community: Election, Salvation History, and Christian Identity in 1 Clement


 Stephen O. Presley





10 Abraham’s 318 Circumcised Men and the Figure of Eliezer (Lazarus) in Barnabas 9.8


 Clare K. Rothschild





11 Ritual Practice and Social Formation in Mark and Ignatius of Antioch


 Charles A. Bobertz





12 Christian Identity through a Threefold Declaration in the Martyrdom of Polycarp


 Paul Anthony Hartog





13 Apocalyptic and Social Identity in the Second Century: Irenaeus’s Reading of John’s Apocalypse


 D. Jeffrey Bingham





Clayton N. Jefford’s Academic Publications and Contributions


Index