First Christian Document?

Here's the link to the "listen again" of the programme about The Didache and featuring Alan Garrow:

The First Christian Document?

There's been a little discussion of this on Xtalk. I've had a chance to listen to it myself this morning. It's a useful introduction to The Didache for those unfamiliar with the work and it reflects on the possible importance of the work in early Christianity. The title is not accurate, though, since the programme has little on the claim that was flagged up here and in the advertising material to the effect that The Didache provides us with the document to which reference is made in Acts 15. For that, I think we will have to await Garrow's further work on the document, which is sketched on his Didache Cube, but on which Garrow himself is not yet convinced ("The parallels between the Didache's base layer and the Apostolic Decree are striking in several important respects. Further work is required before a link between the two may be described as firmly established.").

The documentary was very much Garrow's vehicle. Other than the presenter, Roger Bolton, the only other person to feature was Ruth Fleischer and a Messianic Jewish community. So it was in the David Starky tradition of documentaries in which only the one voice is heard, a little disappointing given the brief mention at the end of the programme that "many" do not accept the early dating of the work. But still, good to hear the BBC taking interesting materials like The Didache seriously and if Garrow himself took the inititiative on getting their interest, good for him.