The Practice and Meaning of Baptism in the Jewish- Christian Communities of the First Century, Based Primarily on the Testimony of the Didache

Thanks to the Didache, which omits the death and resurrection of Jesus to focus instead on his teaching and the Two Ways, we gain a particular understanding of baptism in the name of Jesus. It is his teaching on the coming of the kingdom that gives meaning to the baptismal rite, rather than his personal destiny (that is, his death and resurrection). This places the text within a specific tradition that also includes the Q source, the Gospel of Thomas, and the pseudo-Clementine writings (especially the Homilies).