DOCTRINE (διδασκαλία, διδαχή, basically meaning teaching, usually emphasizing the content of what is taught). These two words occur forty-eight times in the NT and are tr. “doctrine” in all but two instances in the KJV. The RSV and NEB more often tr. them “teaching” or “instruction.” There is no single OT word which means “doctrine,” but see תּﯴרָה, H9368, “law,” esp. in later Judaism; לָמַד, H4340, to “teach,” or “instruct” or “learn,” אֱמוּנָה, H575, “truth.”
In the Gr. world, teaching (esp. didaskalia) implied the communication of knowledge, either of an intellectual or technical nature. For the most part it had a clear intellectual character.
Among the Jews, esp. in the OT, teaching served not for the communication of religious truth, but rather to bring the one taught into direct confrontation with the divine will. What is taught are the commandments; what is expected is obedience. Thus Moses is taught what he should do (Exod 4:15), and he in turn teaches Israel the commandments (Deut 4:1, 5, et al.), which they likewise are to teach to their children (Deut 6:1, 6, 7, et al.). Therefore, although a “doctrine” of the unity of God or of divine election is presupposed in OT teaching, such teaching is not the communication of such “doctrines” but instruction in the divine will.
For the most part the NT use of didaskalia and didachē corresponds more to the OT idea than to the Gr. That is, teaching usually implies the content of ethical instruction and seldom the content of dogmas or the intellectual apprehension of truth. For example, in the Pastoral Epistles “sound doctrine” which is “in accordance with the glorious gospel” is contrasted with all kinds of immoral living (1 Tim 1:9-11; cf. 6:1, 3; Titus 1:9; 2:1-5, 9, 10). Also the later work entitled the Didachē, or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, is a manual of ethical instruction and church discipline with scarcely any theological content.
In the NT this usage is strengthened by the relationship of didachē to kerygma, or preaching. It was by means of the kerygma that men were brought to faith in Christ (1 Cor 1:21); and the content of that kerygma included the essential data of the Christian message: the life, work, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as God’s decisive act for man’s salvation (cf. Acts 2:14-36). Those who responded to the preaching would then be instructed in the ethical principles and obligations of the Christian life (2:42).
This relationship may be seen throughout the NT. Thus Jesus “preaches” the in-breaking of the kingdom of God (Matt 4:17; 11:28). Men are called to decision by His mighty words and deeds. But His teaching, which astonished the crowds for its authority, was replete with ethical demands (cf. the sixfold “you have heard that it was said...but I say to you” in Matt 5). So also Paul in his epistles often followed the kerygmatic content of his gospel with its ethical demands (Rom, Gal, Eph, Col). Such ethical demands were seen as the inevitable corollary of response to the kerygma.
One may note, therefore, that “doctrine” in contemporary parlance would derive more from the content of the kerygma than from the didachē in the NT.
However, since ethical instruction, or obedience to the divine will in the NT is so closely related to response to the preaching with its “doctrinal” content, it is not surprising that teaching itself eventually came to include the essential data of the faith. Thus “the elder” uses didachē to refer to the truth of the incarnation, belief in which, of course, should eventuate in love (2 John 9, 10).
This latter meaning of “teaching,” as including the essential beliefs of the Christian faith, ultimately prevailed in the Early Church and continues in vogue today by the tr. of “doctrine” for didachē and didaskalia.
Bibliography K. H. Rengstorff, διδάσκω, G1438, TDNT, II (1935), 135-165; C. H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments (1936); id. Gospel and Law (1951); D. M. Stanley, “Didache As a Constitutive Element of the Gospel-Form,” CBQ, XVII (1955), 216-228; J.-L. Leuba, “Teaching,” VB (Fr. orig. 1956), 414-416; J. J. Vincent, “Didactic Kerygma in the Synoptic Gospels,” SJT, X (1957), 262-273; E. F. Harrison, “Some Patterns of the New Testament Didache,” BS, CXIX (1961), 118-128; O. A. Piper, “Gospel (Message),” IDB (1962), II, 442-448; P. H. Menoud, “Preaching,” IDB (1962), III, 868, 869.