Short one for now: Philip Jenkins shows where to find lost text. Namely, embedded in other text, as the Didache is embedded in the Apostolic Constitutions, Jude in 2 Peter, and Aristides in the Life of Barlaam and Ioasaph. This blog has occasionally delved into Archaic Hebrew works in late Classical stuff like Habakkuk. Or maybe 2 Isaiah in the 1QIsaa. Or all this stuff.
One fascinating thought is the ancient Christian liturgy. Paul in 1 Corinthians famously cites a formula of the Last Supper. Why would the Last Supper matter? Perhaps because every Christian was already reënacting some sort of postJudaic Messianic-Banquet. In fact the younger Pliny must report on a weekly ritual meal from Bithynia. The war of the Diaspora (mostly Cyprus and Cyrene) was approaching but Pliny's Christians were gentiles so wouldn't be affected. Elsewhere Barnabas 1:9 speaks of an altar; Hebrews 13:10 elaborates that all lay Christians may find food there.
That liturgy was certainly the same as Ignatius was recommending at around that time; or the Didache 9. Note, as with John none of the above require a Last Supper.
But as Paul embeds some rituals of the, what, AD 50s; so other texts were embedding other rituals. Occasionally a gnostic text will involve people banding together to make some weird chant in a weird direction. Like the Acts of John section C chapter 94 - not just a hymn of Jesus, but stage-direction.
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