First Report of the Resurrection

Timeline of Paul’s Life as we know it from the Crucifixion to his death in Rome.  Dates are probably plus or minus one year.  Some scholars believe he died earlier and did not actually write some of the later letters.  I see no reason to doubt their authenticity.  Even so, there is general agreement that First Corinthians was written 54-56AD.

¹ Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, ² and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. ³ For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
⁸ Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. ⁹ For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.  1 Corinthians 15:1-9 (ESV)

Corinth was one of the largest cities in the Roman empire. The believers were struggling and Paul wrote I Corinthians to deal with the issues. His letters were normally sent with a representative who delivered them to the church to be read in a public meeting of believers. The believers would not have had a church building, but probably met in the home of one of the wealthiest of their number. Imagine the scene.  One of Paul’s team arrives in Corinth and the church spread the word that Paul has sent a letter to be read to the church.  Then Paul’s representative, someone such as Titus, gets up and reads the letter to the church.  Paul has been blunt in parts and some people do not like it. Everyone is challenged. The letter, then in what we know as Chapter 15 draws together key points that the church can unite behind. He starts this portion with the key points that they have learned since the beginning. The church was divided by those who were drawn to different leaders. Paul reached back for the very foundation of their body.  He reminded them of the basic beliefs that defined Christianity. He reviewed the basic teaching about Christ’s resurrection. This report shows us much about the earliest church. How important is it to hold to the historicity of the resurrection? Paul went on to claim that if Christ has not been raised and then the Christian faith is in vain. Nothing is more pivotal to the faith than the reality of Jesus’ return from the grave.

¹² Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³ But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. ¹⁵ We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. ¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. ¹⁹ If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. 

²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.    1 Corinthians 15:12-20 (ESV) 

When Paul wrote to the Corinthians to give them an anchor for their faith, he didn’t just eloquently expound a new vision of what Jesus meant. He took them back to the earliest recognized message that Christians developed to express their belief. He reported directly an early creed, the faithful oral tradition that the earliest church developed about Jesus and his resurrection. 

 Scholar, Kirk MacGregor reports it this way:

Form criticism has established that within 1 Cor 15:3–7 Paul quotes a primitive Christian creed originally formulated during the earliest years of the Jesus movement. Although scholars differ concerning its precise length, there has emerged a consensus that at least verses 3b–5 belong to the ancient tradition based on the following linguistic data. First, Paul prefaces the creed by reminding the Corinthians, “For I delivered (parevdwka) to you as of first importance what I also received (parevlabon)” (v. 3a), where parevdwka and parevlabon are technical terms used by Jewish rabbis for the transmission of sacred tradition. Therefore, Paul admits that the creed is not his own, but that he received it from an earlier source who handed it down to him. Second, several words in the creed are found almost nowhere else in Paul’s writings, which indicates that Paul is quoting an earlier source. Such non-Pauline phrases include uÒpe;r t!n aÒmarti!n hJm!n (“for our sins”), kata; ta;Í grafavÍ (“according to the Scriptures”), ejghvgertai (“he has been raised”), t¬Å hJmevrç t¬Å trÇt¬ (“on the third day”), wßfqh (“he was seen”), and to”Í d#deka (“by the Twelve”). Finally, there are indications that the creed has a Semitic source, including the use of the transliterated Aramaic KhfçÅ (“Cephas”) for Peter, the threefold kaì o§ti (“and that”) characteristic of Aramaic and Mishnaic Hebrew narration, and the faithfulness to the Hebrew Bible reflected in the qualification of both Jesus’ death and resurrection with the parallel kata; ta;Í grafavÍ.

 

Concerning the date of the creed, virtually all critical scholars agree that Paul received the tradition no later than five years after the crucifixion, with a majority holding that the material was passed on to him when he visited Jerusalem three years after his conversion (Gal 1:18–19), and a minority maintaining that the material was conveyed to him in Damascus via the community in Antioch immediately upon his conversion. The former group points to Paul’s description of his visit with Peter and James by the participle ¥storh`sai (Gal 1:18), which literally means “to visit and get information” and refers to an investigative mission where he carefully examined these apostles to discover facts.

 (Greek font doesn’t really work in this program)

Here on Paul’s timeline, I have added in the red callouts the points where Paul recorded the oral tradition and the latest likely point where he received the tradition from the early church.  As MacGregor notes, a minority contend that he received it in Damascus when he met with early believers there in ~34 AD.  The range of 32-38AD is sometime given for when Paul received the creed.

 ,The upper panel of this timeline shows Julius Caesar’s assassination and when it was documented in written documents that we have today.  The lower panel shows documentation of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  

How do we know what happened to Julius Caesar?  All that we know basically comes from 3 sources.

1. The oldest account was written by Nicolaus of Damascus in 14 AD, 58 years after the event.  Nicolaus was Jewish with interesting connections.  He was a bookkeeper under the Jewish King Herod. He was also the tutor of the children of Mark Antony and Cleopatra (born in c.68 BC), according to Sophronius. He had the connections to give him access to information about Caesar’s death. His account is a part of his book, “Life of Augustus”.  Most of the book is lost in history but as Wikipedia reports, “two long chunks remain, the first concerning Octavius’ youth, the second Caesar’s assassination.”  His book was originally written for Octavius and was, of course, somewhat politically biased.

2. Next, Plutarch described the assassination in his book “Parallel Lives” written about 50 years later.  Plutarch was a philosopher and priest.  This is an interesting quote on his sources: “The biographies are, then, after an initial examination of the formative years and education of the subject, a series of entertaining anecdotes and incidents which Plutarch believed illustrated the person’s character, their virtues and their vices. This approach has, of course, frustrated later historians as Plutarch’s information could be variously based on fact, personal experience, hearsay, or just plain old gossip.” https://www.ancient.eu/plutarch/  Shakespeare is reported to have used Plutarch’s account.  

3. The last early account was in ~121 AD by Suetonius in his book, the “Twelve Caesars”.  He was in a good position to have access to good official information as he was the personal secretary of the Caesar Hadrian.  Here is a quote about his writing: “Although Suetonius takes care to try and use direct quotes and sayings the emperors were known to have used, and he does use written sources whenever possible; he does, at times, present a rather haphazard series of observations, even compared to ancient historians such as Plutarch and Tacitus. Nevertheless, Suetonius was not intending to write a comprehensive history of these great men but rather provide an insight into their strengths and frailties. He also refrains from inserting his own moralising judgments, something both earlier and contemporary writers could not resist doing. In addition, in many instances Suetonius is our only source of information, and so his writings have become as valuable as they are entertaining.” https://www.ancient.eu/Suetonius/ 

Let’s look at the reports of Jesus death and resurrection.  The gospels were all written within 70 years of the event by even most skeptic scholars.  I have argued that Luke was written about 30 years later and Mark about 25 years later.  Then we consider the creed in I Corinthians 15 that probably originates within 3-5 years of the first Easter.  There are even non-Christian reports that reference the crucifixion such as Josephus, Tactitus, and Suetonius (in the same book that documents Julius Caesar’s assassination.

In this figure, the scale is not years BC / AD, but in years after the event.  This shows how sharp the difference is more clearly.   This shows that the basic records of Jesus life, death and resurrection from the New Testament all were written closer to the event than the 1st account of Julius Caesar’s death.  Paul received the creed about the resurrection so close that ancient accounts have nothing to compare to.

There are no originals of the New Testament books either.  However, the copies that we have are dramatically closer to the time they were written.  Manuscripts of all of the books come from within 100 years of the original. Complete manuscripts are available from the 3rd century.  It also happens that our understanding of the text of the Roman documents is based on a few manuscripts that were copied many times.  There are 5800 ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament and several key early translations into other languages.  Less than 10% of the text in uncertain at all and no important doctrines are impacted at all.