Though it has been well over forty-five years, I still remember attending church on Easter Sunday with my father, mother, and three brothers. As we made our way out of the parking lot, through the courtyard, and into the sanctuary, people would greet one another by saying, “He is risen!” The person greeted would then respond, “He is risen indeed!” This Easter Sunday tradition of our church highlighted a critical component of the gospel, that three days after His crucifixion, Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
In a letter to the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul likewise underscored the essential nature of the resurrection to the gospel of grace. In 1 Corinthians 15:13-14, Paul writes: “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.”[1] The resurrection of Jesus Christ is so central to the Christian message, that if it did not actually take place, our faith is worthless.
There are many strands of evidence that point to the historical truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Some examples include the empty tomb, the transformed lives of the early Christians, the testimony of even Jesus’ enemies, and numerous eyewitnesses to the appearances of the risen Christ. One such line of evidence is found in the oral traditions of the early Christian church.
During the early days of the Christian church, communications technology was not what it is today. We often take for granted how effortless it is to scan a document and then email that information to an almost unlimited number of people. In the first-century however, such an option to rapidly produce and disperse written materials was non-existent. Copies of documents were made by hand, one at a time, and those that were produced were further hampered by the high rate of illiteracy in the population. It has been estimated that less than 10 percent of people in the Greco-Roman culture could read and write.[2] In the early first-century the Christian church primarily relied on oral tradition to communicate their message of Jesus Christ and His gospel to the world around them.
What is Oral Tradition?
Oral tradition can be defined as “carefully constructed creeds, hymns, story summaries, and poetry”[3] that were utilized by church leaders to teach about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in a straightforward way that was simple to understand and easy to remember. Our English word creed is derived from the Latin credo, which means, “I believe,” so a creed was essentially a summary of what the church believed.[4] Whether through creeds, hymns, story summaries or poetry, oral tradition was a useful method of accurately preserving and communicating the core beliefs of the early Christians.
Scholars have discovered numerous examples where these oral traditions of the first Christians found their way into the pages of the New Testament. This is critically important, because the oral traditions recorded in the New Testament had to exist prior to the New Testament being written. In other words, oral tradition “takes us back to some of the earliest teachings of the Christian church, teachings that predate the writings of the New Testament.”[5]
Oral tradition can serve a valuable role in demonstrating the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. A basic principle of historical research is that “early testimony supports historical claims. The closer the time between the event and testimony about it, the more reliable the witness, since there is less time for exaggeration, and even legend, to creep into the account.”[6] For the person seeking to reconstruct what happened some 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem, oral tradition can provide some of the earliest and therefore most reliable eyewitness testimony.
Oral Tradition in First Corinthians 15:3-5
One specific instance of oral tradition is found in Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians. Most biblical historians believe these verses represent the inclusion of an early creed that contains the fundamental heart of the gospel. “Essentially all critical scholars today agree that in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, Paul records an ancient oral tradition that summarizes the content of the Christian gospel. Jesus the Christ died for human sin, was buried and raised from the dead, afterwards appearing to both individuals as well as groups of witnesses.”[7] This all-important creed, which Paul reminds the Corinthians of, is believed to have been circulating among the church within less than five years of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial.
“This is the kind of foundation-story with which a community is not at liberty to tamper. It was probably formulated within the first two or three years after Easter itself, since it was already in formulaic form when Paul ‘received’ it. . . . What counts is that the heart of the formula is something Paul knows the Corinthians will have heard from everyone else as well as himself, and that he can appeal to it as unalterable Christian bedrock.”[8]
As such, this passage is one of the earliest and therefore most significant evidences in making a defense of Jesus’ resurrection. Licona observes that 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 is “perhaps the most important and valuable passage for use by historians when discussing the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus.”[9]
Let’s look at the passage in question. The section of Scripture has been expanded to capture the immediate surrounding context of 1 Corinthians 15:3-5. The verses quoted are 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, with verses 3 through 5 in bold type:
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you— unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” (1 Corinthians 15:1-8)
As Habermas noted above, “essentially all critical scholars today agree that . . . Paul records an ancient oral tradition . . .” in this passage.[10] First of all, by introducing the creed with the phrase, “I delivered to you . . . what I also received,” Paul is signaling two things; that he had shared this with the Corinthians on a prior visit, and that he is about to pass on core Christian truth that had previously been provided to him. The grammatical structure of the passage also shows the transference of oral tradition, including the use of parallelism, the two uses of “in accordance with the Scriptures,” and the thrice repeated “that.”[11] Even the atheist scholar Gerd Lüdemann recognizes this creedal formula: “. . . we can assume that what I just quoted to you (1 Corinthians 15:3-5) goes back to very early tradition. The observation that led me to the hypothesis that we have a two-line creedal formula was that the second part of every line, ‘according to the Scriptures,’ is very astonishing.”[12]
In addition to the grammatical considerations, “in accordance with the Scriptures” is a term Paul never utilizes outside of 1 Corinthians. The most common phrase Paul uses when quoting the Old Testament is “It is written.” This points to the creed being non-Pauline in origin.[13] And though the title of “the twelve” often turns up in the gospels, this is the only place it appears in all of Paul’s writings.[14]
Taken together, these considerations make the case that Paul did not compose the creed he presents in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, but rather that he quotes an oral tradition that finds its source in the first few years following Jesus’ crucifixion. Of course this raises an obvious question. If Paul did not compose this creed, at what time and from whom did he receive it?
Where did Paul get this Oral Tradition?
Among critical scholars, the prevailing view is that Paul was first taught this creed when he visited Jerusalem just three years after his conversion on the road to Damascus.[15] In his letter to the Galatians, Paul records that while he was in Jerusalem he met with Peter and James. “Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas (Peter) and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother” (Galatians 1:18-19). It is worth noting that in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul lists both Peter (verse 5) and James (verse 7) as being among those to whom Jesus appeared following His resurrection. In Galatians 2:1-10, Paul describes a second trip to Jerusalem some fourteen years later, when he met with Peter, James and the apostle John (also listed as a witness of the risen Jesus), in order to confirm the accuracy of the gospel he was preaching. Each of these two visits underline the fact that the core gospel message Paul reports in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 was not only approved by the leadership of the early Christian church (Paul refers to them as “pillars” in Galatians 2:9), but most likely had its foundations in the eye-witness accounts of the apostles themselves.
Some scholars have suggested an even earlier date for Paul’s reception of this creed. “Paul probably received this confessional statement . . . years earlier at his baptism in Damascus and later handed it over to the Corinthians when he established the church there. . . . This statement may be the earliest formulation of NT Christianity, predating Paul’s earliest letters by 15 years.”[16] Although we cannot know with absolute certainty exactly when and where Paul was given this creed, the majority “of the critical scholars who date these events conclude that Paul received this material within just a few years after Jesus’ death, in the early or mid 30s.”[17]
He Is Risen Indeed!
It is difficult to overstate the significance of the oral tradition Paul records in 1 Corinthians 15, and the critical evidential role it plays in defending the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through the words of this creed we can listen in on an oral tradition that was formulated by the leaders of the Christian church in order to accurately communicate and preserve the core truths of the gospel.
While Paul did not compose this creed, but rather received it from eyewitnesses of the risen Christ, it likewise follows that he did not devise the content of this creed either. The core truth of the gospel, that Jesus Christ was crucified for our sin, was buried, and on the third day rose from the dead, is not a later invention of the apostle Paul.
As stated earlier, a basic principle of historical research is that “early testimony supports historical claims. The closer the time between the event and testimony about it, the more reliable the witness, since there is less time for exaggeration, and even legend, to creep into the account.”[18] Paul’s accounting of this early Christian creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 presents strong evidence that the gospel was being proclaimed within 1 to 5 years of the actual crucifixion. And as such, it provides a direct link to the historically reliable eyewitness testimony of the first disciples, men and women who actually saw the risen Christ.
[2]Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2010), 220.
[3]Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2004), 52.
[4]Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims On the Way (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 215.
[5]Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 52.
[6]Ibid., 39.
[7]Gary R. Habermas, “The Case for Christ’s Resurrection,” in To Everyone An Answer: A Case for the Christian Worldview, ed. Francis J. Beckwith, William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2004), 182.
[8]Nicholas Thomas Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 319.
[9]Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach, 223.
[10]Gary R. Habermas, “The Case for Christ’s Resurrection,” in To Everyone An Answer: A Case for the Christian Worldview, 182.
[11]Ibid., 183.
[12]Gerd Lüdemann, “First Rebuttal” in Jesus’ Resurrection: Fact or Figment?: A Debate Between William Lane Craig and Gerd Lüdemann, ed. Paul Copan and Ronald K. Tacelli (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2000), 52-53.
[13]Kenneth E. Bailey, Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes: Cultural Studies in 1 Corinthians (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2011), 431.
[14]Ibid.
[15]Gary R. Habermas, “The Case for Christ’s Resurrection,” in To Everyone An Answer: A Case for the Christian Worldview, 183.
[16] Paul W. Barnett, “1 Corinthians,” in The Apologetics Study Bible, ed. Ted Cabal (Nashville: Holman, 2007), 1730.
[17]Gary R. Habermas, “The Case for Christ’s Resurrection,” in To Everyone An Answer: A Case for the Christian Worldview, 184.
