The early date of the formula

Sources

• dating discussion, with the scholars who hold it (opens in a new tab)

  dating discussion, with the scholars who hold it, at

Objections & responses

Dating the creed to within a few years of the crucifixion is an apologist’s inference. All we actually know is that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians in the 50s.

The exact window is inferred from Paul’s travels, not read off a dated document, and it is fair to say so. But the inference is not special pleading. Paul says he received tradition, that he visited Peter and James in Jerusalem about three years after his conversion, and that his gospel matched what the Jerusalem apostles preached. With a conversion around AD 33 to 36, that places the tradition in the mid 30s, which is why skeptical scholars such as Lüdemann and James Crossley date its core to within a few years of the events. Even a generous margin of a decade leaves no room for a legend to grow.

The creed only lists appearances and says nothing about an empty tomb. Couldn’t the earliest tradition have been about visions rather than a physical resurrection?

The creed’s sequence is died, buried, raised. To a first-century Jew that sequence meant that what was buried is what was raised, which is a body, not a vision; there was no other meaning of resurrection available. Paul’s argument later in the same chapter about what kind of body is raised only makes sense if he believed the tomb was empty. The fuller version of this objection, that the reports were visionary and the physical details grew later, is treated as its own rival explanation in the Resurrection of Christ case.

Appears under 1 claim in this case

• The belief that Jesus rose from the dead predates Paul’s letters and was not invented by Paul.