The Gospel was the first Christian creed. First Corinthians 15:3b–5 presents the Gospel message that dates to the apostle Paul’s conversion 2 or 3 years after Jesus’s death. The Gospel also dates to the faith of
The Gospel was the first Christian creed. First Corinthians 15:3b–5 presents the Gospel message that dates to the apostle Paul’s conversion 2 or 3 years after Jesus’s death. The Gospel also dates to the faith of Peter, John, and James in Galatians 1:11–2:10. Biblical scholars including critical scholars all attribute the source of this creed to those who were witnesses of Jesus.
This creed is a historical marker for when and how the church began. This Gospel message started the church. This is the early tradition that the first Christians proclaimed. Paul recorded this early confession of the Gospel: “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” (1 Cor 15:3b–5 ESV). Furthermore, Paul cited numerous witnesses in verses 6–8 that may also be a part of this ancient creed.
The First Message of the First Church
Why do scholars find this message to be a very early tradition? Almost all scholarship places Jesus’s death by crucifixion about AD 30. Stephen C. Barton reported, “The likely date of the letter [1 Corinthians] can also be established with confidence as sometime in the years AD 54–55.” In 1 Corinthians 15:1–3a, Paul reminded the Corinthian Christians of the message that he proclaimed to them the same message “of first importance” for which he also received when he converted.
In Galatians 1, Paul reported of his violent persecution of the church. In this opposition, Paul converted and received the Gospel message in AD 32–33. Furthermore, Paul recounted how he took this Gospel message to Peter, John, the other apostles, and Jesus’s brother James who confirmed that this original message (Gal 1:18–22; 2:1–10). Paul’s account in Galatians 1:11–2:10 dates the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1–7 to the original disciples and their experiences of Jesus in ~AD 30. For this reason, scholars find that the Gospel message of 1 Corinthians 15:3b–5 is an early Christian creed and dates to the actual events surrounding Jesus’s death.
What Scholars Admit about the Gospel
Critical and evangelical scholars recognize that this Gospel proclamation dates from when the first believers experienced Jesus’s resurrection. As a critical scholar and well-known agnostic, Bart Ehrman represented mainstream critical scholarship reporting,
Paul came to know about Jesus within just a year or, at most, two of his death. Paul too preserves traditions that stem from the early period of his Christian life, right after his conversion around 32–33 CE. […] Paul claims to have visited with Jesus’s closest disciple, Peter, and with his brother James three years after his conversion, that is around 35–36 CE. Much of what Paul has to say about Jesus, therefore, stems from the same early layer of tradition that we can trace, completely independently, in the Gospels.
Ehrman had previously summarized,
Moreover, the information about Jesus known to Paul appears to go back to the early 30s of the Common Era, as arguably some of the material in the book of Acts. The information about Jesus in these sources corroborates as well aspects of the Gospel traditions, some of which can also be dated back to the 30s to Aramaic-speaking Palestine.
Furthermore, Tom Wright reflected