AD 50–62: Dating the “Authentic” Pauline Epistles
AD 50–62: Dating the “Authentic” Pauline Epistles
As just hinted, most critical scholars today rely chiefly on Paul's epistles when speaking of particulars regarding Jesus' death and resurrection. Of the 13 books that bear His name, six to eight are accepted as being authentic. In the latter group the unanimously accepted texts include at least Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, and 1 Thessalonians. Philemon and Colossians are sometimes included, as well. These books are usually dated in the decade between AD 50 and 60. Even critical scholars agree regarding both Paul's authorship and the dates.6
These “authentic” Pauline epistles are preferred even over the Gospels because of the critical belief that we know the author and dates of composition for these writings whereas we do not know the authors and are somewhat less specific regarding the dates of the Gospels. Further, Paul spends less time on the life of Jesus in general but provides important specifics regarding Jesus' death and resurrection appearances from a much earlier time.
The key text in this regard is certainly 1 Cor 15:3ff. In the previous two verses, Paul refers to his earlier preaching to this audience. So while the epistle was written approximately 54–55, Paul's original preaching in Corinth would have been dated at least a couple of years earlier, perhaps as early as 50, as noted by Koester.7
We have some important reasons for favoring Paul's epistles over the Gospels. Paul wrote this material concerning Jesus' death and resurrection appearances in 1 Cor 15 just 25 years after the crucifixion of Jesus, but he preached this message to the Corinthians several years earlier, about 20 years after the events. This latter figure is only half the time span from Jesus to the Gospel of Mark and less than one-third the distance between Jesus and the Gospel of John. As we will see, Paul's account provides far more reasons than these.
In one of the most important comments in the entire New Testament, Paul tells us that he received the material in 1 Corinthians 15:3ff from someone else. As he states: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3).8
This comment opens an entirely new window on the question of reliability. Here we must interrupt briefly our current discussion. What if there were some way to know the nature of the earliest apostolic preaching and teaching between the years of AD 30 and 50? What if we knew some of the content of the earliest Christian preaching prior to the writing of the first New Testament book? Some will say that we already have this sort of material in the book of Acts. However, that book is regularly dated between AD 65 and 85, or 35 to 55 years after the crucifixion.9 Again, this is a respectable time frame for ancient reports. But what if we had material from even prior to the early Pauline epistles?
Actually, several New Testament portions make precisely this claim. We just mentioned one of the texts in 1 Cor 15, where Paul states that he passed on precisely what he had received from others (v. 3). Paul mentions two other examples in the same book, both of which occur in chapter 11. He praises his hearers for holding firmly to the traditions or teachings he passed on to them (v. 2). Later he reported that he had received the tradition regarding the Lord's Supper and passed it along to his readers (11:23).
Many other texts in the New Testament make similar claims. Sometimes a teaching is introduced with the words, “Here is a trustworthy saying.”10 Somewhat reminiscent of 1 Cor 11:2, the early Christians were to continue in the teachings or traditions they had received (2 Thess 3:6).
On other occasions, even though there is no explicit statement from the author that a tradition is being passed on, critical scholars are still in wide agreement with regard to a number of these texts. They are often indicated by the sentence structure, diction, parallelism, and other stylized wording. Sometimes these texts are apparent because the syntax breaks between the citation and the larger text, just like when we try to quote someone today and we sometimes cannot make our syntax fit theirs. On still other occasions texts contain brief theological snippets that appear to be passed down for purposes of memorization. A great example is what is generally agreed by both liberals and conservatives alike to be a Christological hymn in Phil 2:6–11.
One benefit of these early traditions (also called creeds or confessions) is that they reproduce teachings that are sometimes earlier than the book in which they appear. Therefore, if the material is also deemed to be reliable, especially if it appears to be apostolic in nature, then it exhibits both trustworthy comments that are also early, sometimes exceptionally so.11
Precisely for this last reason we must ask what is the most likely scenario for Paul's reception of the tradition in 1 Cor 15:3ff? The apostle claims in a straightforward manner that he passed this information on as he received it. Do we have any information regarding when Paul may have received this account? And who passed it on to him? Since it concerns the death and resurrection appearances of Jesus, the center of early Christianity, having some indication of Paul's source is important.