AD 30–35: Back to the Date of the Actual Events
AD 30–35: Back to the Date of the Actual Events
After our brief backtracking in order to place Paul's later trip to Jerusalem in its proper perspective, we are now ready to move to the final scene. Here we want to ask about those who had knowledge of these historical events prior to Paul's own reception of the data, including the creedal formulation. After all, Paul's obtaining the knowledge of these events beyond his own appearance of the risen Jesus was not an end in itself. We must track backward to the original occurrences themselves.
Working backward from Paul, then, these accounts had already been cast into succinct oral summaries for use in teaching, especially when most people were apparently illiterate. Slightly prior to that are the original recollections and accounts of these occurrences by those who knew of them. As we have just seen, we know that the entire process could take place quickly, based on the difference between the events themselves, the preaching of this data, and its recording just a relatively short time later. Critical scholars readily concede that the early Christians believed certain events had taken place with regard to Jesus. Ultimately, these events either occurred or they did not.
Therefore, prior to Paul's trip to Jerusalem and his discussion with Peter and James, the brother of Jesus, regarding the gospel data (which was perhaps also the time when he received the original creedal tradition in 1 Cor 15), Paul was obviously not the first one to have this report. At least the other two apostles, presumably along with others, had to know the information before Paul did. Now we are getting close to the beginning, since both Peter and James are listed among those who saw the risen Jesus, as is especially clear in 1 Cor 15:4,7. The only more foundational data are the actual events themselves.
How should we date each of these strands? We have seen that Paul's first trip to Jerusalem is usually placed at 35 or 36, and Paul's conversion at three years before that, or about 32 or 33. Since Paul believed that he saw an appearance of the recently dead and now risen Jesus, the crucifixion would have occurred earlier still. But that event could not have happened long beforehand, as indicated by Paul's acquaintance with those who knew Jesus well, such as his brother James and his chief apostle Peter. Jesus' death had occurred shortly before the appearances. If any of the early confessions embedded in the Acts sermons25 can also be granted as reliable reconstructions of the earliest preaching, then the resurrection was preached from the beginning, immediately after Jesus' death.
How early do critical scholars date this pre-Pauline creed? Even radical scholars like Gerd Lüdemann think that “the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion…not later than three years after the death of Jesus.”26 Similarly, Michael Goulder contends that Paul's testimony about the resurrection appearances “goes back at least to what Paul was taught when he was converted, a couple of years after the crucifixion.”27
An increasing number of exceptionally influential scholars has recently concluded that at least the teaching of the resurrection, and perhaps even the specific formulation of the pre-Pauline creedal tradition in 1 Cor 15:3ff., even dates to AD 30! In other words, there never was a time when the message of Jesus' resurrection was not an integral part of the earliest apostolic proclamation.28 No less a scholar than James D. G. Dunn even states regarding this crucial text: “This tradition, we can be entirely confident, was formulated as tradition within months of Jesus' death.”29
Therefore, Paul received creedal material in Jerusalem just five years or so after Jesus' crucifixion that was actually formulated earlier, perhaps dating all the way back to shortly after the death of Jesus. But regardless of where we date this creedal tradition itself, the underlying content of the gospel message regarding the death and resurrection of Jesus goes back to the beginning. In other words, it was the central message of the early apostolic church from its inception.