5 New Testament Creedal Traditions

In this chapter I will present a unifying theme of the previous chapter by introducing New Testament creedal traditions. To recap, we have seen that the New Testament has the right words and suitable genres, and was written early and by relevant authors. As we will see, creeds combine these and other characteristics with an even higher degree of reliability. Due to their nature, the creeds help us to zoom in more closely on particular areas within the landscape presented in the New Testament.

When we hear of Christian creeds, we likely think of things such as the Apostles’ Creed or Nicene Creed. Often various confessions are associated with creeds, and here we may be thinking of something such as the Westminster Confession of Faith. If you are not familiar with these, do not worry because none of these are the creeds or confessions I will discuss here. The focus of this chapter will be to introduce creeds found within the New Testament.

This chapter will introduce what I mean by New Testament creeds (or confessions, hymns, etc.). Given its popularity, I will use a widely accepted creed that begins at 1 Corinthians 15:3 as an example for our discussion. I will also highlight the very early dating of these creeds, since they predate the New Testament writings themselves. In so doing, I will also show how the apostles are connected to them before emphasizing the significance of these creeds.

INTRODUCTION TO CREEDS

If I am not referring to the Apostles’ Creed or the Westminster Confession, what am I referring to? We can think of New Testament creeds as sources within sources. Similar to how one author may quote another writer’s text, the New Testament quotes several very early oral traditions, also known as creeds, confessions, hymns, and so on. These are formalized statements circulated in the earliest period of Christianity and before any New Testament writing.

There are a variety of reasons that creeds developed. Oscar Cullmann believes there are at least five different reasons, each of which is simultaneously possible, for the development of these formulations in the first place: baptism/catechumenism, preaching/liturgy, exorcism, persecution, and polemics. Other scholars have sought to differentiate between different formulations (hymns, creeds, confessions, etc.). I want to note that throughout this chapter I will refer to the phenomenon using the catchall terms creed or creedal traditions.

In the ancient world, some could read, but many could not. For pragmatic reasons, the ancient world was in many ways an oral world. Having easily memorizable creeds would have been an effective way to pass on information. They could be created effectively in various ways, but a rough analogy familiar to many today is songs or poems. They have a rhythm and cadence that makes them more memorable. Many of us, for example, can still recall nursery rhymes or children’s songs we learned (Jack and Jill, Mary Had a Little Lamb, etc.), or, if the marketing is good, we can recall jingles from different commercials we have seen or heard as well.

Of course, within ancient oral traditions in general and those found in the New Testament in particular, the topics were not merely children’s songs. Creedal formulas have certain features that made them distinctive. These elements have also allowed historians to better identify creedal formulas within the New Testament.

FIRST CORINTHIANS 15

The most explicit example of a creed, and perhaps the most studied, is the one beginning at 1 Corinthians 15:3 This creed is a particularly helpful example because Paul is explicit in introducing it. Let us look at the creed in 1 Corinthians 15 by first starting with 1 Corinthians 15:1-5:

Now I make known to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand, by which you also are saved, if you hold firmly to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Many of us have likely read through 1 Corinthians 15 and overlooked the importance of these verses. Paul is providing several details relevant to our discussion on creeds.

First, he states that he is reminding them of the gospel he preached when he was with them. So this is not new information but what he already gave them at an earlier date. Moreover, it is central to the Christian message because Paul says that it is the “gospel” and by it “you also are saved.” Indeed, it is of “first importance.”

Paul is reminding (or “[re]deliver[ing]”) the Corinthians of something he himself had “received.” In the Greek, these are two technical words for the formal passing on of rabbinic traditions. This makes sense not only because was Paul a Pharisee (Phil 3:5) but also because the first believers were Jewish. Accordingly, these words provide key indicators that Paul is getting ready to remind the Corinthians of a formal tradition he had received.

While there is some discussion on where the creed actually ends, it is widely agreed that it includes 1 Corinthians 15:3-5. The verses, among other aspects, feature parallelism, a threefold “and that” wording, and words not typically used by Paul. Thus, the “context and a certain rhythm allow us to discern the citation,” and Paul’s introductory comments explicitly state that a creed is used. Accordingly, we can be confident about what a creed looks like here, which helps scholars identify other creeds when they are not so clearly identified (see below).

Where did Paul “receive” this creed? If this is an early creed, and Paul says he received it, where did it come from? Scholars have put forward a few options. Some think that after Paul’s conversion, he was given various creeds in Damascus while spending time with other disciples (Acts 9:10-22). Some think that perhaps Paul heard some creeds while he was persecuting the church—after all, Paul had to have some idea of the people he was persecuting and what they believed. Another option is that Paul received it in Jerusalem.

Many, including skeptics, think the Jerusalem option to be the best because of Paul’s comments in Galatians 1–2. Specifically, in Galatians 1:18-19 Paul says, “Then three years later [after Paul’s conversion] I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted [historēsai] with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days. But I did not see another one of the apostles except James, the Lord’s brother.”

Paul informs us that shortly after his conversion, which was around AD 32, he went to Jerusalem and met Peter and James. Biblical scholar C. H. Dodd famously said, “At that time, he stayed with Peter for a fortnight, and we may presume they did not spend all the time talking about the weather.” Even if Paul did not receive the creed here, the content of it would have undoubtedly been confirmed by two “pillars” of the church, Peter and James (Gal 2:9). The context of both Galatians 1 and 1 Corinthians 15 is the gospel, which is, after all, of “first importance.”

So there is Paul, just a few years after his conversion, meeting with a leading disciple and Jesus’ brother. But there is more. In Galatians 2:1-10, Paul writes that he made another trip to Jerusalem fourteen years later. This time, in addition to Peter and James, John was there. The reported “pillars” of the church gave Paul “the right hand of fellowship” (Gal 2:9). Paul’s gospel message that was of “first importance” was confirmed a second time. It seems highly unlikely that Peter, James, and John would have given the right hand of fellowship to a heretic preaching a false gospel. Moreover, in 1 Corinthians 15:11, Paul states that the gospel message he preaches is the same message as that of the church (“so we preach and so you believed”).

When was this creed developed? Earlier I presented a general timeline that began with Jesus’ death, around AD 30. We may add to that timeline Paul’s first visit to Corinth, around AD 50, and his letter to them (1 Corinthians), dated to around AD 55. More importantly, Paul’s conversion, around AD 32, is included, along with his first trip to Jerusalem about three years later, around AD 35. Of course, while some people knew the creed before Paul’s conversion, at the very least those who gave the creed to Paul had to know it before delivering it to him (whether in Damascus or Jerusalem). Last, I have included Paul’s second trip to Jerusalem as well.

Figure 5.1. When the creeds developed

A right-facing arrow labeled from left to right: Jesus’ death (AD 30), Paul’s conversion (AD 32), Paul’s first trip to Jerusalem (AD 35), second trip to Jerusalem (AD 49), Paul visits Corinth and “delivers” (AD 50), Paul writes 1 Corinthians (AD 55).

Accordingly, virtually all scholars date this and other creeds to the early 30s AD. In a recent study on 1 Corinthians 15, James Ware states, “There is almost universal scholarly consensus that 1 Cor 15.3–5 contains a carefully preserved tradition pre-dating Paul’s apostolic activity and received by him within two to five years of the founding events.”

The “almost universal” consensus includes skeptical scholars. For example, atheist New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann writes, “The formation of the appearance traditions mentioned in 1 Cor. 15.3-8 falls into the time between 30 and 33 CE.” Similarly, skeptic Bart Ehrman agrees that the traditions Paul received in Jerusalem “must date to just a couple of years after Jesus’s death.” Just as Paul delivered the creed to the Corinthians, so too it must have been delivered to Paul as a tradition that existed before it was also received by Paul.

In short, if Paul received the material around AD 35, or three years after his conversion, the material delivered to him must have existed before then. The late James Dunn asserts that we can be “entirely confident” the creedal information in 1 Corinthians 15 was “formulated as tradition within months of Jesus’ death.” It would have been formulated while Paul was a persecutor of the church and, as Dunn notes, would have been developed as the apostles began sharing the gospel.

EARLY EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY

Let me take a moment to summarize what I have so quickly introduced. In part, the early church used creeds as condensed versions of larger narratives about Jesus and the gospel. In the case of 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 we saw an explicit reference to a creed as of “first importance,” and it refers to Jesus’ death, burial, and appearances.

Paul gave the creed to the Corinthians around AD 50, while he received it himself in the early 30s AD. At the very least, the information would have been confirmed by leaders of the Jerusalem church three years after his conversion (Gal 1:18). Yet it would have existed prior to his conversion. This series of events carries great significance because it greatly adds to the reliability of this creedal information.

For example, regarding Paul’s first meeting with Peter and James, Ehrman writes, “These are two good people to know if you want to know anything about the historical Jesus. I wish I knew them.” He then asks, “Can we get any closer to an eyewitness report than this?” More forcefully, Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide concludes, “This unified piece of tradition which soon was solidified into a formula of faith may be considered as a statement of eyewitnesses for whom the experience of the resurrection became the turning point of their lives.” Similarly, Richard Bauckham stresses that this is “eyewitness testimony of those who were recipients of resurrection appearances, including the most prominent in the Jerusalem church.”

The connection of the eyewitnesses to the creeds is robust, as these three scholars recognize it despite their having different theological backgrounds. There is good reason for this. Paul, himself an eyewitness and important figure in early Christianity, says directly that he met and spoke with the “pillars” of the Jerusalem church on more than one occasion. Accordingly, the connection to the eyewitnesses regarding this information has considerable historical weight.

The situation is similar for the dating of the creed, as the early dating of the creed is also widely accepted. This reporting close to the time of the events involved adds historical weight to these claims. Moreover, these creedal statements provide insight into the earliest Christian reports, which occurred even prior to Paul’s writing.

OTHER CREEDS

The creed beginning at 1 Corinthians 15:3 was our test case because Paul explicitly refers to a tradition. The situation is similar regarding the other creeds within the New Testament. Paul’s first trip to Jerusalem is “most likely” the place where he learned many of the creeds we see in his writings, according to Ehrman. He writes, “This visit is one of the most likely places where Paul learned all the received traditions that he refers to and even the received traditions that we otherwise suspect are in his writings that he does not name as such.” Thus, it is not just the creed in 1 Corinthians 15 but other traditions that Paul likely received during this early trip to Jerusalem, and consequently, as widely recognized, these creeds typically date to the 30s AD.

Some other creedal formulations include critical christological texts such as Romans 1:3-4; Romans 10:9; Philippians 2:6-11; 1 Corinthians 8:6. As with the creed in 1 Corinthians 15, these creedal statements are specific and central claims to earliest Christianity. It is highly unlikely Paul could have met with Peter and James while preaching a message that was at odds with theirs. Furthermore, in the second meeting, where John was also present, all three gave Paul (and Barnabas) the right hand of fellowship.

Early oral formulas are also thought to be found in other New Testament writings. Notable examples are located in the speeches and sermon summaries throughout the book of Acts. Hebrews 4:14 and 1 Peter 2:22-23 are other examples. Some scholars suggest there may be as many as forty or fifty creeds within the New Testament and that they vary from short one-liners to a few verses long.

CONCLUSION

There are several evidential considerations here that add to the case for the reliability of the New Testament. In the case of the creeds found in Paul’s writings, we have powerful historical considerations featuring both eyewitness and early historical information. First, these creeds and Paul’s trip to Jerusalem are reported in “undisputed” Pauline works (1 Corinthians and Galatians). Second, just three years after Paul’s conversion, he met with James and Peter in Jerusalem to “inquire” with them. Fourteen years later, he met them again, along with John, before he was given the right hand of fellowship. Third, the creedal information in 1 Corinthians 15 is said to be central to the gospel and of “first importance.” It is unlikely that the “pillars” would have approved of someone who got the core of the gospel wrong. Having reports that are dated very close to the events and connected to eyewitnesses is valuable to historians precisely because it is reliable data.

KEY TAKEAWAYS: NEW TESTAMENT CREEDAL TRADITIONS

■There are many creedal traditions in the New Testament. These creeds reflect oral traditions that existed prior to the writing of the New Testament itself.

■It is widely accepted by scholars that traditions that Paul cites likely go back to around the 30s AD. We know that Paul met with two major figures of Christianity, Peter and James, in Galatians 1–2.

■One of the best and earliest creeds in the New Testament is the one beginning in 1 Corinthians 15:3. This tradition is connected with eyewitnesses such as Peter, James, and Paul. It is also considered to be the earliest historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, since it predates the Gospels and Paul’s writings.

5 New Testament Creedal Traditions