We can count the deaths of the apostles as evidence for the sincerity of their convictions about the risen Jesus only if the apostles had a resurrection faith. That is, (1) the resurrection must lie at the heart of the earliest Christian kerygma, and (2) the faith of the disciples must be based upon their belief that Jesus truly rose from the grave.
While some critics doubt the centrality of the resurrection,1 the majority of scholars accept that Christianity was a resurrection faith since its inception. In The Resurrection of The Messiah, New Testament scholar Christopher Bryan begins his inquiry with the assumption that three established facts can be considered “historical certainties,” one of which is the centrality of the resurrection in the earliest Christian self-definition.2 Bryan is not alone in his estimation. According to ancient historian Paul Barnett: “It was this twin conviction, that Jesus was the Christ and that God had raised him alive from the dead, that drove and energized the first disciples and that alone accounts for the rise of Christianity as we encounter it in the historical records.”3
What gives these scholars such confidence? To see the centrality of the resurrection in the first Christian kerygma, the evidence is considered from early Christian creeds, preaching in Acts, Paul’s letters, and the Apostolic Fathers.
Early Christological creeds, verbal proclamations of the faith that circulated before their inclusion in various New Testament books, are often considered the most promising glimpse into the earliest Christian beliefs before the composition of the New Testament writings (beginning c. AD 50).4 These creeds provide a window into the earliest known Christian beliefs that motivated the proclamation of their faith, the most common elements of which were the death and resurrection of Jesus, which demonstrate the present Lordship of Christ.5
An example many scholars consider a Christological creed is Romans 1:3–4: “Concerning his Son, who was descended from David, according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness and by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rudolph Bultmann says this passage relies upon a pre-Pauline traditional formula from the early church, which dated the Messiahship of Jesus from the resurrection.6 Paul is proclaiming that the man, Jesus, was born of human descent through the lineage of David and was declared the Son of God, Christ the Lord, because of his resurrection.
Romans 4:24b–25 contains another possible early creed: “It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” Bultmann considers this “a statement that had evidently existed before Paul and had been handed down to him.”7 According to this creed, justification for sins is provided to those who have faith in the one who raised Jesus from the dead. Again, one finds the resurrection at the heart of earliest Christian belief. The important point about these creeds is that there is testimony to the centrality of the resurrection that likely pre-dates the writing of Romans—typically dated between AD 55 and 58.
Another strong candidate for an early creed can be found in 1 Thessalonians 4:14: “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again.” This is the basic Christian confession of the early church. Paul taught this same creed when the Thessalonian church was founded (Acts 17:3). The introductory statement “we believe,” the atypical reference to “Jesus” without a title, and the rare translation “rose again” (anestē) in the writings of Paul indicate this is a pre-Pauline creed. Gene Green writes: “These characteristics suggest that the apostle appeals to a pre-Pauline creed that had been handed over to the church and that both the apostolic company and the Thessalonians confessed. The centrality of the death and resurrection of Jesus as the cornerstone of the apostolic proclamation can hardly be disputed.”8
By the time Paul wrote the letter to the Thessalonians (c. AD 49/50), the heart of the creedal proclamation—the resurrection—was in a fixed form. Paul is not arguing for the truth of the resurrection to the church at Thessalonica. Rather, he mentions the resurrection in passing, which indicates there was already agreement upon its centrality and importance.
Early creeds can also be found outside the letters of Paul. Oscar Cullmann considers 1 Peter 3:18 such an example: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.” In light of 1 Peter 3:18, and other such creeds, Cullmann concludes: “It is, then, the present Lordship of Christ, inaugurated by His resurrection and exaltation to the right hand of God, that is the centre of the faith of primitive Christianity.”9
Perhaps the most crucial creedal text for understanding early Christian kerygma is found in 1 Corinthians 15:3–5:
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that 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.
Paul goes on to describe an appearance of Jesus to the 500, to James, to all the apostles, and then to himself. The core of this tradition is the death, burial, resurrection, and appearances of Jesus.
The chief value of this creed is its early dating. First Corinthians is typically dated AD 54–5, roughly twenty-five years after the death of Jesus (c. AD 30). Thus, this formulation reveals a pre-Pauline tradition even closer to the time of Jesus than the writing of 1 Corinthians. In the preceding verses, Paul says: “Now I would remind you, brothers” (1 Cor 15:1). Paul intends to remind them of the core Gospel facts they already knew. Thus, Paul did not invent this creedal formula, but faithfully passes on the tradition he had previously received.
Gary Habermas offers five reasons why the creedal nature of this passage is accepted by the vast majority of critical scholars across a diverse theological spectrum.10 First, Paul uses the words “delivered” (paradidōmi) and “received” (paralambanō), which are technical terms for the transmission of tradition. Second, many of the words in the creed are non-Pauline, indicating a distinct origin. Third, the creed is likely organized in a stylized, oral form. Fourth, there are internal indications of a Semitic source, such as the reference to Peter with the Aramaic “Cephas.” Finally, the triple usage of “and that” as well as the reference to the fulfillment of Scripture indicate ancient Hebraic narration.
There is good reason to believe the origin of this tradition is Jerusalem. In the list of appearances, Paul specifically mentions Cephas and James (1 Cor 15:5, 7). It cannot be mere coincidence that these are the only two apostles Paul mentions visiting in person on his first trip to Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the key question is when Paul received the tradition. Two main possibilities present themselves. First, Paul received the tradition during his stay with Ananias and other disciples in Damascus after his conversion (Acts 9:19). Paul immediately began proclaiming Christ, and gained in his ability to confound the opposition with evidence that Jesus was the Christ (Acts 9:20–22). Second, he received the tradition during his first visit to Jerusalem three years later (Acts 9:26–28; Gal 1:18). Paul stayed with the apostles for fifteen days, which is plenty of time to learn about the life, death, resurrection, and appearances of Jesus. Paul uses the term “visit” (historeō) to describe his stay in Jerusalem, which implies he went to interview Peter. It has the same root word as the modern term “history.” It was important for Paul to get to know the apostles, specifically Peter. According to F.F. Bruce, it should go without saying that Paul sought firsthand accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus from the apostles. One piece of information Bruce says Paul “most probably” received is the appearance of Jesus to Peter (Luke 24:34).11
Paul Barnett prefers the first option, that Paul received the tradition during his stay in Damascus. After all, what else was Paul preaching in Damascus besides the death and resurrection of Jesus?12 Nevertheless, other possibilities exist as to when Paul received the tradition.13 There may not be certainty when Paul received the tradition, but long before the writing of 1 Corinthians he had ample opportunity through contact with leading Jerusalem figures. Michael R. Licona writes:
Moreover, even if Paul received the tradition embedded in 1 Corinthians 15:3–7 from someone outside of the Jerusalem leadership, his constant interaction with these leaders in and outside of Jerusalem coupled with his high regard for tradition virtually guarantees that the details of the tradition in 1 Corinthians 15:3–7 are precisely in line with what the Jerusalem leadership was preaching (1 Cor 15:11). We have what amounts to a certifiably official teaching of the disciples on the resurrection of Jesus.14
We have, then, firm and unambiguous evidence that the resurrection was at the heart of the earliest Christian kerygma. The fact that Paul mentions the apostles in the 1 Corinthians 15:3–7 creed—“the Twelve,” “all the apostles”—indicates that belief in the resurrection of Jesus was not simply a Pauline idea, but belonged to the entire circle of first believers.
We also find evidence for the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus in the apostolic preaching in Acts. Speeches in Acts make up approximately one-third of the book’s content. In contrast to Luke’s contemporary writers, such as Tacitus, Herodotus, and Josephus, Luke chronicles events propelled largely by the spoken word. Luke seems to want his audience to know that the Spirit-filled preaching of Jesus, as opposed to other macrohistorical events such as wars, paved the way for the church’s explosive growth.15
In his Pentecost speech, Peter describes how God appointed Jesus to do wonders but he was killed by lawless men, and yet “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24).16 The resurrection is mentioned in most evangelistic speeches, to both Jews and Gentiles, as well as in other passages throughout Acts.17 James Dunn concludes:
The claim that Jesus had been raised from the dead is the central and principal message of the preaching in Acts …. We can be quite confident, then, that Jesus’ resurrection was from the first a prominent and distinctive feature of earliest Christian belief and functioned as a defining identity marker of the new sect which gathered round his name.18
Paul fills his letters, especially the book of Romans, with affirmations of the resurrection as well. N.T. Wright observes:
Squeeze this letter [Romans] at any point, and resurrection spills out; hold it up to the light, and you can see Easter sparkling all the way through. If Romans had not been hailed as the great epistle of justification by faith, it might easily have come to be known as the chief letter of resurrection.19
Paul’s letters confirm the central place the resurrection held in the early preaching of Peter in the book of Acts. Yet the theme of resurrection is not limited to Acts and the letters of Paul. With the exception of Hebrews, all the major books of the New Testament make resurrection a central focus.20
The resurrection is at the heart of the biblical and pre-biblical proclamation of the earliest Christians. Yet it is also central to many of the generation of believers shortly after the apostles, known as the Apostolic Fathers. For instance, 1 Clement 42:3 says: “When, therefore, the apostles received his commands and were fully convinced through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and persuaded by the word of God, they went forth proclaiming the good news that the Kingdom of God was about to come.”
In his Letter to the Magnesians 11, Ignatius wrote: “You should be fully convinced of the birth and suffering and resurrection that occurred in the time of the governor Pontius Pilate.”21 Resurrection permeates many of the rest of his letters.22 In the Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians, Polycarp says: “He [Jesus] persevered to the point of death on behalf of our sins; and God raised him up after loosing the labor paints of Hades.”23 His belief in the resurrection helped Polycarp face martyrdom boldly.
The Letter of Barnabas offers a critique of Jewish practices—such as circumcision, fasting, kosher food laws, Sabbath, and so on—in contrast to the new life in Christ. The whole point of the book is that Jewish practices are no longer necessary for salvation because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Thus, The Letter of Barnabas 5:6 says: “He [Jesus] allowed himself to suffer in order to destroy death and to show that there is a resurrection of the dead.”24 The resurrection is the heart of the earliest Christian kerygma, from the pre-biblical creeds to the Apostolic Fathers.
The resurrection was central to Christian proclamation from the inception of the church to at least the generation after the death of the apostles. Craig Keener writes: “Paul and his predecessors were united on the basic Gospel message (1 Cor 15:1–12); we lack any evidence, except for secondary scholarship reflecting speculation, for “Jesus communities” that did not affirm Jesus as Messiah (and hence King and Lord) or that denied his resurrection.”25
For all the first-century disagreements within the church, the lack of any evidence for disputation on the resurrection speaks loudly as to its centrality and universality among the first believers. James Dunn observes:
It is an undoubted fact that the conviction that God had raised Jesus from the dead and had exalted Jesus to his right hand transformed Jesus’ first disciples and their beliefs about Jesus. It is also natural that they should have focused their earliest preaching and teaching on filling out the consequences of that basic belief.26
It is important to grasp the significance of the earliest Christian kerygma for the lives of the disciples. Although they were Galileans and their lives were in danger since the arrest and death of Jesus, they stayed in Jerusalem to proclaim the resurrection. This shows their understanding and acceptance of the basic meaning of the crucified and risen savior. Otherwise, they would hardly have engaged in missionary work. If they wanted to persuade Jews in Jerusalem to believe in Jesus, it would be counterproductive to invent fictitious stories whose falsehood could easily be discovered. Thus, their preaching only makes sense if they truly believed Jesus had risen from the dead, and if the evidence was there to confirm it.
1 Robert M. Price, “Would the Apostles Die for a Lie?” Free Inquiry 21 (Fall 2001): 20
2 Christopher Bryan, The Resurrection of the Messiah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 3–4. According to Bryan, the other two “historical certainties” are the existence of the Christian church in the years following the crucifixion and the belief, among both Jews and Gentiles, that dead people stayed dead.
3 Paul Barnett, The Birth of Christianity: The First Twenty Years (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 186.
4 Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1997), 143–70. I credit Gary Habermas for many of the insights that guide the formulation of this section.
5 Oscar Cullmann, The Earliest Christian Confessions, trans. J.K.S. Reid (London: Lutterworth Press, 1949), 58–64.
6 Rudolf K. Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, trans. Kendrick Grobel (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951), 1:27, 50, 82.
7 Ibid., 82.
8 Gene Green, The Letter to the Thessalonians, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 219–20.
9 Cullmann, The Earliest Christian Confessions, 58. See pp. 41, 45, 53, and 57–62 for the creedal nature of this passage.
10 Habermas, The Historical Jesus, 153–54.
11 F.F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians, The New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1982), 98.
12 Paul Barnett, Jesus and the Rise of Early Christianity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 182. He notes that the phrase “I delivered to you as of first importance” can equally be rendered as “I delivered to you what I also received at first,” which would have been at Damascus.
13 Paul visits Jerusalem on at least two more occasions before writing his first letter (Acts 11:27; 15:2; Gal 2:1–10). Paul could also have received the tradition from Barnabas, James, Silas, or another apostle on a separate occasion.
14 Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010), 232.
15 Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 116–18.
16 C.K. Barrett makes the observation that this speech, which is characteristic of Acts as a whole (except at 20:28), shows no developed theology, especially in comparison with the letters of Paul. There is no suggestion that Jesus is the incarnate Son of God and no positive effect is ascribed to his death. Thus, Barrett concludes: “There is no question that this speech and those that resemble it present an elementary, undeveloped, theology and Christology.” He concludes that the speeches must be early. See C.K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (New York: T. &T. Clark, 1994), 1:131–32.
17 Acts 1:21; 2:24, 31–32; 3:15; 4:2, 10–11, 33; 5:30; 10:40; 13:30, 33–34; 17:3, 18, 31; 23:6; 24:15, 21; 25:19; 26:8, 23.
18 James D.G. Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem: Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 2:212–13.
19 N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 241.
20 Ibid., 476.
21 Bart D. Ehrman, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 1:253.
22 To The Ephesians 20; To The Trallians intro., 9; To The Philadelphians intro., 9; To The Smyrneans 1, 12.
23 Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians 1.2, in The Apostolic Fathers, 1:333–34.
24 Bart D. Ehrman, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 2:27. Other passages in the Letter highlight the importance of the resurrection, including 1:6–7, 15:9, and 16:2–3.
25 Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2012), 1:565.
26 Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem, 2:1,169.