I’ve spoken to various people over the years who think that Christianity as a faith, and the gospel, was based on a real person (Jesus) but that his works have been mythologised, mostly by Paul who wrote the bulk of the letters to the early churches teaching them on the core aspects of this new religion.
I used to be one of them.
I just couldn’t believe that a religion so complex and so nuanced could just start out of nothing. As a scientist, I believe in the movement of progress over time. Things develop, they grow, they mature. As things progress from a small seed, more people become involved, which means you need systems and structures, policy and governance. Jesus wasn’t there to provide that oversight so it had to be Paul. He presided over the progress and maturation of the Jesus myth and the birth of the early church.
Or so I thought.
As a scientist, I didn’t discount evidence and choose faith instead. My faith is built on the evidence. For instance, there is excellent reasons for believing the gospel as factual (particularly this one reason). There is also a key clue in Paul’s writing that indicates that the very heart of the gospel is not something mythologised by Paul, but something he received within a few years of Jesus’ death.
Let me explain. It’s in 1 Corinthians. The church there had first been founded in about 50 AD – about 17 years after Jesus’ death. It was a former Greek city, incorporated into the Roman empire and was made up of gentiles and former pagans. By culture and by their surroundings, a very secular worldview and attitude to ethical behaviour.
Paul wrote this letter in about the mid-50s AD so the church was only a few years old. There were internal divisions over the gospel – they were modifying the gospel with false spirituality based on the worldview that was all around them. So Paul is writing to inform and correct them. And this is what he tells them:
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. (1 Cor. 15:3-8)
This passage is generally agreed to be a creedal statement that Paul is quoting in his letter. By creed I mean a clear statement of the things we believe that can be memorised and repeated by believers as a reminder of the truths we hold to. Why do they think it’s a creed and not just Paul?
- How Paul introduces it. He says what he received, he passed on. The terms Paul uses in his letter have rabbinic equivalent terms for passing on of tradition. So if a rabbi was using terms for passing on a set tradition, these are the “received” and “passing on” terms. And these are the terms that Paul uses here.
- How it is written. That Christ died for our sins. That he was buried. That he was raised on the third day. That he appeared to Cephas….. and so on. It’s a non-normal way of speaking and has a certain formula that is consistent with creedal statements.
- Words and phrases that Paul doesn’t use in his writings. Paul has a consistent style and vocabulary that he uses throughout his writings. This passage includes terms that Paul doesn’t use anywhere else. This means it’s likely he’s repeating someone else’s words. He’s importing a foreign statement into his personal writing style.
Great. Why is this even important?
All this combined means that this is something from early Christian culture, outside of Paul’s own words that he’s imported. This is the voice of the early church speaking.
On top of that, Paul received it before he passed it on so scholars almost unanimously believe that this creed pre-dates Paul. Most date it no later than the mid-40s AD, and many in the late 30s AD. That’s within a few years of Jesus’ death.
Here’s a quick re-cap on key dates for Jesus:
- Luke 3:1 says that John the Baptist began to prophecy in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius which would be 29 AD.
- Jesus’ ministry was approximately 3 years and, due to various considerations1, the Passover associated with Jesus’ death has been dated to either 30 or 33 AD, so unless Jesus’ ministry was only 1 year, 33 AD seems the more likely date for his crucifixion.
- Based on the chronology given by Paul in Galatians 1:18 amd 2:1, Paul’s encounter with the risen Jesus then happened after 33 AD but before his flight from Damascus in 37 AD.
- When putting all the dates together it would mean Paul was converted about a year after the crucifixion so this would put the process as: Paul’s conversion in c. 34 AD and then in Damascus (c. 34), Arabia (c. 34/35), Damascus (c. 35/36), Jerusalem (c. 36/37), Tarsus/Syria-Cilicia (c. 37-45), Antioch (c. 45-47).2
- Stephen was martyred in Jerusalem in 36 AD (Acts 7) after which the believers dispersed, taking with them the gospel to various parts of the Roman Empire.
- Paul’s 1st missionary journey is dated to about 10 years after that in 48 AD with the 2nd missionary journey (which included Corinth) in 49-52 AD. The first letter to the Corinthians was written in the mid-50s AD, so within 3-5 years of the establishment of the church.
This is a lot of activity in a very short space of time, not just from Paul but from all the apostles. A creedal statement was the easiest and clearest way of affirming that believers are on the same page. With the explosion of evangelism in the first 10 years, a creed was necessary to make sure people didn’t run off down various paths. They needed to guard the good deposit.
The creed could have been compiled in the 30s AD when the apostles were in Jerusalem, Paul was converted and evangelism was centred around the Middle East. Alternately, it could have been set in the mid-40s, when evangelism was starting to grow into other areas and more and more churches were being established.
I have no evidence for this, but it would seem logical to me to favour an early date, in the second half of the 30s AD since the first key explosion of evangelism occurred after Stephen’s martyrdom: “On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.” (Acts 8:1). It makes sense to me that when this occurred, a set creedal statement would be needed to ensure the message that was carried was consistent.
Either way, this means the creed is set in stone, received by people like Paul and passed onto the newly established converts within 5-10 years of the crucifixion and perhaps as little as 2 or 3. In the science of historical literature and the traceability of early creeds and statements, this is astonishing, and pretty much unheard of in other historical texts. Which shows how important this was to the apostles. This wasn’t a burgeoning sect that wanted converts for the sake of it. This was a real need to ensure people understood the truth of what had happened. What they believed was extremely important to their salvation.
Let’s look again at what the creedal statement says:
- Christ physically died.
- He died for our sins – this means that from the earliest times, the believers had the connection between the death of the messiah and the problem of sin. No Jew expected this. They expected 2 things – a messiah, a chosen one sent by God who would save them. And secondly, there was going to be a suffering servant – a prophet like person who we hear about in Isaiah 53:4-6.
- That it was in fulfillment of the Scriptures.
- That he was raised again on the third day.
- He appeared to Cephas (that is, Peter) and the 12 and then 500 other people some of whom were still alive so this information can be checked.
They all saw Jesus die, but the only way they could understand what it meant is if they received it. As we saw in the gospels, Jesus often talked of his death and what it meant but the disciples didn’t understand it. So, the only person who could have passed the meaning of the words onto them was Jesus. Only Jesus knew the full story of sin and sacrifice and what it meant. In Acts 1, Luke notes that “After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.” This was the point where the disciples could finally understand everything Jesus had been saying about himself. It only makes sense to them now they see his is risen.
While the leaders of the earliest church physically wrote the creed (and all Scripture is God-breathed), Jesus was the source of this clear belief about the connection between sin and his atoning death. Within just a few years of his death, it had been summarised into a statement that was memorised and affirmed by the early believers to keep them on track.
This common belief is the bedrock of our faith. It’s what we set our sails by. And we can have confidence in the evidence of this statement because we can trace its development to within a couple of years of Jesus’ death, and its content to Jesus himself.
Paul reminds the Corinthians of this truth in the same way that we need to remember. Because every time we water down the gospel or allow ourselves to be swayed by popular opinion, we shift our sails and we gradually start going off course.
The gospel is not a new truth, or a legend mythologised over time to suit the needs of a few apostles (although why they would want to do this is beyond me because they were tortured and executed for it). It’s the truth – it’s the same truth as the day is was passed to the apostles from Jesus.