As always happens, you’ll want to listen to this as I don’t stick to the following as a “script” — except that I really mean in this time. How’s that for keeping it real? Just listen.
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul makes an argument for the truthfulness of resurrection. And even if you are not an apologist, there’s something we can learn to strengthen our faith if not share with others.
Happy February 29! Hope your Leap Day is going well. Nice to be back to my regular microphone.
Today’s going to be a little different. What I’m about to share with you is a paper I wrote a few years ago in one of my first apologetics classes. I didn’t rewrite it for today, and since you’re probably not a professor of apologetics or theology, I’ll explain some things along the way. Too, I didn’t write it directly to be a ‘how to’ instruction…I’ll just add a comment along the way so you can walk away with something actionable, too.
15 Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. 6 Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he also appeared to me.
9 For I am the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, so we proclaim and so you have believed.
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say, “There is no resurrection of the dead”? ~ Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), 1 Co 15:1–12.
A paltry 17% of those who consider their faith important – those very parishioners we aim to lead -- have a biblical worldview.[1] And if the very foundation of our faith rests on the Resurrection, as Norm Geisler puts it, “the whole of the orthodox Christian faith crumbles if miracles do not occur.”[2] No miracles? No Resurrection. Our opportunity – if not duty – to impact our culture for Christ then is, in part, strengthening the church’s conviction that the Resurrection is beyond reasonable doubt in a world that will give them many reasons to do so.
In modern times, perhaps the best-known polemic against the reality of miracles was from 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume.[3] One of his arguments was, as Dr. Michael R. Licona summarizes it, that “witnesses are never good enough to warrant preferring their testimony over a naturalistic theory.”[4]
But people saying that there was no resurrection is not new, and it is to just such a group of people that Paul was writing in 1 Corinthians. The lynchpin of his argument? Witnesses.
This paper will evaluate the value of Paul’s appeal to witnesses in 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 – who they were, why he would have included them as credible sources, and why Christians can have the same confidence in their testimonies as Paul did.
The importance of 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
1 Corinthians was a message to believers to instruct and exhort them in Christian conduct in light of negative reports he had received. The letter also aims to boost their confidence to their ultimate hope by refuting falsehood. It is in this context that chapter 15’s argument for the believability of the Resurrection witnesses and his exact purpose is buried in the middle of the chapter in verse 12: some in the Corinthian church had been saying that there was no resurrection.
We don’t know exactly what gave rise to the skepticism Paul is addressing. A common Greek belief, perhaps originally expressed by Plato, was that the soul is immortal. Or perhaps the Corinthians simply shared the skepticism about the empty tomb or even ruled out resurrection a priori as did the Sadducees (Acts 23:8).[5] But as David Prior puts it, “Christianity is concerned, not with mere immortality, nor with sheer survival, nor with the transmigration of the soul, nor with reincarnation, but with resurrection from the dead,”[6] which is precisely the point of chapter 15. And what immediately precedes verse 12, then, is Paul laying out what he no doubt thinks is his strongest argument that looks like this:
· You’ve already heard and accepted the gospel which I preached to you
· That gospel wasn’t of my own creation – I received it previously
· The truth of that gospel is attested to by two categories of witnesses – “the Scriptures” and people – which, by implication, will corroborate what I am saying.
Why Paul appeals to witnesses
As C.S. Lewis put it, “The first fact in the history of Christendom is a number of people who say they have seen the Resurrection,”[7] but he is only correct conditionally. Arguably Paul is more correct when he includes “the (Hebrew) Scriptures.”
As a former Pharisee, Paul would have been intimately familiar with not only the Scriptures, but their place and authority in history. Not only did the Law still require a plurality of witnesses in critical matters (Dt 17:6; Nu 35:30), but creation itself is a witness by God’s design (Dt 30:19; Ge 1:1).
As N.T. Wright put it, Paul “is referring to the entire biblical narrative as the story which has reached its climax in the Messiah and has now given rise to the new phase of the same story, the phase in which the age to come has broken in, with its central characteristic being (seen from one point of view) rescue from sins, and (from another point of view) rescue from death, i.e. resurrection.”[8]
In short, Paul is making a case consistent with the weightiest of legal requirements as a means of exhorting Corinthian believers, and his appeal to witnesses reflected nothing less than the full solemnity of making that appeal before the ultimate Judge’s covenantal heart.
Evaluation of human witnesses Paul names (1 Co 15:5-11)
Cephas (1 Co 15:5)
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts each have list of the disciples, and in each Peter’s name is first. While this position of precedence does not, per se, confer authority, it is likely consistent with how Peter was seen. Indeed, Jesus himself conferred this authority (Mt 16:18-19), and Peter was part of Jesus’ inner circle.
That Peter became a dominant leader and preacher after Jesus’ ascension, then was its own form of authority, but Peter’s authority was, by proxy, Paul’s. While it may not have been known to the Corinthians, Peter (along with James) validated Paul’s apostleship and therefore authority (Ga 1:18–20).
If Peter was then both an authority to the church and confirmer of Paul’s authority, Paul’s appeal to him as “the first witness called to the stand” is strategic.
While this investigation is about Peter’s witness of the resurrected Jesus, it’s worth noting that his credibility as such was likely improved by his experience of the empty tomb. As Luke records it, Peter’s disbelief of the report and subsequent validation (Lk 24:11-12) was later followed by an indirect report of his actual encounter with “the risen Lord” (Lk 24:34). Luke does not describe the event itself, but it precedes his record of Jesus’ appearance to the Twelve on the evening of that first day.
The Twelve (1 Co 15:5)
Paul’s reference to “the Twelve” is curious but no less impactful. The disciples (apostles) would be witnesses whose close firsthand experience with Jesus would be in an excellent position to corroborate their post-resurrection experiences. Luke, John, and Mark all write about their confusion and doubt (albeit Mk 16:14 is not generally considered in serious scholarship), and both Luke and John note explicitly Jesus doing something a spirit would not likely do — eat. Finally, John recounts a second visitation, this time with Thomas present, and with significant detail given to Jesus invitation to be touched. All told, the disciples would have powerful testimonials about their own transformation of belief which is, of course, Paul’s point in refuting the challenge he laid out (1 Co 15:12) and including them in the list.
What is curious, however, is that this point in the historical timeline is between the suicide of Judas Iscariot and the appointment of Matthias in Acts 1. In other words, there were eleven disciples. N.T. Wright speculates that 1) this could confirm the fact that Paul is referencing the early tradition (kerygma) which would have been codified when, in fact, there were twelve or 2) represent “the theological significance of the Twelve within early Christianity.”[9] Regardless, this doesn’t change Paul’s point for calling out witnesses and, if anything, only deepens our ability to find confidence the testimony he presumes they’d give.
500 brothers (1 Co 15:6)
No additional information is given about the group, but as if the context of this paragraph were not clear already, Paul makes it a point to say that most of the 500 are still alive. By implication, “You’re welcome to ask them,” because, as NT Wright argues, “the heart of the formula is something Paul knows the Corinthians will have heard from everyone else as well as himself, and that he can appeal to it as unalterable Christian bedrock.”[10]
James (1 Co 15:7)
Jesus’ half-brother James not a believer during Jesus’ pre-crucifixion life (Jn 7:5) and was possibly even hostile (Mk 3:21). Later, however, Paul interacts with him shortly thereafter (in historical terms) (Gal 1:19, 2:9), and as Habermas and Licona put it, “Virtually every scholar admits that Paul wrote about twenty years after Jesus’ death and had multiple interactions with Jesus’ brother and two of his lead disciples.”[11]
James, it appeared to Paul, had already become a person of influence in the early church (2:9). Given his pre-crucifixion disbelief and that he’d become a significant leader subsequently, it is “difficult to account for his centrality and unrivaled leadership unless he was himself known to have seen the risen Jesus.”[12]
All the apostles (1 Co 15:7)
Commentaries are silent on “all the apostles,” and Licona only references them parenthetically as an “extended group that included Barnabas and others.”[13] The ESV study notes cross-references them with Lu 24:50 and Ac 1:2,4 which are equally vague. This doesn’t affect either Paul’s chronology or purpose for listing witnesses that he expects to be a convincing appeal.
Paul himself (1 Co 15:8-10)
Paul lists himself last on the list of witnesses which fits with the chronology and, curiously, his declared humility both his use of abortive language (“untimely born”) and unworthiness by way of a hostile past. It is this past, however, that is the same nature of argument that we often use in apologetic arguments – that he was formerly a persecutor of the church.
Objections and responses
Witnesses aren’t reliable
Of Hume’s argument against miracle-claims began that no witnesses were ever good enough. As Licona captures it,
“There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity, as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood; and at the same time, attesting facts performed in such a public manner and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable. All which circumstances are requisite to give us a full assurance in the testimony of men.”[14]
By this argument, of course, we’d not only fail to include the accounts upon which a lot of history is based, it’s doubtful that current courtrooms could not function. This is, of course, the purpose of having more than one witness.
In the context of this evaluation of Paul’s appeal to witnesses, we might even assume that some in the Corinthian church were prone to argue against the testimony of someone who they disagreed with (a la 1 Co 1:12). We also cannot assume that even in Paul’s day that all witnesses would be unquestionably imbued with sufficient “good sense, education, and learning” to meet Hume’s requirements, but given the diversity of times, places, and quantities of the miracle-claims of Paul’s witnesses, hundreds of them should be sufficient if the credibility of a few might be in question.
Biblical texts are an unreliable source
Much has been written that argues for the historical, if not inspired, veracity of both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament canon. Unlike other historical texts, though, one of the most powerful arguments for Paul’s argument is that it is dated – even by secular and/or atheistic historians, quite early. As Licona corroborates, “In nearly every historical investigation of the resurrection of Jesus, 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 weighs heavily and is perhaps the most important and valuable passage for use by historians when discussing the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus. Its first valuable quality is that it is early.[15]
Barring other arguments for the timing of 1 Corinthians (early) or Galatians where Paul corroborated his own experience and “received” the kerygma within a half dozen years after Jesus’ ascension, “this the most important and valuable passage”[16] establishes that the earliest Christian community had already formed an oral tradition of the elements of the confession Paul outlines – death, burial, and resurrection.
Conclusion
Paul’s writings in 1 Cor 15:-8 and Galatians are early and, even if not accepted as inspired, accepted by a majority and diversity of scholars. His appeal to Scripture’s authority as a witness is not only consistent with his learnedness as a Pharisee, but lends credence to his own dramatic conversion experience. Further, it’s clear that the order of his argument, from Scripture to the witnesses listed, indicates his intent was not only to invite the Corinthian church to accept their testimonies, but to illuminate history as a verifiable set of events. In other words, Jesus is alive, it’s corroborated by Scripture and a host of witnesses, and it is preserved in a historically reliable text by a guy who was predisposed to be a doubter.
There is more work to be done here. I am not a historian, and the depth and breadth of arguing for the possibility of miracles by way of evaluating Paul’s witnesses of the singular most important miracle in all of Creation has scarcely been touched. Further, the depth of scholarship validating that Paul and others are clearly arguing for bodily resurrection of both Jesus and as our future hope is an answer that I need to prepare. And as a start, this paper is woefully inadequate.
Nonetheless, Christians should be encouraged to grow in confidence of the Resurrection and, by extension, a worldview that is fundamentality transformed by its factuality.
Soli Deo Gloria
[1] “Competing Worldviews Influence Today’s Christian,” May 9, 2017. Accessed May 9, 2017. https://www.barna.com/research/competing-worldviews-influence-todays-christians/.
[2] Geisler, Norman (2013-10-27). Miracles and the Modern Mind: A Defense of Biblical Miracles (Kindle Locations 99-100). Bastion Books. Kindle Edition.
[3] Winfried Corduan. To Everyone an Answer: A Case for the Christian Worldview (Kindle Locations 1818-1819). Kindle Edition.
[4] Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: IVP Academic; Apollos, 2010), 136–137.
[5] David Prior, The Message of 1 Corinthians: Life in the Local Church, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 256.
[6] Wright, N. T. (2003-03-17). Resurrection Son of God V3: Christian Origins and the Question of God (p. 314). Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.
[7] Lewis, C. S. (2009-06-03). Miracles (Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis) (Kindle Locations 2272-2273). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
[8] Wright, N. T. (2003-03-17). Resurrection Son of God V3: Christian Origins and the Question of God (p. 320). Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.
[9] Wright, N. T. (2003-03-17). Resurrection Son of God V3: Christian Origins and the Question of God (p. 324). Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.
[10] Wright, N. T. (2003-03-17). Resurrection Son of God V3: Christian Origins and the Question of God (p. 319). Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.
[11] Gary R. Habermas; Michael R. Licona. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Kindle Locations 2803-2804). Kindle Edition.
[12] Wright, N. T. (2003-03-17). Resurrection Son of God V3: Christian Origins and the Question of God (p. 325). Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.
[13] Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: IVP Academic; Apollos, 2010), 342.
[14] Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: IVP Academic; Apollos, 2010), 136–137.
[15] Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: IVP Academic; Apollos, 2010), 223.
[16] William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians, 3rd ed., The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 6.
ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
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