Friday, September 11, 2015
By Dr. Gary Habermas
An excerpt from the article:
…The chief purpose for the remainder of this essay will be to determine, by continuing both to investigate and utilize critical methodology, if the cause of the original eyewitnesses’ faith can be further ascertained. If such verification is found, it will corroborate the earlier apologetic (which can still be presented in a very strong form) and also serve as a more conclusive refutation of radical scholars who deny that such a cause can be discovered.
A. An Early Christian Creed
It was pointed out above that the resurrection was the center of the earliest Christian teaching. This is crucially based, for instance, on 1 Cor 15:3fF., where virtually all scholars agree that Paul recorded an ancient creed(s) concerning Jesus’ death and resurrection which is actually much earlier than the book in which it is recorded. That this material is traditional and earlier than Paul is evident from numerous considerations, such as the usage of the technical terms “delivered” and “received” (which indicate the imparting of oral tradition), the parallelism and somewhat stylized content, the proper names of Peter and James, the non-Pauline words, and the possibility of an Aramaic original. Further pointers to the presence of traditional material include the Aramaic name Cephas (see the parallel in Luke 24:34), the threefold usage of “and that” (similar to Aramaic and Mishnaic Hebrew means of narration), and the two references to the fulfillment of the Scriptures…
For the full article click on this link.