1 Corinthians 15:3-4

Most scholars who study this letter read verses three through eight, of which this passage carries only the opening two lines, as Paul quoting rather than composing. The vocabulary he uses, delivered and received, is technical language for handing on a fixed tradition rather than for stating a personal opinion, and the compressed, rhythmic phrasing that follows, listing witnesses one by one, reads more like a formula meant to be memorized than like the rest of Paul's own prose in the letter. If that reading is right, Paul is not the source of this creed but a link in its transmission, quoting something he says he also received.

What makes the quotation historically significant is its date. Paul wrote this letter roughly in the mid first century, and the tradition he says he received would have reached him earlier still; most scholars place it within a very few years of the crucifixion itself, which would make it the earliest surviving formulation of core Christian belief, older than any Gospel and closer to the events it describes than any other source in the New Testament. Whatever a reader concludes about the events the creed reports, its early date is treated by the field as close to settled, resting on the technical vocabulary and the formula's own internal structure rather than on any claim outside the text.