The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

[Angrboda]

No, the materials would not be dated very early either way.  That's the point.  If Paul was the source of the common passages referenced by Paul, then you cannot date the composition of Luke-Acts prior to Paul.  The textual evidence in Acts suggests that it was Luke who was influenced by Paul in his later account.  This deprives you of justification for the early dating.  Hearsay from someone who wasn't even there at the time, written years — even decades later — is hardly a testimony to historical reliability of the documents.  You need an early date because Paul is a relatively poor source for historical details about Jesus; without the early date, the historical reliability of the accounts of Jesus' life is put in doubt.

That aside, 1 Corinthians 15 is almost certainly a proto-creed of the early church which Paul memorized while in Jerusalem.

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.

[Verse replaced with original quotation from the NIV. -Jorm]



Who did he receive this from? When? This is the language of the Pharisees and of rabbinic schools. Paul was a trained scholar under Gamaliel, and he conveys this creed from memory just as he had previously learned and memorized the tenets of Judaism. This dates the core message of the resurrection to a very early point.

It reads like an interpolation to me.  If this is the entirety upon which you're resting an early composition of the gospels, I'm afraid that reed won't hold the weight.  

Acts 10:40-41: "This one God did raise up the third day, and gave him to become manifest, not to all the people, but to witnesses, to those having been chosen before by God -- to us who did eat with [him], and did drink with him, after his rising out of the dead;"

That's Luke, the self-same one you claim was a companion of Paul and who recorded an "orderly account."