so paul is our earliest new testament source um especially when you look a little bit more behind
his letter especially first corinthians chapter 15 goes even before paul and there's evidence of that
internal evidence of that in the writings of paul um but a lot of people think in terms of
wait a minute all this evidence you're talking about um how can we be sure that that's accurate
since there's been such a long time that has passed why don't you speak a little bit to
the importance of recognizing that the issue is not where we are now to the events but where
the evidence is to the events why don't you expand on that a bit if that makes sense okay
well they're still interviewing world war ii vets today and world war ii ended let's see
76 years ago yeah and they're interviewing world war ii vets today to get their eyewitness
testimony on it they're interviewing korean war vets they're interviewing vietnam war vets right
um we see documentaries they seem just like yesterday on the gulf war that took place in 1990
the first gulf war i guess i remember 31 years ago 31 years ago wow okay um even the second gulf war
we're talking about that started what was that was it 2002 or 2003 when did that happen um so we're
looking nearly 20 years ago sure but but even with the first gulf war 1990 31 years ago that that
that happened stop seeing 31 with such emphasis i feel old i know man i remember when it happened
you know i remember watching cnn when it when it was fair yeah
um and and man everybody was glued to their televisions watching uh watching it um so
you know what we're looking at 911 yes that was 20 years ago
20 years ago i remember yesterday i feel really old now okay so now
when's paul writing well paul's writing first corinthians no more than 25 years
after jesus's death and he says i delivered to you what i also received okay so let's just say
paul's writing this in the year 55 jesus died in either in april 33 or april 30. i leaned toward
33 slightly but it could have been 30 and it's almost like 50 50 between scholars today let's
just call it 30 and say it's 25 years later all right so um now we're talking about bill clinton
and monica lewinsky you know we remember that you know it depends what you mean by the word is right
i mean that's bill clinton monica lewinsky that's the kind of separation date separation at the very
max we have between when jesus died and when first corinthians was written that's a good parallel so
so so from when it was written to when it happened is equivalent to where we are now and the monica
lewinsky scandal that's right now let's let's now paul says in first corinthians 15 i delivered to
you what i also received all right when did he deliver to them well most scholars think that
he delivered it to them when he established the church in corinth which most scholars think was
around the year 51. so now we're talking about 21 years after jesus that he delivered this to them
they received this statement about jesus death burial resurrection and the appearances
um within was it 21 years 21 years after jesus death at the very most 911 was 20 years ago
okay now he says i delivered to you what i had also received so if he delivered it to them in 51
he had to receive it before then and he received it from people so now we're even earlier than 911
and he received it from eyewitnesses now we don't know when he received he could have received
it at his conversion or shortly thereafter from for manias uh ananias just a a few days
after his conversion experience which would have been probably you know you know we don't know it
could have been one to three years after jesus's death but he received he could have received it a
very early date he could have received it when he went to jerusalem three years after his conversion
he could have received it 14 years later he could have received it any time
during that uh period from barnabas or silas silas or mark john mark one of his traveling companions
the thing is though he would have known the gospel he calls this the gospel message
and this gospel message he knew even if it weren't in this stylized format that he gives them in
first corinthians 15 3-7 he still received the content of that you know he would have received
it back at his conversion and he probably knew about it even before then so that's how early it
is it's really early and we don't question anyone who claims to be an eyewitness of having watched
the bill clinton monica lewinsky thing we don't think about people um who talk about the first
golf wars that's too far away we don't we don't question vietnam vets even though that was like
50 years ago you know um and we certainly don't for 9 11. so it's not too far away at
all
you