‘He Was Raised On The Third Day According To The Scriptures’ (1 Corinthians 15:4) A Typological Interpretation Based On The Cultic Calendar In Leviticus 23 -- By: Joel R. White

Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 66:1 (NA 2015)
Article: ‘He Was Raised On The Third Day According To The Scriptures’ (1 Corinthians 15:4) A Typological Interpretation Based On The Cultic Calendar In Leviticus 23
Author: Joel R. White


‘He Was Raised On The Third Day According To The Scriptures’ (1 Corinthians 15:4)
A Typological Interpretation Based On The Cultic Calendar In Leviticus 23

Joel White

([email protected])

Summary

According to one of the earliest creedal statements in the NT, which Paul quotes in 1 Corinthians 15:4, the Messiah ‘was raised on the third day according to the scriptures’. Scholarly analysis has centred on determining which scriptures are in view, rarely differentiating between the creed’s perspective and Paul’s. One can only speculate about the former, but with regard to the latter there are contextual clues in 1 Corinthians 15 that Paul sought to draw attention to the typological significance of the sheaf of firstfruits which, according to the Leviticus 23:10-11, was to be waved before the Lord on the day after the Sabbath after Passover, the very day that Jesus rose from the dead.

1. Introduction

Paul’s reference in 1 Corinthians 15:3b-5 to an early Christian creedal statement1—or, less likely (since Paul uses the quasi-technical

vocabulary of ‘receiving’ and ‘passing on’ a tradition), to a creed he himself composed out of traditional formulae2—has generated intense discussion due both to its intrinsic importance for understanding the development of New Testament Christology and to the exegetical challenges it contains.3 Among the latter is the creed’s statement that the Messiah ‘was raised on the third day according to the scriptures’ (ἐγήγερται τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ κατὰ τὰς γραφάς) in 1 Corinthians 15:4, to which we direct our attention in what follows.

2. The Status Quaestionis

Scholarly discussion of this statement has focused on two questions: First, what is the antecedent of the prepositional phrase ‘according to the scriptures’? Second, what scriptures is the creed referring to? It is probably not too much to say that the first of these questions would hardly have been posed were it not for the difficulty inherent in

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