Revisiting the 1 Cor. 15:4 Burial and Resurrection as Necessitating an Empty Tomb

Way back in one post responding to Pinchas Lapide's critiques of the New Testament, I argued that Paul did not include the burial to prove Jesus had died and instead that it implied an empty tomb. Of course, then, the burial would have to be undone, because resurrection in Judaism was a physical event. 

But then I realized an arguable contradiction. 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 is a creed, kept short to get the main ideas. If the resurrection was to be interpreted as bodily anyway, why mention the burial?

I should say right away I don't advance this argument for the empty tomb. I just haven't really bothered to buckle down on it and prefer the Gospels accounts, as defended in two posts(1). 

At any rate, this lone creed was created in a Jewish background, and is to be evaluated in light of it; it doesn't tell us about the background. So it doesn't carry weight that a physical resurrection wouldn't be expected. 

One specific point that Lapide explained and apparently Habermas referenced was a four-fold Jewish format: being led away (the crucifixion), being delivered (the burial), redemption (being raised), and the acceptance as the people of the covenant (being seen)(1).

Also, in the post defending why 1 Cor. 15 doesn't have who buried Jesus, I point out the creed is significantly balanced even without Joseph of Arimathea, but the burial works excellent in the format and appears necessary. 

I have also thought that it might serve to say Jesus didn't immediately rise from the dead. Finally, perhaps they think it would be very nice to more specifically imply an empty tomb. Whatever the reason it's in the creed, the burial of Jesus was significant.

Citations:
1. The first defends Luke and the uniform testimony of women as the first witnesses, and the second focuses only on Mark.
2. Pinchas Lapide, The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective (Augsburg Fortress Publishing House, 1982), 99; cf. Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI. 2016), 250.

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