Did Early Christians Really Believe that Jesus Rose from the Dead?

I wanted to share some apologetic material here and not just critique atheists, as much fun as that is. I want to start with something that I read in The Historical Jesus (1996) by Gary Habermas several years ago. This is one of my favorite arguments. In part two entitled Historical Data for the Life of Jesus, Habermas is setting to describe the nature of Christian thought before the writing of the New Testament. There are many pre-N.T. creeds that have been written down in the New Testament regarding many early Christian beliefs. The one I want to focus on is the creed regarding the resurrection.

Many skeptics argue that the resurrection is a later addition to the faith that the early Christians did not believe. Fortunately, we have evidence to the contrary. In 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 Paul states: "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures." (RSV)

Paul says that he received what he is about to pass on to the Corinthians. The wording Paul uses is different from what Paul normally uses in his other writings suggesting another origin for this creed. Most scholars agree that the date in which Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians was approx. 55 A.D. This means that within the first 25 years Christians knew about and believed that Jesus rose from the dead. This was not a later addition by the church as some have claimed. Furthermore, since Paul has said that this is something he himself had received, we can safely place the origin of the creed itself even closer to the actual year of the resurrection. 

I believe this creed found in 1 Corinthians 15 easily should lay to rest any notions of Christians of a later generation fabricated Jesus' resurrection.