Descent into Hell!!! Rarrr!...Well, sort of...

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by alatar

Not to question anyone's theology or understanding of the same (and not to get too far afield), and obviously I'm no theologian, but in regards to the theme of this thread, did Jesus actually descend physically/spiritually into Hell as we seem to be defining it?

Originally Posted by alatar

I would cite Luke 23:43. And found this of interest but not definitive.

'And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."'- Luke 23:43, RSV

Just put the actual verse there for those who are too lazy (as I usually am) to go and look things up.

With regards to Jesus' physical descent into Hell, I'm not so sure that he did, at least as with regards to this question.

As I understand it, in the original Greek of the New Testament, Hades is used to represent the Hebrew "sheol", which simply means "place of the dead", and is not associated with either good or evil- not heaven or hell, but simply the place of the dead. In much the same way, Hades for the Greeks was the "place of the dead", and not hell.

So I don't know/remember if hell is used as a translation for lack of a word corresponding to "place of the dead", or if it originally meant that, as well as or instead of "place of eternal punishment".

As I understand, the original meaning of the passage is more that Jesus "having died, went to the place of the dead (sheol, Hades, hell), and by virtue of His death, the Gates of Heaven were opened and those in sheol were granted entrance into Heaven."

In this event, then Jesus did NOT descent into hell as we are defining it: a place of eternal punishment, to which Satan and all those who are evil are consigned. Although I might also add that Limbo, a place of nothingness which more-or-less compares with sheol/Hades as the neutral place of the dead, used to be an not-so-defined part of Christian theology as the seventh (and outermost) circle of Hell.