"Come, let us reason together!" - Isaiah 1:18

† Holy Headbanger777 † asks:

"i have one question, where is your proof that Jesus descended into hell before he ascended into heaven?" 

He actually asked this on this blog by *A Starry Mist* - and I gave a brief answer there.  But then I thought this might be a good idea for my blog.  I hope neither party minds.

I've probably read the Bible, in its entirety, dozens of times over the years.  I've read dozens of books about the Bible, studied and taught Hebrew and Greek, and earned a degree in religious education.  (I'm also plodding through a Master of Sacred Theology program at the moment.)  And as most of you know, I am not a fundamentalist, a saint, an angel, a literalist, or even (by most people's definition) a Christian.  But Jesus intrigues me, as does the Bible - and even religion in general.  And I believe that (as with anything) the more we study it, meditate on it, and struggle with it - openmindedly, i might add - the closer we will get to Truth, whatever it is.

I have a fascination with Truth, although I suspect that if such an absolute thing as Truth exists, it must certainly defy definition or explication.  Knowing this, I still feel compelled to seek it or at least approach it. 

Maybe I will feel I can answer someone's question occasionally.  Maybe one of my readers will feel he or she can.  Either way, I'd like to do a blog like this once in a whie to excercise my mind (and perhaps someone else's) ... and to stimulate and perhaps satisfy our mutual and separate curiosities.

Feel free to leave your comments regarding the question and my attempted answer.  Or feel free to leave a comment with your own unrelated question.  I may choose to attempt to answer your question in the comment section as a reply.  Or I may choose to save certain questions to address at greater length in future blogs.  Rest assured, I will try to address every question eventually. 

But be warned - the answer may be "I don't know."  Yes, I've read and studied quite a bit, as many of you have - but I will be the first to admit that there is a whole lot more I don't know than there is that I know.  There are no bad questions.  And frankly, the questions I can't answer might be the most interesting questions. 

That said, let us return to the question at hand:

† Holy Headbanger777 † asks:

"i have one question, where is your proof that Jesus descended into hell before he ascended into heaven?" 

My Response:

Let me try to keep this short, since my preface was already so long... LOL

The traditional English version of the Apostles' Creed, used as a proclamation of Faith in many churches begins:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. 
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell;

The people who believe Jesus went to "hell" during his three days before the alleged resurrection have largely based their belief on the Apostles' Creed and on 1 Peter 3: 19-20, where it is written that Jesus "went and preached to the spirits in prison" (KJV), to those "who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark..." (NRSV). These "souls" or "spirits" already in "hell" before the "Judgment" are also alluded to several other places in the Bible (including 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6)  In the King James Version, 2 Peter 2:4 explicitly refers to this place where the "spirits" reside as "hell."

The Greek word translated "hell" in 2 Peter 2:4 is Tartaros, which means literally "deep place."  In Greek mythology, it was a place of punishment.  The philosopher Plato said (in his Gorgias dialogue) around 400 years before Jesus' birth that souls found worthy of punishment after death would be sent to Tartaros.  The problem is that the word Tartaros is not found anywhere else in the Bible.  It was apparently not a Hebrew concept, not a term Jesus taught, and not even a Pauline concept.  It was a "pagan" Greek concept that Peter (or whoever wrote the "second epistle of Peter") picked up elsewhere - likely from Platonic philosophy.

When "Peter" refers to "the days of Noah," he refers to an era covered in the book of Genesis - which was written in Hebrew.  But the word "hell" does not appear in the book of Genesis at all.  When it does appear in translations of the Hebrew Bible (by which I mean the "Old Testament"), it is always a translation of the Hebew word "Sheol," which is, unlike Tartaros, simply (quoting Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible),

"the world of the dead (as if a subterranean retreat)"

The translators of the King James Bible turned the Hebrew Bible's "Sheol" into the "grave," "pit" or "hell" in various places as they saw fit.  But much of early Hebrew thought does not appear to have envisioned "Sheol" that way.  "Sheol" wasn't necessarily or exclusively a place of punishment like Plato's Tartaros.  It was just where the dead went.

Later, more enlightened English translators recognized some of the King James translation's shortcomings (the misleading use of the word "hell" in many places is just one example) and sought to remedy them.  For example, in Isaiah 5:14, where the KJV says "hell," the New Revised Standard Version simply transliterates the Hebrew word and says "Sheol."  The NRSV still uses "hell" to translate 2 Peter 2:4, but then, perhaps to minimize confusion, includes a footnote to let the reader know that "hell" actually refers to Tartaros.

Churches have tried to backtrack from the unlikely idea of Jesus going to hell as well.  Thus the Anglican Church's Book of Common Prayer offers an updated translation of the Apostle's Creed which replaces "He descended into hell" with the less controversial "He descended to the dead."

"Come, let us reason together!" - Isaiah 1:18