Why this story matters

(What was Jesus doing between his death and resurrection?)

(Page 1 of 8)

Preface

This story may seem far fetched and fantastical. However, as this article will demonstrate, the illustrations are essentially in accord with traditional Christian beliefs. It's still explicitly the belief of the Catholic church today and also popular among a great many Protestants. The article will also demonstrate that, during the formative years of Christianity, leaders of the faith believed that hades, the realm of the dead, was located in the interior of the earth. And this belief persists with many Christians today. However, this area of theology is complicated and there are many contentious issues involved. Therefore, this article is necessarily longer than the others.

Introduction

Jesus said he would be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights (Matthew 12:40). What happened to him during these three days? Where did he go? What did he do? Well, the Christian community as a whole isn't quite sure. There’s only speculation, based on a few vague and confusing verses from the Bible. These three days are arguably the most important days in human history for Christians. This is the moment when the long awaited messiah became the first person to defeat death and return to everlasting life, thereby paving the way to eternal happiness for those who believe. Yet, if you asked a random group of Christians, both lay and clergy, what happened during those days, your question would likely be greeted with vague notions, strong disagreements, and general humming and hawing.

The problem is that, no matter what version of events you choose to accept, any literal interpretation leads to serious difficulties. These difficulties are not well known because most people don't think about the details. So it’s worth putting this Bible story under the microscope in order to expose the inherent difficulties in this belief. Then we will see why the issue of what happened between Jesus’ death and resurrection presents a substantial problem for the faithful.

The choices

There are only three choices here: (1) Jesus went to went to a temporary realm of the dead (2) Jesus went to heaven (3)  Jesus was completely dead for three days, both body and spirit.

Most Christians would find it difficult to accept that the creator of the universe was completely dead for three days, so the third choice isn't very popular. Therefore, we’ll only deal with the first two options here. The traditional and most popular view of Christianity is that Jesus went to a temporary realm of the dead, called hades (or sheol), between his death and resurrection. I'll first establish the preeminence of this view and examine the difficulties associated with it. Then, I'll look at the alternate belief, that Jesus went to heaven, and explain why this fairs no better.

© IllustratedBibleStories.ca