Did John The Baptist Go To Hell

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Edy

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When John The Baptist died, Jesus was still walking around. So then did he go to hell?

I’m assuming he did, and then Jesus went down there and saved all the souls he could.
 
No. If someone goes to Hell, they would remain there. John the Baptist, along with every other holy soul, dwelled in Abraham’s Bosom, a seperate realm which was the abode of the “good dead”, until they were freed by Christ.
 
Abraham’s Bosom was part of Sheol. It was the good part. Sheol is sometimes translated as Hell, but it was not exactly the same as the Hell of the damned.

There is a lot of Harrowing of Hell material that points out that St. John the Baptist probably acted as Jesus’ forerunner in Sheol, too, alerting the Patriarchs that the Messiah was on His way. (And St. Joseph before that, as well as Simeon and Zechariah.) Obviously the various sermons and apocrypha do not have the same authority as the Bible, but it is close to big T Tradition.

A lot of the Patriarchs and prophets were saintly folks or even martyrs, but only St. Elijah, St. Enoch, and St. Moses seem to have been in Heaven before Jesus brought the righteous dead out of Sheol. (And there is dispute about them.)
 
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Edy said:
When John The Baptist died, Jesus was still walking around. So then did he go to hell?

I’m assuming he did, and then Jesus went down there and saved all the souls he could.
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Sheol is the place of the dead talked about on multiple occasions in the Old Testament scriptures, which was also sometimes problematically translated as “hell”, though it is completely separate from hell as in the lake of fire, or the eternal abode of the damned. Sheol was also referred to sometimes as Limbo. The righteous dead in Sheol were at peace and separated from the wicked dead.

The hell of the damned talked about in the final chapter of Isaiah or in the book of Daniel refers to the ultimate destiny of the wicked.
 
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He sure did.
But the correct word is really Hades not Hell proper.
 
Mintaka said:
A lot of the Patriarchs and prophets were saintly folks or even martyrs, but only St. Elijah, St. Enoch, and St. Moses seem to have been in Heaven before Jesus brought the righteous dead out of Sheol. (And there is dispute about them.)
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There is only a dispute amongst Protestants perhaps.
Catholics are clear that nobody was in God’s heaven before its gates were opened by Jesus.
Elijah was taken up into the aerial heaven (ie the sky) not the Emyprean Heaven.
 
Mintaka said:
A lot of the Patriarchs and prophets were saintly folks or even martyrs, but only St. Elijah, St. Enoch, and St. Moses seem to have been in Heaven before Jesus brought the righteous dead out of Sheol. (And there is dispute about them.)
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The gates of Heaven were closed to EVERYONE (no exceptions) before the death and resurrection of Christ.
 
Yeah, he went to a part of hell which was separate from the hell of the damned.
 
When the Apostles Creed was translated, the word “Hell” meant the underworld, not the Hell of the Damned.
 
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