Help with 1 Peter

[MagicKirk]

Hello.
I have been using the NAB version of the Bible. The footnotes are usually helpful to me in better understanding the scripture. Today they got me confused.

In regard to a couple of passages in 1 Peter, I am wondering whether the footnotes might not be accurate.

1 Peter 3:19-20 says:
In it he (Christ) also went to preach to the spirits in prison, who had once been disobedient while God patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water.

The footnote says:
The spirits in prison: it is not clear just who these spirits are. They may be the spirits of the sinners who died in the flood, or angelic powers, hostile to God, who have been overcome by Christ (cf 1 Peter 3:22; Genesis 6:4; Enoch 6-36, especially 1 Peter 3:21:6; 2 Enoch 7:1-5).

–

1 Peter 4:6 says:
For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead that, though condemned in the flesh in human estimation, they might live in the spirit in the estimation of God.

The footnote says:
The dead: these may be the sinners of the flood generation who are possibly referred to in 1 Peter 3:19. But many scholars think that there is no connection between these two verses, and that the dead here are Christians who have died since hearing the preaching of the gospel.

–

Do you think that perhaps one or both of the above passages more likely refers to the following in the Catechism?

632 The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was “raised from the dead” presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection.477 This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ’s descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Saviour, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there.478

633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.479 Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”:480 "It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Saviour in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell."481 Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.​

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[Trishie]

The Jesusalem Bible: 1 Peter 3:19-20

Comments" Probably alludes to the descent of Christ to hades" which Paul refers to in Romans 10:7 as the “underworld] and suggests "…that here it is the saints, the holy ones who were waiting for him, that are liberated.” Those other suggestions are also made but it seems most likely it refers to those good persons who had died before Jesus redeemed the human race.

At this point the JB refers to Matthew 27:51-52.
"At this the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom: the earth quaked; the rocks were split; the tombs opened and the bodies of many holy men rose from the dead, and these, after his resurrection, came out of the tombs, entered the Holy City and appeared to a number of people."This text to my mind adds weight to the suggestion that Peter is referring to the souls of the dead finally liberated by Jesus’ death.

Regards, Trishie

 

[Catholic_Dude]

The footnotes in the NAB are often actually pretty lousy (with a liberal bias). They are mere opinions of the translators and not official Church teaching.

The spirits in prison and preaching the Gospel to the dead have traditionally been understood as when Christ “descended into Hades” (sometimes called “hell” in the Apostles Creed) which was also known as Abraham’s Bosom (the waiting place where the saved souls went before Christ came to free them).

Here is a time tested and respected Catholic commentary of the Bible:
haydock1859.tripod.com/index.html