In Orthodox Christian theology, the harrowing of Hades occurs immediately after the Resurrection. In order to understand this event, we first have to understand what Hades is.

For Jews that believed in an afterlife, many did not expect something that we would consider to be like Heaven or Hell. Rather, Hades was the destination of all those who died. Hades was, for lack of better words, a place of gloom, essentially a jail of all the dead. For those who lived good lives according to the Law, the best they could hope for was that they would find themselves in "the bosom of Abraham": close to the religious they loved, but certainly not something like Heaven.

St. John the Baptist is also known as the Forerunner, the person who helped prepare the people for Jesus' message. He was the forerunner not only in life but also in death: he preached in Hades of the Messiah who, far from being a worldly conqueror, would truly liberate all humanity: He would liberate them from death and Hades.

To cut a long story short, the Resurrection is the death knell of Hades. The jail which kept the dead prisoner was destroyed in taking upon the Sinless One, God Himself. And those who were liberated were those who received the message of St. John.

It is of course not possible to know what form St. John's message took. It must have been something that even the dead could perform, though. And the dead, lacking life, do not really have anything to give. So I will -- perhaps unwisely -- hazard a guess that it might have taken this form: love and forgive your enemies.

I'm not sure what your intent is, but it reads like essentially what the grandparent described:

> Christians start saying that those bits don't count, or those bits have been misinterpreted, or that you need to read that other bit as well.

That person asked for someone to "Please explain the harrowing of hell". I tried to explain a view that is held by a large number of Christians and which has precedence in the early church; this is important in this instance because there is only a single verse in the New Testament about the harrowing of Hades, and it gives very few details. Thus, most of what we have is the tradition taught by the Church.

When it comes to the diverse views among Christians, here are two things to consider:

1) St. Paul in the NT says "hold fast to the traditions you have been taught, whether by word or by letter." This indicates, along with historical evidence, that a substantial body of Christian teaching lies _outside_ of the written documents of the New Testament. In as much as some people try to use "the Bible alone," we can see that this results in a tremendous amount of conflicting teachings. It's of note that the New Testament did not even exist in a definitive compiled form until a few hundred years into the history of the Christian Church.

2) Ultimately, for Christians the Word of God is a person, not a book. The God-man Christ did not issue a new set of laws, but took on flesh and taught by example how to live. The Christian is concerned with understanding this Person, and people are much more difficult to describe than laws.

So for the Christian, while the Bible is of course an important guide, it does not represent the totality of Christian teaching. And since this teaching is about a Person, and especially a Person who does not simply say "do X in Y situation," we can come across some conflicting views.

It is the goal of the Church in every generation to help the people of God to know Christ given the unique circumstances of each generation, without veering off into craziness that jeopardizes their love of God and neighbor. Ultimately it is up to the individual priest or bishop to exercise the right balance between akriveia (precision) and economia (house building) in each particular situation. For the priest it is more about the daily lives of parishioners, and for bishops about the actual teaching of the Church.

Anyways, this is starting to turn into an essay, and for that I apologize. But it is necessary to understand the details of the things we are talking about if we are to really talk about them. I do not say this to offend you, but out of recognition that many here are probably unacquainted with or have sadly had bad experiences with religion. To the degree that I can use my background in religious studies and my experience across various religions to help explain things, I am trying to do so.

Your input is great; thanks. I much prefer one person with expertise over lots of idle speculators.

My comment wasn't meant as criticism; I think we are talking about different issues. You seem to be addressing the acutal theology of this issue; I'm talking about how people can and do interpret the same scripture in many ways.

The Koran is ambiguous, as is the Bible, and the US Constitution. Indeed any meaningful statute passed by a legislature has some measure of ambiguity. Reconciling these ambiguities by means of textual interpretation is a large part of the reason why there are theologians, rabbis, muftis and Supreme Court justices.

Based on what I've read, in the case of Islam there has been a huge amount of exegeses and there are complex rules of interpretation that govern the meaning of texts. Trying to CTRL-F a translation of the Koran for "slay" as someone suggested elsewhere is a bizarre way to try to figure out the meaning of a text which has been pored over by great minds for centuries. I think it is a result of the fact that those of us with technical backgrounds tend to be dismissive of the humanities, uncomfortable with ambiguity and prone to literalism.[1]

The interesting thing is that discarding exegesis is exactly the approach taken by the Salafist/Wahabist tradition of the Saudis, and of ISIS and Al-Qaeda. 1400 years of scholarship is replaced with a literal textualist reading of the Koran and Hadiths, and thus justification is found for the most henious of crimes. There is a Latin phrase that describes this approach of discarding precedent entirety in favor of novel readings of a text, but it escapes me for now.

The Koran, or the Bible are not "violent" books not are they "peaceful", they are merely collections of words that need to be interpreted by their readers. It is unfortunate that the intellectually bankrupt literalist interpretation of the Koran is on the ascendant in the Middle East because of Saudi oil money, and that it presently lends itself to the justification of terrorism (even if the Saudi regime itself opposes terrorism).

[1] This could be a reason why terrorist jihadism, buttressed by literalist readings attracts a disproportionate number of engineering types.

> The Koran, or the Bible are not "violent" books not are they "peaceful"

The Koran is directly violent and intolerant. It contains direct instructions that are such. The Sunnah describes the violent actions of the violent person claiming to be prophet of the god (which was invented earlier) and his followers. The Old Testament describes the actions of the violent god (an invented being by his believers) and his believers trying to win and control the Canaan territories. The New Testament describes the violent action of authorities who try to keep the order by crucifying the person claiming to be the prophet that brings the end of the world, then contains a lot of briefs of his followers and then one apocalyptic vision.

And not a single one of these texts holds any scientific truth. All are based on myths and superstition.

At the time of the "last revelations" already 800 years passed since Greeks measured the circumference of Earth, the size and distance of Moon and the size and distance of Sun. But the supposed god of the supposed prophet instead spends the energy to leave the message that the uncle of the supposed prophet will burn in hell. He cares about the priorities, you see. In the Old Testament the god actually comes through the house door to his favorite believer and shares a meal with him. Or strolls through the garden. You know, gods have to eat too. Oh, and god also has rest for one day after making the whole world in six.

Read them all and compare.

And especially when referring to the Jewish and Christian Bibles, neither is a "book" in hr unified sense; both are collections of writings, originally created by different people with different agendas and beliefs hundreds of years apart from each other. Asking "what the Bible says" is a literally meaningless question

There is a long history of charletans, politicians, criminals, and other unsavory characters using one religion or another as a pretext for their actions. That doesnt' mean that their actions had anything to do with those religions. You have to exercise a little more discernment to dig into what they're saying and what the religion actually advocates to come to a conclusion.

In the case of Christianity, I think it is telling that at the time the founder was teaching, there was a dictator in Rome who claimed to be god and who was heavily suppressing the ethnic group (Jews) that the founder belonged to.

Did this man advocate any sort of political or violent acts to remedy the situation? No.

I don't think it really matters what the opinion is of a lot of people when we can merely look at recorded history and see what the founder of Islam did.

As I pointed out above, this is silliness and nonsense. How does the "founder" affect what a particular individual does today? Should an indivdual be judged as a person, or be guilty or innocent, or have their rights taken away, based on what a book says a religious leader did 1300 years ago?

If Jesus was so peaceful and the founder is so influential, how do you explain all the evil acts of Christians?

The founder of all three religions, Abraham, impressed God by being willing to perform human sacrifice of his own son! I hope I'm not judged by that. Or if you only count Abraham as the founder of Judaism, should all Jews be expected to perform human sacrifice?

It seems you don't know what which religion claims. The "founder" of Christianity is considered by Christians to actually be "God." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity ) The "book" in which Muslims believe is by Muslims considered to be the actual words of God, and they negate the claims of both Jews and Christians, these just prepared the ground for Muhammad who is the last one who will ever receive the messages from God. And the messages are accurately recorded by miracle.

My favorite "actual last words" of God from those are where he says (roughly) that the uncle of Mohammad will go to hell and that the wife of the uncle will carry the wood for that fire. (111:1 etc)

Such a natural thing for God to worry to pass to the humanity for ever and ever.

The uncle of Mohammad dared to consider the claims of Mohammad (that he receives the messages of god) as stupidity and dangerous, Sunnah explains.

I'm not making this up.

> I have you saying that the quran is violent, and I have hundreds of millions of muslims telling me that it's a book of peace.

Why not try reading it and making up your mind for yourself? I happen to share the opinion of the parent poster about the founder of Islam, but at the same time, the Qu'ran is a very interesting and in parts beautiful work of literature. Furthermore, Islam has given rise to some peaceful and open-minded groups, the Sufi tradition comes to mind (although yes, even the Sufis have suffered violent splinter groups over the centuries).

Qu'ran is available online and searchable, search for the word "slay" for example:

http://quran.com/search?q=slay

"And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. And fight not with them at the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there, but if they attack you (there) then slay them. Such is the reward of disbelievers."

Also search "disbelievers."

And on sunnah.com search "stoned."

Seriously, you are picking and choosing. Did you check the Sure before this one?. I will help you out:

[2-190]:Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors.

[2-191]:And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.

[2-192] And if they cease, then indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.

[2-193] Fight them until there is no [more] fitnah and [until] worship is [acknowledged to be] for Allah . But if they cease, then there is to be no aggression except against the oppressors.

So what's better when all the four verses are quoted? Muslims are to fight and kill until "worship is for Allah" (your [2-193]). (The words "acknowledged to be" aren't actually in the original Arabic verses). Peace once everybody is a Muslim? That's why it's the "religion of peace?" How do you understand the verses?

At least when "al-Masjid al-Haram" remains untranslated it can be considered to be only valid around the Great Mosque of Mecca. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masjid_al-Haram But it's just where "do not fight them" is.

I'm very aware of those passages and others that reflect the religion's violent origins, having actually read the book, or most of it (have you?).

If you were disagreeing with me, did you miss the part of my comment where I said I shared the parent's opinion of Muhammed (and yours as well, I presume)?

I simply was encouraging someone wondering about the Quran to read it himself so he could make up his own mind, regardless of our opinions.

Obviously, in the interest of fairness, similar passages about stoning/slaying can be found in the Tanakh/Old Testament. Luckily, few Christians or Jews take those passages literally today.

Yes, reading the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Quran and comparing them is really instructive. However Quran is just one of the two primary sources (the messages received by Muhammad), you'd have to read Sunnah for the deeds of Muhammad during which he received the messages (the second primary source). It's only there that you'd find the beheadings and stonings by Muhammad. Just like "the New testament" isn't just one of the gospels, but the four gospels and all the other books, including the Apocalypse of John and all the epistles.

Sunnah are also searchable online.

> Quran is just one of the two primary sources (the messages received by Muhammad), you'd have to read Sunnah for the deeds of Muhammad during which he received the messages (the second primary source)

Are you addressing this to me, in response to my comment, or to HN in general?

You said "I was encouraging someone wondering about the Quran to read it himself so he could make up his own mind," well, just reading just the Quran is not enough, as a such a reader would miss all the behadings and stonings of unbelievers by Muhammad and his soldiers that are the part of the primary sources of the religion.

The only laypeople who use the Koran and Hadiths as sources for direct personal understanding of Islam are literalist Salafist/Wahhabist types including ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

Islamic exegesis, which has led to the day to day fiqh that governs religious life for the vast majority of Moslems is a very complex field that has evolved over more than a 1000 years and takes years of study to master and is not as straightforward as you are portraying it. The "CTRL-F...gotcha!" approach that you seem to be advocating would be regarded as absurd not only by Moslems, but by anyone who has to deal with the interpretation of complex texts.

A layperson with no knowledge of Arabic and lacking the toolkit for understanding is not going to get very far in understanding Islam using Hadiths and the Koran, and you'd be doubly disadvantaged using an English translation.

An analogy would be the average American citizen, unschooled in law, being asked to derive the Miranda Warning from the Bill of Rights, or providing a reasoned opinion about the scope of the Interstate Commerce clause. Sure, it's great from a Civics perspective to read the Constitution, but if interpreting it was straightforward we'd be able to shutter the Supreme Court.

> The only laypeople who use the Koran and Hadiths as sources for direct personal understanding of Islam are literalist Salafist/Wahhabist types including ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

And Saudi Arabia which finances with billions (?) of dollars the religious education of Muslims around the world? Even in the Muslim religious education in the countries which don't use Sharia the first thing the kids learn is to differentiate themselves from unbelievers.

Then even as the layperson you can easily count how many statements there are in the holy book in which the Unbelievers are "liers" and will be "painfully punished" for which is "fire" etc. It's not written in parables or anything it's completely and plainly explicit.

Ditto for the practices of stoning, beheading in Sunnah etc.

The layperson doesn't have to practice Islam, or know their religious discussions to get the rough idea of the content.

Billions may be overstating it, but you do have a point, Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of that movement and does promote the literalist approach, along with its Gulf neigbours. However, it wouldn't surprise me if Moslem countries carefully watch their madrasah syllabi to make sure that Saudi influence does not infiltrate.

In the case of France, as the article points out, Islamically ignorant, disaffected Moslem youths are easy pickings for Salafists.

Edit: as for the rest you are again ignoring the context in which then verses were revealed, and their practical interpretation.

> it wouldn't surprise me if Moslem countries carefully watch their madrasah syllabi to make sure that Saudi influence does not infiltrate.

But you don't know. As I speak a few languages, I was able to check the instructions on one local language and I was able to see that among all the content that is supposed to be less fundamentally oriented there is this nice "kids, now we will learn who is unbeliever, think about those who you know who aren't Muslim" etc. Then you can actually check what the religious text tell about the unbelievers.

> ignoring the context in which then verses were revealed, and their practical interpretation

Sunnah is the context and they are even searchable online. So please don't scare people from reading Quran. They will surely understand more than when they don't even attempt to see what's inside. They can also search for the context and interpretations elsewhere, even Wikipedia has some:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_career_of_Muhammad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Campaigns_led_by_Muha...

Interpretations abound:

http://mercyprophet.org/mul/node/1640

"Those who ridicule Prophet Muhammad and defame his life and message drive people away from virtue and deprive the world from stability and tranquility. These people are condemned and threatened by the Qur’an. Allah says in His Glrious Book, : {The ones who prefer the worldly life over the Hereafter and avert [people] from the way of Allah, seeking to make it (seem) deviant. Those are in extreme error.} [chapter of Abraham, 14:3]"

I actually want to be free to "ridicule" that self-claimed "prophet": I don't believe in him. He was only a mortal, and he was not more connected to God than Joseph Smith. And Joseph Smith was a fraud too, even if the guy who believes in him almost became president of US. And gods are just a human invention anyway. Imaginary beings who as the messages stumble to give "Guide us to the straight path The Way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger (such as the Jews), nor of those who went astray (such as the Christians)" but never even a single scientific hint for anything, like, why wouldn't any "God" leave the message in his holy texts "you don't understand now, but once later you'll see that the light has always the same speed." The humanity discovered it around a century ago. Imagine that this simple words were in some holy text. Wouldn't it simply prove that the imaginary beings called by us gods even exist? The major problem with Islam is that I'd be dead after saying former sentences in front of most of the "submitted" (which is the meaning of the word "Muslim"). It's true that I'd be dead for the same words in Europe of Middle Ages, but that only proves that we know what we know today because we dared to stop being the "believers" or the "submitted."

Feel free to that, just be aware that your approach lacks any kind of validity and would be regarded as quixotic at best.

Most hadiths (I think that's what you are referring to) have weak veracity and weighted accordingly.

As I stated elsewhere your approach shares a great deal with the Salafist/Wahabist doctrine but, sadly, not a great deal with 1400 years of Islamic thought. Once again, to use the analogy of the US Constitution, your approach is akin to finding a copy of the Constitution in 2015 and trying to produce a functioning government from scratch with no prior knowledge. Sure you'd be able to produce something, but th chances that it would remotely resemble the real thing are slim.

I can read the constitution to get the ideas of those who wrote it just like I can read the Islamic text to get their ideas. To know the exact implementation of the ideas we'd have to study the US law or the law of some other country (and we are sure to see that not all ideas are even implemented in practice). But to learn about the general ideas, reading the original material is actually enough.

And it's actually a good exercise to read both the US constitution and then read Quran and compare the ideas in them.

Let's start with the constitution. I can search through that too.

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.txt

God is never mentioned, religion is mentioned twice:

"no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Fortunately, there are better ways of trying to figure out Islamic exegis is on this issue than randomly searching for words in the Koran: http://www.lettertobaghdadi.com (via http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-is-... )

The list of all signatories is telling. The only one from Saudi Arabia is:

Al-Sayyid Abdallah Fadaaq

"Differences arising with the current Wahabi regime forced him to leave teaching at the Grand Mosque in Makkah like his ancestors, to teach privately from his home in Jeddah"

The Saudis released their own letter:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/17/saudi-clerics-f...

And they definitely avoid to sign many of the claims from the other letter.

And the other letter is bad enough:

"21- Armed insurrection is forbidden in Islam for any reason other than clear disbelief by the ruler and not allowing people to pray."

Imagine that I'm a president of, for example, Turkey, and I just say that I'm an atheist. And that the Muslims should pray in their homes and not in the university (the women weren't actually allowed to cover their head in universities in Turkey since the 1920s, as introduced by Kemal Pasha, I don't know if the current government reverted that recently). From the letter it can be concluded that the Muslims are supposed to organize armed insurrection in Turkey.

"9- It is forbidden in Islam to declare people non-Muslim unless he (or she) openly declares disbelief."

So imagine I say I'm an atheist openly. And that god doesn't exist and that Muhammad just invented what he claimed that came from god. What does the letter imply? That then I'm to face the Islamic treatment of unbelievers?

Quran: 5:33 "Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment,"

In reality, Allah really doesn't exist. Otherwise he would leave us a message or two about the speed of light or the atoms. Instead he supposedly said (hey, Muhammad said so it must be true) that Muhammad's uncle will burn in hell. Now that's really important for humanity. No joke. (the sound of some ears closing singing I can't hear you)

I have news for you possible martyrs: if you go around and get killed, you'll just die. No 72 virgins, no heaven. Try to be nice to the people around you instead, this is the only life you and others have. And you believers, that simple fact is the basic source of the existence of morality, not your religion.

Now imagine I've said all this publicly. There's chance I'd end up like Theo van Gogh. That's why a lot of people are scared to say it. But it's so simple and it's true.

I understand that people find their religion part of their identity. We all have to learn how to respect and recognize everybody's identity but to leave the 3000, 2000 and 1300 years old superstitions behind.

Humans have a natural propensity for violence. Would you suggest that other base instincts (such as lust) are just because of some outside influence? Because that is exactly what religion believes and it is ridiculous. We need to deal with people as they are, the rationalisation (religion) comes after.