Did Jesus descend into hell or to the dead?

"Descent to Hell" by Duccio, painted 1308 to 1311 

"He descended into hell."

That's one possible explanation of what Jesus did between Good Friday and Easter.

For more than a millennium, Christians have uttered some version of that phrase as part of the Apostles' Creed. And for nearly just as long, theologians have wrestled with what the phrase means or whether it should be included in the creed at all.

Early Methodist hymnals omitted the phrase altogether. The 1989 United Methodist Hymnal includes the likely more accurate translation, "He descended to the dead," and mentions "descended into hell" only as a footnote.

But including any mention of descent in the creed says something about how Christians over the ages have come to understand God's saving work, say church scholars.

"It means there is no part of human existence to which Christ did not 'descend,'" said the Rev. J. Warren Smith, associate professor of historical theology at United Methodist-related Duke Divinity School in Durham, N.C.

"It's what it means for Christ to take upon himself ... the punishment of sin, which is death. If Christ really dies, then that means he (journeys) all the way to the place of dead."

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