Holy Week Good Friday: Jesus goes to hell

Jesus had a harrowing time in hell, was happy to get out, yet many disbelieve in the abyss

Jesus as a Buddhist monk during his missing years in India (Nicolas Notovitch/Holger Kersten)

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Mahayana Savior Ksitigarbha

Rumor has it, with textual support, that Jesus went to hell. What was He doing there, as the GO TO ("God of the Omniverse)? Was He by any chance engaged in the sort of good works bodhisattvas (buddhas-to-be) engage in in hell?

One of the most famous Buddhists in all of Mahayana is a bodhisattva ("savior") figure named Ksitigarbha, who has vowed to empty all the hells (and there are many more than one divided into 9 planes, eight terrible worlds including Avici, the lowest and most torturous of the infernos, plus one that may be even worse, the interstitial hell not everyone is aware of).

All hail the Bodhisattva in hell

Was good Saint Issa engaged in this important spiritual work of acting as the "guardian of souls"? Or is it just that Christianity borrowed and stole so much of its message from the many religions and spiritual traditions of the world it tried and continues to try to conquer?

The historical Buddha, after all, is a Catholic saint. If that's not cultural appropriation, what is?

Jesus is Caesar's Messiah before he's the good rabbi of Nazareth or the traveler who ventured to India during his "lost years" to study as a Buddhist monk in Hemis Gompa, Tibet (now Ladakh, India).

How would Jesus slaughter an animal? Tell his dad to do it? He
wouldn't; he was a vegetarian. He threw killers out of the temple.

Kshitigarbha has been saving sentient beings — including beings suffering in the “hell realms” — for countless years. Upon hearing the voice of the Buddha, the elder’s son made a great vow: “I vow to rescue all suffering sentient beings across uncountable eons and the six paths [places of rebirth] of samsara [wandering and cycling through the Wheel of Death and Rebirth] by establishing convenient methods [expedient means]. When all have been saved, only then will I attain Buddhahood [when they are freed, then I will take my leave from this otherwise Endless Round]” (Buddha Weekly).

To help those in hell(s), there is a mantra

Sid had a white pony, so why did Jess ride a donkey?

Can we truth the Bible on the Historical Jesus?

Holy Week (Greek Agia ké Megale Evdomas, lit. "Holy and Great Week") is the most sacred week of the for Christians [1, 2]. So it's not Xmas? For all Christian traditions, Holy Week is a moveable observance.

In the older tradition called Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which also calls it Great Week, it is the week following Great Lent and Lazarus Saturday, starting on the evening of Palm Sunday and concluding on the evening of Great Saturday [3].

In Western Christianity [Note A], Holy Week is the sixth and last week of Lent, beginning with Palm Sunday and concluding on Holy Saturday [1, 2, 5, 6].

Holy Week begins with the commemoration of Jesus Christ's triumphalist entry into Jerusalem on a white donkey on Palm Sunday, marks the betrayal of Jesus by a Jewish guy named Judas on Spy Wednesday (Holy Wednesday), climaxing with the commemoration of the Mystical or Last Dinner on Holy Thursday, and the Passion Suffering of Jesus on Good Friday. That would be today.

Holy Week concludes with Christ's pseudo-death and literal descent into hell on Holy Saturday [5, 6].

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  Roman psyops made this myth

  [So Jesus, who made hell and cast millions or billions of beings into it (as part of the Trinity), had never visited? Wait, he is the creator of the all and everything, but he didn't create hell, such a big place in the universe? Oh, he did create it, and he does throw countless living beings into it when they seem to die but still move around without this body and have thoughts and memories of a past life or lives? But he's simultaneously all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful only not powerful or knowledgeable enough to know what to tell his creations so they can avoid unimaginable suffering? Right. Good story, very consistent.]

Christians believe that Jesus died, was resting as a corpse from the ninth hour (3:00 pm) on Good Friday until just before dawn on Sunday morning, the day of his rebirth or resurrection from death, commonly known as Easter Sunday.

However, in 1 Peter 3:19, there may be a clue as to a task Jesus performed during this period between death and rebirth or resurrection: "By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison."

This marks the beginning of the season of Eastertide, with its first week being known as Easter Week (Bright Week) now that all the holiness is set aside until next year. More

Forged: Writing in the Name of God - Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are

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Forgery (Joseph Wheless)

There are a lot of curious things about Holy Week its themes that are relevant to Buddhist themes. Could it be a coincidence? That's doubtful. Christianity, particular its Universalism branch (called catholic that gave its name to Catholicism), is an aggregate tradition, collecting points of dogma from the world's smorgasbord of religion and spirituality. It took a great deal from Buddhism and Hinduism, just as Judaism took as much as it could get from Sumerian culture. Christianity is syncretism, which is why it may not always make sense. The rationalizations of the Church Fathers found a way to make sense of everything, but often this was hammered out by mere reasoning as if they did not know the origins of the doctrines. Moreover, there's a weird kind of Universalism already existing. Who knows if it's a recent development or a remnant from the time when the world had a single enforced religion. That time is coming again when we'll all be bullied to believe in just ONE thing, one teaching, one savior to come, one set of rules for everyone, one explanation. That will probably not be a good day because it will not likely be the true and correct thing. That religion will not be called, although it should, Syncretianity.

• Dhr. Seven, Seth Auberon, Sheldon S., Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY, Wiki edit; Asking, What does Bible scholar Bart D. Ehrman have to teach us?