[quote author=“Riley”]To the extent that there was, and still is debate about wether or not Christ went to Hell or not, notice that the debate is not about wether Hell was at the center of the Earth, only simply wether or not Jesus did in fact go there.

It’s an interesting discussion. A couple of things:

First, as I say, it’s not clear to me how much of this notion of hell comes from the Bible as vs. Greek mythology. The Bible has virtually nothing about hell, and virtually nothing about its location, while it seems that Greek mythology has somewhat more information on that matter.

Secondly, it isn’t clear from these quotes that hell is “at the center of the earth”. (At most it’s “beneath the ground”). It’s not even clear from the Biblical passages themselves that Christ went to hell, and if he didn’t, the Bible doesn’t seem to have any particularly robust notion as to its location.

However, as I say, the notion that hell was “down” was, I think, a popular notion in society, if not strictly a particularly Biblical one. (If for no other reason than that it made a good opposite to heaven’s being “up”).

[quote author=“dougsmith”]However, as I say, the notion that hell was “down” was, I think, a popular notion in society, if not strictly a particularly Biblical one. (If for no other reason than that it made a good opposite to heaven’s being “up”).

I agree, the notion of Hell does not necessarily, if at all, come directly from the Bible, but got developed later by the early Church - along with Purgatory, etc.

I thought the “heart of the earth” reference in Matthew 12:40 was pretty convincing for putting a location on the place that the Medieval Christians would have called “Hell”, but regardless, my point concerning the relative status of being near the center of the universe is made if Hell is merely considered further down from the earth, because I think we can all agree that if Hell and the Earth were both near the center of the universe, that being near the center was not a reason to be proud.

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