1 Peter and Christ’s Descent to the Dead in Its Early Christian Reception

In the Christian Bible, there is a mysterious text in the First Epistle of Peter (1 Peter 3:19) which speaks about "Jesus preaching to the spirits in prison". Traditionally, this text has served as the major scriptural support for the doctrine of Christ's descent into Hades (the so-called descensus ) in Christian theology. Present scholarship, however, has rejected this traditional understanding and tends to detach 1 Peter 3:19 from the descensus . Such a critical judgment, unfortunately, remains insufficiently examined. Indeed, no previous study has specifically focused on how and why 1 Peter 3:19 came to be associated with the descensus in history, nor what bearing the descensus could have on the text of 1 Peter 3:19 itself. Thus, Chi-Kin Lei fills this lacuna by studying 1 Peter's early reception in relation to the descensus, ultimately challenging the current scholarly consensus on this issue.