1 Peter 3:18-19 has been one of the most controversial passages in the Bible throughout time. And for good reason. I'd like to address a particular interpretation of the passage, however.
1 Peter 3:18-19 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison,
You can see the interpretation in this answer here.
Essentially, it says that "made alive in the spirit" is a reference to Jesus' resurrection, and "proclaimed to the spirits in prison" is a reference to Jesus preaching the gospel to the spirits of the dead imprisoned in Hades/Sheol while He was dead. Now, it's already a major assertion to say that "spirits" refers to spirits of the dead, and to say that "proclaiming" refers to preaching the gospel, and to say that "prison" refers to prison in Hades[place of the dead], especially since nowhere in the entire passage are the spirits of the dead OR Hades mentioned. But we'll save that for another day. My question is... Why did the proclamation Jesus made take place during His death and not after His resurrection, i.e. what justification is there for such an interpretation? Peter places the event AFTER the event of Jesus being resurrected in his writing, so why isn't it that the event actually took place AFTER Jesus was resurrected(instead of BEFORE Jesus was resurrected)? Here's what I mean.
1 Peter 3:18-19 For Christ also suffered once for sins[event 1], the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh[event 2] but made alive in the spirit[event 3], in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison[event 4],
Events 1, 2, and 3 are all in chronological order; each precedes the following with regards to the historical timing of the events. Jesus (1) suffered for our sins, (2) was put to death, and (3) was resurrected, in that order. Does Peter, in the middle of his sentence, break chronological order? Does event 4 precede event 3 chronologically, despite being placed AFTER event 3 in a sequence of chronological events? If event 4(Jesus proclaiming to the spirits in prison) happened while Jesus was dead, wouldn't Peter have said, "being put to death in the flesh, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, then made alive in the spirit"? That way the event of Jesus proclaiming to the spirits in prison is shown to be chronologically prior to the event of Jesus being resurrected.
And if Peter was incapable of putting "proclaimed to the spirits in prison" in-between "put to death in the flesh" and "made alive in the spirit" due to such an act breaking the poetic parallelism(the poetic parallelism of "put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit"), why didn't he just clarify what he meant by saying, "in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison while dead"? That would be a small price to pay for maintaining the poetic parallelism(presupposing, of course, that Peter not only intends to be poetic but that such poetry would come first and foremost over maintaining chronological consistency. Sure, Peter was most likely employing parallelism in verse 18, but was he required to do so? Does said parallelism take the primary slot? Is chronological consistency less significant than poetry?), and that way there would be no confusion(confusion due to him breaking the chronological sequence he had established) among of his readers.
So here are my questions for those that hold to the interpretation laid out in the answer linked above;
Why did Peter break the chronological sequence of events by placing "proclaimed to the spirits in prison" AFTER "made alive in the spirit", when Jesus proclaimed to the spirits in prison BEFORE He was resurrected, while He was dead(that is, according to the interpretation that asserts that)?
What justification is there for saying that Jesus preached to the spirits in prison while He was dead despite the fact that Peter puts it after the event of Jesus being resurrected in a sequence of chronological events?
Why is an interpretation that says that Jesus proclaimed to the spirits in prison while He was dead(before He was resurrected, thus breaking the chronological sequence Peter was laying out[since Peter placed the event of Jesus proclaiming to the spirits after the event of Jesus being made alive in the spirit in a chain of chronological events]) BETTER than an interpretation that says that Jesus proclaimed to the spirits in prison while He was alive(after He was resurrected, thus maintaining the chronological sequence Peter was laying out)?
