I dunno, Prismo…But Danielinthelionsden will… 
PRISM02
This is called “The Harrowing of Hell,” and if I remember correctly from my C.C.D days, it is a Catholic doctrine (legend?) that does not appear in the New Testament. The idea is that, before Jesus came, no one could get into heaven on account of original sin. This meant that even righteous people like Abraham and Moses went to, I guess, Sheol, after their deaths.
Everyone since Jesus can get original sin forgiven through baptism, but people who lived before him couldn’t. This is hardly fair, and the Church needed a way out of this. The idea is that Jesus spent the three days between his death and resurrection coordinating the original Great Escape. He went down and freed everyone who was righteous, so they could join God in heaven. I’m not completely sure about the details of this, so if I’ve screwed it up, someone please correct me.
An apocryphal Catholic legend has Satan complaining of loneliness after Jesus frees everybody. God says something to the effect of, “Do not fear, Satan. From now on, I will give you all the souls of those who are self-righteous in their condemnation of others, and Hell will be filled up once again.” Now that’s my kind of God.
But aren’t you being self-righteous by saying that? 
Touché.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Hell.
However, it differs from the Christian version. For one, people (with a few exceptions) do not spend an eternity in Hell. Rather, 12 months is the most time someone will spend in Hell. This is part of the reason a child only says Kaddish for 11 months for a parent. (As to why it is said for 11 months and not for 12 is a matter of parental honor).
As another poster pointed out, however, Judaism is more concerned with this world than the afterlife. As a result, there is very little written on the subject in Biblical sources.
As to whether it fits the Christian version (fire, brimstone, etc.) I cannot say. Perhaps Chaim or Izzy or SDim might have a better idea.
Zev Steinhardt
Thanks for the confidence, and I was reaching for my references when Dumb OX did it so well. The story does not appear in the Standard NT, but I believe there is something in the Apocrypha. I think Dante, also.
And, I would like to hear from our other Talmudic scholars, especially as to some of the verses I quoted. It does seem like some of the very evil folks will have a “hot time” in the Jewish hell, but that’s just my reading of it. In my Church, one also does not spend an eternity in Hell, just until you truly repent. Some few, like Hitler, will likely take a VERY long time at it, tho.
The Bible is ambiguous on the subject of an afterlife, but the Talmud discusses it and interprets various biblical passages accordingly.
The are alot of specific examples of types of suffering undergone in Hell, but these are generally thought to be apocryphical.
The main purpose of Hell is not so much to punish sinners as to purify their souls of their sins. Folks who repent while still alive will not need this.
Frankie quoted the Pope as saying that Hell was an absence of God. This, or something similar, is also a Jewish concept. Though perhaps an absence of spirituality and God’s presence is more accurate. In the spiritual world of the afterlife, this absence is in itself a great suffering.
Some posters suggested that in Judaism the afterlife is of minor importance. This is not at all the case in Orthodox Judaism. The Talmud compares all of this world to an entranceway to a great hall. Our purpose in this world is to prepare our entrance to the hall. In other words, our existence here is merely a preparation for the eternal afterlife. There are many other pronouncements of a similar nature.
As Izzy and Zev have already stated, Judaism (at least the Orthodox version) does believe that hell exists, and many Talmudic statements make reference to the afterlife being that primary purpose of living one’s life properly.
Probably the most explicit reference to the afterlife in the Tanach is in I Samuel Chapter 28, where Saul has a necromancer summon the spirit of Samuel.
I had heard/read somewhere (and, sorry, I can’t name the source) one explanation of Hell is the embarrassment we would feel before God when He reviews our lives with us and we are ashamed because of our sins.
Zev Steinhardt
I wonder what the theologians–Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, or Muslim–would make of Todd Rundgren’s lyric “Everybody’s Going to Heaven” from Something/Anything:
Everybody’s going to Heaven
'Cause already we’ve all ben through Hell!
After several choruses, this song segues into “King Kong Reggae.” A non-seguetur?
Though it may not have been clearly described in either the
Old or New Testament, I think the concept of
hell was a major lynchpin of the Christian Church from its
very inception. Why? Because to amplify the perceived value of a savior, it was necessary to emphasize to the
utmost what it was that prospective converts were being
saved from.
I saw a documentary about this a while ago…although I forget the details, I think something like this was said …Heaven is closeness to God whereas Hell is distance from God. The better you live your life, the closer you would be to God in the afterlife.
I guess I could be very wrong about this (and from the looks of other posts, it seems that I am), but I recall reading the concept of Hell was borrowed by early christian missionaries from the norse/pagan religion. According to Norse mythology, there is “Valhalla” which is analogous to Heaven. It was a divine banquet hall which the chief god Odin presided over. A norseman could earn his place there by being a strong and noble warrior (and preferably dying courageously in battle.) The flip side was the netherworld where cowardly non-warriors were subjected after they died. This place was ruled over by a goddess named “Hela” or “Hel” and was named for her.
When the christian missionaries were spreading the faith in the early middle ages, they borrowed numerous pagan elements to make it easier for the pagan tribesmen to accept christianity. (Hallowe’en, of course,is originally a pagan holiday.) The missionaries just took the original pagan concept – that the virtuous go to a great big party in the sky with God and the sinful go to an underworld full of pain and misery – and adapted it to conform to their theology. Hel became Hell. Although why “Valhalla” was thrown out the window in favor of “Heaven” I don’t know.
Perhaps because Valhalla was for warriors who would one day fight again in Ragnarok. Heaven is a goal available to everyone.
NO, no, no. Are you not reading the posts? Hell was a Jewish concept & a place long before there were any Christians. Now, the NAME “Hell” was borrowed from the Norse “Hel”, but that was long after Christianity got started. And the norse “hel” was not a place of punishment, in any case- Just bleak as hell. 
And heaven was not “borrowed” from the pagan religions, either.
I happen to be reading a book of Yiddish short stories, so I can tell you that many of them feature of hell that is, to me, indistinguishable from the modern Christian version.
Don’t try to blame the Jews for hell. If I may quote a paragraph from one of my books:
“Either God or Beelzebub, depending on what you read, provides churches for us to get married. That way our spouses can make our lives a living hell and He is saved the trouble.”