Spirit prison is believed by the Latter-day Saints, to be both a place and the state of the soul between death and the resurrection, for people who have either not yet received a knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ, or those who have been taught but have rejected it. It is a temporary state within the spirit world, and is sometimes referred to in the scriptures as hell. The suffering associated with the spirit prison refers to anguish of soul because of acute knowledge of one's own sins and unclean state.
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Latter-day Saints believe that "spirit prison" (a name based on the phrase "the spirits in prison" in the KJV translation of Peter 3:19) is
In Christianity, the more common doctrine is that after death there is no opportunity to repent.
The 1 Peter 3:19 phrase, with its reference to Christ having already visited the spirits in question, is usually interpreted in line with the image of the Harrowing of Hell.
The concept that the dead await a general resurrection and judgment either in blessed rest or in suffering, in accordance with a particular judgement already passed on each individually, was a common 1st-century Jewish belief (see Lazarus and Dives and bosom of Abraham). A similar concept is taught in the Eastern Orthodox churches, was championed by John Calvin (who vigorously opposed Luther's doctrine of soul sleep), and is reflected in some Early Church Fathers. The Catholic Church holds the same belief, alongside of belief in Purgatory. It appears in Islam as barzakh, and also in 9th-century Zoroastrian writing (after and perhaps due to two centuries of Muslim influence and several more of Christian influence).
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