Three Days in the Grave

Question of the day: what happened to Jesus when he died?

Did he go to hell, as certain creeds affirm based on 1 Peter 3:18-20: 18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, 19 through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison 20 who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built." The scriptural evidence for Jesus visiting the place of the damned is very weak and counts on fairly bizarre reading of the passages. The verse in Peter appears to mean that the spirit of Christ bore witness to the disobedient people at the time of Noah.

Did he go to "paradise", as one could conclude from his remark to the theif dying next to him, in Luke 23:43, Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." If he was in heaven (i.e. where God lives), why does he tell Mary in John 20:17 "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father." Perhaps it would be more accurate to render the quote, "I tell you the truth today, you will be with me in paradise," moving the word 'today' from modifying when they would be in paradise to when Jesus was talking.

Did he cease to "be", disappear like a cloud?
Ps 6:55 No one remembers you when he is dead.Who praises you from the grave?
Job 7:8-98 The eye that now sees me will see me no longer; you will look for me, but I will be no more. 9 As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so he who goes down to the grave does not return.

Ps 104:29-30
9 When you hide your face, they are terrified;
when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust.
30 When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.

Can you create something that already exists?

Job 34:14-15
14 If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, 15 all mankind would perish together and man would return to the dust.

Mark 15:33-37
33 At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"-which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" ….37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

Did God withdraw his breath from Jesus so that he returned to the dust? Was the nature of the death of Christ like our death or unlike it?