The whole ransom thing never made sense to me. I just put it aside and believed one day it would be answered for me. But it never was. I always thought it was not a equal exchange because Jesus was supposedly privy to what was going on and knew he would go back to that position after this little game was played. As Runningman said it so aptly, Jesus did no more than have a bad weekend for man. The thing that makes death so bad is it's permanence.
My question about it is this: Who was holding mankind captive and who did the ransom price get paid to? And once it was paid nothing changed. Why?