Proof is the thief died after Jesus. No one was in hell after Jesus died. The same time the vail of the temple was torn was when those in Abraham's bosom came out of their graves and they did not have tangible bodies. Jesus as God retained those marks in an eternal body, not of flesh and blood. Flesh and blood cannot enter Paradise. There was no reason for Paradise to be under the earth. No one could enter it any way. Adam and his descendants could never enter Paradise. It was the Faith of Abraham and his bosom that provided a resting place until the Atonement on the Cross.
Did Enoch not enter Paradise? Was it not in the air? Did not Elijah enter Paradise? Was it not in the air? Where did the body of Moses go? Did not Satan demand it from Michael? It was not on earth, nor in Abraham's bosom, nor in sheol. Moses was alive in Paradise. Moses and Elijah appeared with Christ in glorified bodies and returned to Paradise even before Christ died on the Cross. The 4 beings and the 24 elders were with God in Paradise. They are separate at times from Paradise and those now in Paradise, but that does not mean that they all cannot have been in Paradise. You will have to give Scripture that defines Paradise below earth, because only those allowed up into heaven, ended up in Paradise because that is where it would always be if no longer on earth. Lazarus was with Abraham in Abraham's bosom, because it was Abraham doing the talking, not God from Heaven where Paradise was.
The whole point was the fact that neither Adam nor his descendants could enter Paradise the Garden of Eden, until the one man, Jesus Christ placed the Atonement on the alter. That did not happen until Sunday afternoon. Jesus told Mary that morning, He had not yet ascended to present the Atonement along with the firstfruits. The firstfruits being all of the OT saints. It was only then that Adam and all his descendants who accepted the Messiah and the Atonement in faith, could return to their original home. That was Paradise the Garden of Eden. The exceptions were Enoch, who returned as Elijah, Moses, the thief on the cross (Jesus said on the Cross, "Today, not in 3 days, you will be with me, God in Paradise), and whoever the 24 elders are. The thief was the first convert to die after the Atonement of the Cross. It was the tangible ghost of Jesus Christ with the nail and sword wounds, walking around with the OT saints for 3 days, since they came out of their graves at the same time Jesus Christ gave up the Ghost and immediately freed them from Abraham's bosom.
They all were freed at one time from their graves all over the earth, and were ascended to heaven 3 days later behind their saviour, Jesus Christ. He presented them as the firstfruits along with the Atonement on the alter. John in Revelation 6 says all those slain in Christ are under the alter. Only in the Atonement was Paradise opened back up for all in Christ to enter. It is not until the 5th and 6th seal where those under the alter and those alive in Christ on earth will finally receive the spirit that was separated because of spiritual death when Adam disobeyed. It is the robe of white and glorified body, because the body of Adam in Christ was made complete. There will be some more in the harvest, up until the week of the Second Coming. But at the Second Coming either all humanity left will be killed, or some with their heads chopped off, will live for 1000 more years on earth. The first resurrection after the Second Coming. The last and final resurrection will be all the dead at the end of the 1000 years. It is all literally in black and white in the book of Revelation. The time of the trumpets and thunders will be Jesus as the Lamb doing the harvest in the midst of the tribulation of Jacob's trouble. The church will not be there, because it is only the 144K Jewish disciples that were sealed after the thief in the night event. After they were sealed as the church on earth, the 7th and final seal was opened, and the harvest of goat and sheep, wheat and tares begins.