Evidence for God from Science

Proinsias wrote:There is an interesting William Craig Lane and Bart Erhman debate on youtube which delves into this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhT4IENSwac

I have watched the video of the debate between Bart Ehrman and William Lane Craig. I think Ehrman could have engaged with Craig’s position much better. Craig states that there are four historical facts:
Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea
The empty tomb was discovered
There were post-mortem appearances of Jesus
That the disciples believed that Jesus was resurrected.

Craig talks a lot about multiple attestations. However he doesn’t examine the nature of the gospels to provide evidence that there are multiple attestations. I would have liked to see Ehrman state why there were not independent accounts of the resurrection.

It is clear from reading Matthew and Luke that their account of the burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea is based on the account on Mark. John’s version seems later than Mark’s and may well be based on it or Luke’s account. Therefore the only evidence we have for the burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea is Mark. It has also been suggested that Mark might create names for some of the characters in his gospel - It should be noted that some people think Mark created the name Jairus because it means "he will awaken" in Mark 5:21-43 for the father of the daughter who people thought was dead, but was in fact sleeping. These people therefore say that Arimathea can mean something like Best doctrine. It has also been suggested that Joseph of Arimathea should be seen as representative of the authorities and I would agree with this. In fact the early Kerygma (Acts 2:23-36, 5:29-32 and 10:34-43) not only doesn’t have Joseph of Arimathea it doesn’t have Jesus being buried. It is not until Luke sets out Paul’s teaching that Jesus’ burial is mentioned in Acts 13:27-29,

“[27] For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, … condemning him.
[28] Though they could charge him with nothing deserving death, yet they asked Pilate to have him killed.
[29] And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a tomb.”

However again there is no mention of Joseph of Arimathea.

I think Craig said that resurrection was not something Jews could believe and then says that when Paul says “was buried” and “then raised” Jews would automatically know that the physical body was needed for resurrection. I am not convinced this is true. In 2 Maccabees 7 the bodies of the seven brothers are fried until burnt (v 5 “The smoke from the pan spread widely”). The belief in being resurrected does not seem to need to have either a whole body or a body at all, because the bodies may have been burnt.

Craig seems to state that because Paul says Jesus is buried in 1 Cor 15:4 this has to mean there was an empty tomb. Lots of people disagree. In fact in an earlier letter of Paul he doesn’t even mention Jesus being buried - 1Thes 4:14. The argument that 1 Cor 15:2-7 goes back to an earlier tradition can also be used to claim that it wasn’t in the original letter to the Corinthians but was added later. There is no mention of the empty tomb in the letters of Paul or in the early Kerygma and therefore the case for multiple attestations is poor. I did like Ehrman’s position that as women were marginalised it therefore makes sense for Mark to have created the story.

I think Craig said that Paul differentiates between resurrection appearances and visions. Please can someone state where? I think it is clear that Paul believed in a spiritual rather than physical resurrection and if 1 Cor 15:2-9 was written by Paul he believed that his experience of seeing the Risen Lord was the same as that experienced by the disciples.

Craig dismisses the differences in the resurrection appearances stories. They cannot be so easily dismissed and seem to demonstrate that while there was a belief in resurrection appearances no one could quite remember where they happened and who was present.

The only evidence that has multi-attestation is that the early Christians believed that God had raised Jesus up and he appeared to some of them and we call this resurrection. We have no agreement on the empty tomb or Joseph of Arimathea and no agreed understanding of the nature of resurrection.

What I also didn’t like was Craig saying that numeric values can be used in historical probability as an argument that the resurrection was probable. If you roll a six sided die and the die is balanced there is a clear one in six chance of getting each of the numbers. The chance of my being resurrected soon after my death is very small. I know this because millions of people have died and few have been written about as being resurrected. Historical probability is not about numeric values but weighing the evidence. We would say that the evidence that Julius Caesar existed and was killed in Rome is good, but the evidence that there was a King Arthur in Britain is poor and the evidence that he had a round table of knights is so poor it just couldn’t have happened. It therefore should be a discussion of whether the evidence is poor or good. However I don’t believe that many people would dispute that the early Christians believed that Jesus was resurrected but our accounts differ on what this means. There is a problem about how an historian can establish that this belief is a probable fact. People say they see ghosts but can historians say that it is probable that a certain person saw a ghost; no all they can say is that the certain person believes they saw a ghost.

WLC does plenty of explanation on the death, burial, and empty tomb. He however does his best on time constraints. The death, burial, and empty tomb is historical fact. This is confirmed by Mark contrasted against archalogical evidence from Roman records. The Talmud writings are another source to confirm the historic events that happened.

The biggest deliberation here is, what happened to his body?

Every naturalist or humanist adheres to ad hoc or contrived explanations.
Such as
1. He didn't really die from his beating and execution from highly trained Roman soldiers.(lol)
2. 12 Jewish peasants overpowered 2 highly trained Roman guards to steal his body. (Lol)
3. His body was moved against Jewish law and custom and those guards were guarding nothing. (Lol)
4. His followers all happened to see "visions" of him at the same time. (Lol)
5. Roman guards were bribed. (Lol)

The list goes on and on.

To a 1st century Jew, ressurection meant ressurection of the body.
It never meant ressurection of the spirit or any non-corpreal being.
When Paul or any other Jew said ressurection he meant of the body.
The simply fact is that there is no reason to believe that the disciples DIDN'T think that Jesus rose from the dead in BODILY form.
The Gospel accounts say so, as do Paul's and the Catholic Epistles.
The whole " one gospel is dependent on another" does NOT mean that Matthew ( for example) takes all his events from Mark or that Matthew is dependent on Mark for what he ( the writer) wrote, it simply SUGGESTS that Matthew knew of Mark's work as wrote along the same lines as Mark.
We need to remember that "scholar-speak" isn't like regular speach and when they say that Luke was dependent on Mark and Matthew that does NOT mean that Luke took what Mark and Matthew wrote and put it into his own words, it means that he used them as reference, along with other sources.
IF Matthew was dependent on Mark, he did the samething.
As for the GOJ, the writer chose to writes HIS version in HIS way.

Beyond that we DO have outside ( the New testament) attestation that SOMETHING did happen and that Jesus followers went around saying that Jesus was NOT dead ( not that his spirit was alive, but that HE was alive - ACTS mentions that).
Here is a good book about this:
Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Studying the Historical Jesus) by Robert E. Van Voorst (Paperback - Mar 1, 2000)

domokunrox wrote:WLC does plenty of explanation on the death, burial, and empty tomb. He however does his best on time constraints. The death, burial, and empty tomb is historical fact. This is confirmed by Mark contrasted against archalogical evidence from Roman records. The Talmud writings are another source to confirm the historic events that happened.

The biggest deliberation here is, what happened to his body?

...
2. 12 Jewish peasants overpowered 2 highly trained Roman guards to steal his body. (Lol)
...
...

Domokunrox believing that the death, burial, and empty tomb are historical facts is not a counter argument against them most likely not happening. I don’t know of any archaeological evidence for Jesus’ death, burial, or empty tomb. I thought all evidence from the Talmud is very suspect because of its laterness.

I did point out that Matthew copied Mark and this makes it highly unlikely that the story of Jewish guards/soldiers is historical.

PaulSacramento wrote:To a 1st century Jew, ressurection meant ressurection of the body.
It never meant ressurection of the spirit or any non-corpreal being.
When Paul or any other Jew said ressurection he meant of the body.
The simply fact is that there is no reason to believe that the disciples DIDN'T think that Jesus rose from the dead in BODILY form.
The Gospel accounts say so, as do Paul's and the Catholic Epistles.
The whole " one gospel is dependent on another" does NOT mean that Matthew ( for example) takes all his events from Mark or that Matthew is dependent on Mark for what he ( the writer) wrote, it simply SUGGESTS that Matthew knew of Mark's work as wrote along the same lines as Mark.
We need to remember that "scholar-speak" isn't like regular speach and when they say that Luke was dependent on Mark and Matthew that does NOT mean that Luke took what Mark and Matthew wrote and put it into his own words, it means that he used them as reference, along with other sources.
IF Matthew was dependent on Mark, he did the samething.
As for the GOJ, the writer chose to writes HIS version in HIS way.

Beyond that we DO have outside ( the New testament) attestation that SOMETHING did happen and that Jesus followers went around saying that Jesus was NOT dead ( not that his spirit was alive, but that HE was alive - ACTS mentions that).
Here is a good book about this:
Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Studying the Historical Jesus) by Robert E. Van Voorst (Paperback - Mar 1, 2000)

Unfortunately PaulSacramneto what Jews believed about resurrection is nowhere near as clear cut as you believe which is why I quoted 2 Maccabees. Also Mark states that the Sadducces didn’t believe in the resurrection (Mk 12:18). While I do accept that Paul talks about physical bodies he clearly states that resurrection bodies are different – they are celestial (1 Cor 15:40) and imperishable (1 Cor 15:42). Also Jesus talks about resurrection bodies being like the sexless bodies of angels (Mk 12:25).

When scholars talk about Matthew and Luke being dependent on Mark what they mean is that they use the same Greek words. This is why Erhman talked about reading the Gospels in parallel columns (it is then useful to underline the words Luke and Matthew copied from Mark and of course it can be done where Matthew and Luke also use the same words but not Marks, which is what scholars call Q).

With regard to the gospel of John maybe you are right and he had all three other gospels around him but he didn’t copy them but worked them into his version of the gospel. As you have read Van Voorst you will be familiar with the idea that the gospel of John had earlier versions before ending up in its current state.

Unfortunately PaulSacramneto what Jews believed about resurrection is nowhere near as clear cut as you believe which is why I quoted 2 Maccabees. Also Mark states that the Sadducces didn’t believe in the resurrection (Mk 12:18). While I do accept that Paul talks about physical bodies he clearly states that resurrection bodies are different – they are celestial (1 Cor 15:40) and imperishable (1 Cor 15:42). Also Jesus talks about resurrection bodies being like the sexless bodies of angels (Mk 12:25)

.
None of that changes the fact that for a jew that believed in the ressurection the view was that of a BODY coming back to life.
That body would be changed yes, but still a body and NOT an "immaterial" spirit.

When scholars talk about Matthew and Luke being dependent on Mark what they mean is that they use the same Greek words. This is why Erhman talked about reading the Gospels in parallel columns (it is then useful to underline the words Luke and Matthew copied from Mark and of course it can be done where Matthew and Luke also use the same words but not Marks, which is what scholars call Q).

Q is hypothetical, there is no evidence that it existed.
If Mark was the first gospel circulated, it would be correct for those coming after to use it in their writings, even if they didn't need to.

With regard to the gospel of John maybe you are right and he had all three other gospels around him but he didn’t copy them but worked them into his version of the gospel. As you have read Van Voorst you will be familiar with the idea that the gospel of John had earlier versions before ending up in its current state.

The GOJ did go through some edits, yes.
By the looks of it they were mostly organizational and structual ones.

PaulSacramento wrote: None of that changes the fact that for a jew that believed in the ressurection the view was that of a BODY coming back to life.
That body would be changed yes, but still a body and NOT an "immaterial" spirit.

...
Q is hypothetical, there is no evidence that it existed.
If Mark was the first gospel circulated, it would be correct for those coming after to use it in their writings, even if they didn't need to.

Paulsacramento has provided no evidence for his belief and that is OK, but I hope others will study the evidence. Paul wrote, “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. (1 Cor 15:44a). I would agree that everyone starts with a physical body, but if the body is destroyed this doesn’t mean that that person can’t be resurrected. I believe in the resurrection of the dead at the end of time and physical bodies decay into nothing. Jews of the time of Jesus who believed in the resurrection must have shared this view. They knew that the skin etc will decay from the bones of a dead person and once this was done the bones were removed and placed in ossuaries. Therefore I believe that the evidence shows that for Jews at the time of Jesus a physical existing body was not needed for the dead person to be able to be resurrected at the end of time. This is implied by Paul, but I am happy for each individual to weight up what Paul wrote and disagree with him if they wish as he wasn’t being dictated to by God, his words and views were his own reflecting his upbringing and culture. If it is true at the end of time then it is logical it can apply to the first fruits of the general resurrection – Jesus.

I agree that Q is hypothetical and may have existed in different forms. I believe there are traditions in Matthew and Luke that go back to one or more Greek text and I would call them all Q. Also there are traditions that go back to one or more Aramaic text and these can also be called Q. I am convinced by the evidence. Great examples of the Greek text of Q are Mt 3:7c-10 with Lk 3:7b-9; Mt 23:37-39 and Lk 13:34-35. It is generally recognised that Mt 23:23 and Lk11:42 go back to a common Aramaic source where rue is a mistranslation into Greek and dill is the correct word.

Paulsacramento has provided no evidence for his belief and that is OK,

Evidence for my belief that Jews in 1st century Palestine, when they spoke of the ressurection, meant the BODY being resurected?
Is that what you mean?

I agree that Q is hypothetical and may have existed in different forms. I believe there are traditions in Matthew and Luke that go back to one or more Greek text and I would call them all Q. Also there are traditions that go back to one or more Aramaic text and these can also be called Q. I am convinced by the evidence. Great examples of the Greek text of Q are Mt 3:7c-10 with Lk 3:7b-9; Mt 23:37-39 and Lk 13:34-35. It is generally recognised that Mt 23:23 and Lk11:42 go back to a common Aramaic source where rue is a mistranslation into Greek and dill is the correct word.

It is quite possible that "Q" may have existed, it is also possible that it may not have.
The oldest sources say that Mark wrote what Peter told him and it may be that he also had a copy of "Q" and used that to add to his gospel, but there is no evidence of that.
Matthew wrote his own gospel and whether he used Mark is not really that big a deal, IF the writers was Matthew the Aspostle he may have used Mark for the parts that he wasn't around when they happened ( not all the apostles were with Christ ALL the time).

PaulSacramento wrote:

Paulsacramento has provided no evidence for his belief and that is OK,

Evidence for my belief that Jews in 1st century Palestine, when they spoke of the ressurection, meant the BODY being resurected?
Is that what you mean?

Yes

PaulSacramento wrote: ....

It is quite possible that "Q" may have existed, it is also possible that it may not have.
The oldest sources say that Mark wrote what Peter told him and it may be that he also had a copy of "Q" and used that to add to his gospel, but there is no evidence of that.
Matthew wrote his own gospel and whether he used Mark is not really that big a deal, IF the writers was Matthew the Aspostle he may have used Mark for the parts that he wasn't around when they happened ( not all the apostles were with Christ ALL the time).

It appears that it was Irenaeus (c 180 AD) who wrote down who wrote the gospels. He is really just passing on claims made about the gospels. At this time there was no agreement on which written gospels were the ones people should use. Also there was no way of verifying the information about who wrote them. It should also be remembered that some claims made about people made at this time and earlier are contradicted by the gospels and Paul’s letters.

The traditional view that the gospel of Matthew was written by a disciple of Jesus is widely discredited because of the evidence of the Greek text. I would be interested if any New Testament scholar is still supporting the view that Matthew was written by a disciple.

I am not aware of anyone who would say that Mark used Q. I have seen someone say that the author of Q knew Mark, but I haven’t been convinced of it.

It is quite important to understand how the authors of Matthew and Luke treated their sources as it then means we can understand how Mark and John treated their sources. Also it means that everything we read in the gospels needs to be considered carefully and not just taken on trust.

The traditional view that the gospel of Matthew was written by a disciple of Jesus is widely discredited because of the evidence of the Greek text. I would be interested if any New Testament scholar is still supporting the view that Matthew was written by a disciple.

Please tell me were you got this information from?

1st century ( second temple Judaisim) view on the ressurection:
http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Hist ... roblem.htm

A short exerpt:
There was, then, no single universally accepted and commonly articulated second-Temple Jewish hope for the future. It remains likely, however, that the Pharisaic belief, their way of telling the story, was popular with a good many Jews. Be that as it may, however wide the spectrum may have been and however many positions different Jews may have taken upon it, “resurrection” always denotes one position within that spectrum. “Resurrection” was not a term for “life after death” in general. It always meant reembodiment.

Not all jewish sects held to that belief of course:
The first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus stated that the Pharisees, the Jewish sect that founded rabbinic Judaism to which Paul once belonged, believed in reincarnation. He writes that the Pharisees believed the souls of evil men are punished after death. The souls of good men are "removed into other bodies" and they will "have power to revive and live again."

From time to time in Jewish history, there had been an insistent belief that their prophets were reborn. Reincarnation was part of the Jewish dogmas, being taught under the name of "resurrection". Only the Sadducees, who believed that everything ended with death, did not accept the idea of reincarnation. Jewish ideas included the concept that people could live again without knowing exactly the manners by which this could happen.

Josephus records that the Essenes of the Dead Sea Scrolls lived "the same kind of life" as the followers of Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher who taught reincarnation. According to Josephus, the Essenes believed that the soul is both immortal and preexistent, necessary for tenets for belief in reincarnation.

But if we are speaking about what Jesus FOLLOWERS thought, then that would be more inline with the "mainstream" Judaisim and The Pharisees.

Silvertusk wrote:

The traditional view that the gospel of Matthew was written by a disciple of Jesus is widely discredited because of the evidence of the Greek text. I would be interested if any New Testament scholar is still supporting the view that Matthew was written by a disciple.

Please tell me were you got this information from?

I can’t find any direct quote for my opinion. Peter Kirby states, “It is the near-universal position of scholarship that the Gospel of Matthew is dependent upon the Gospel of Mark. This position is accepted whether one subscribes to the dominant Two-Source Hypothesis or instead prefers the Farrer-Goulder hypothesis.” He also states, It is also the consensus position that the evangelist was not the apostle Matthew. ... That statement in Papias itself is considered to be unfounded because the Gospel of Matthew was written in Greek and relied largely upon Mark, not the author's first-hand experience.”

What we saying is that because Matthew uses the same Greek words as Mark there is literary dependency in Greek between them and this together with the nature of the Greek used means it is unlikely that the gospel of Matthew is a translation of either Hebrew or Aramaic texts.

PaulSacramento wrote:1st century ( second temple Judaisim) view on the ressurection:
http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Hist ... roblem.htm

....

But if we are speaking about what Jesus FOLLOWERS thought, then that would be more inline with the "mainstream" Judaisim and The Pharisees.

I notice that N.T. Wright also uses 2 Maccabees but it can only be used to state that there is a belief in the resurrection and that a body is not needed for resurrection as I have already said. I accepted that the belief in the resurrection was mainly a Pharisee belief and as Wright says, “But we must remember that in Jesus’ day and Paul’s day the majority of the Pharisees were on what we could call the revolutionary wing of Judaism, longer for the restoration of Israel” and this mean that this belief was not mainstream.

I agree with Wright that Resurrection is about the new age and therefore Paul is right to call Jesus the first fruit of the new resurrection age.

Wright states when discussing Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-3, 7-8, “These righteous Jews who have been martyred at the hands of the pagans are for the present at peace, safe with God, but the immortality of their souls is only the prelude to their rising again and being set in authority over the kingdoms of the earth, within the one kingdom of God. What the passage offers, over and above the other evidence we have briefly considered, is an account of what happens to the righteous dead in the interval between their torture and death and their rising again: their souls are looked after by God.”

However I am not convinced that Wright’s conclusion from Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-3, 7-8 is really justified. It could be read to mean that the souls of the righteous are with God at the end of time when they “will govern nations and rule over peoples”.

James King West writes: "Among the characteristics of Wisdom, two are of particular interest. First, the afterlife is described in terms of the Hellenistic dualism which debases matter in contrast to the immortality of the soul, rather than the Judaic concept of the resurrection of the body (cf. the remarkably beautiful passage in 3:1-9, also such vss. as 8:13). Second, the personification of wisdom, introduced, for example, in Proverbs 1-9, is here carried much farther than in any parallel Judaic literature.” (Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 464f)

Therefore according to James King West the Wisdom of Solomon does not represent Jewish views of the afterlife but the Greek view. This makes sense as it is generally accepted that the Wisdom of Solomon was written in Alexandra in Greek and it is likely to have been written in the first century AD, while some would date it just after Jesus’ time.

I think Wright’s treatment of Acts 12:12-16 is lazy New Testament scholarship. James B Jordan when discussing this passage points out the parallels with the Passion and resurrection of Jesus and he talks about, “Peter’s imprisonment and resurrection.” I have failed to final any discussion online on what the tradition behind Acts 12:12-16 might be, however I don’t think it can be so easily dismissed as not being a resurrection story in line with the traditions behind the resurrection stories that we have in the gospels. There are many New Testament scholars who believe that these resurrection stories started out an angelic appearance stories.

I am not convinced that Wright’s view of what early Christians believed is supported by the evidence and I note he produces no evidence.

I agree with Wright when he states, “Where second-Temple Jews believed in resurrection ... in which all the righteous dead would be raised simultaneously.” As I have already said this was Paul’s belief.

I don’t believe that Wright has shown that Palestinian Jews believed that “the righteous dead, were thought to continue to live prior to their resurrection in a state comparable to that of angels or spirits.”

To conclude PaulSacramento has failed to convince me that Palestinian Jews believed that there was any existence between death and resurrection and he hasn’t discussed Paul’s view about the nature of the resurrection body.

To conclude PaulSacramento has failed to convince me that Palestinian Jews believed that there was any existence between death and resurrection and he hasn’t discussed Paul’s view about the nature of the resurrection body.

I think you are under the mistaken impression that I am trying to convince you, I am NOT.
I am expressing an opinion, as you are my friend.
No convincing needed

As for Paul's view, there is nothing to indicate that Paul was describing the physical qualitites of the resurrected BODY.
It seems to me that when Paul mentioned the soulish pre-resurrected body as opposed to the spiritual post-resurrected body that he was NOT describing the physical and tactile but the qualities that are embodied.
Lets us NOT forget that Our Lords resurrected body was flesh and bone.

PaulSacramento wrote: I think you are under the mistaken impression that I am trying to convince you, I am NOT.
I am expressing an opinion, as you are my friend.
No convincing needed

As for Paul's view, there is nothing to indicate that Paul was describing the physical qualitites of the resurrected BODY.
It seems to me that when Paul mentioned the soulish pre-resurrected body as opposed to the spiritual post-resurrected body that he was NOT describing the physical and tactile but the qualities that are embodied.
Lets us NOT forget that Our Lords resurrected body was flesh and bone.

Oh isn’t debate about getting people to be convinced enough to modify their opinion?

I believe that my view of Paul’s view of Jesus’ resurrection and the general resurrection are consistent. I am not convinced Paul believed there was any physical side to the resurrected body (1 Cor 15).

I do understand that people believe that Jesus’ resurrected body was flesh and bone, however I don’t because his resurrection body is the same as ours will be at the general resurrection time and no existing flesh and blood body is needed for us to be resurrected. Also I haven’t seen any evidence that a physical body is needed at the end of time for someone to be resurrected in the general resurrection at the end of time.

Are you PaulSacramento saying that Paul believed in a spiritual existence for the dead before resurrection? If you are what texts do you have to support it?

Oh isn’t debate about getting people to be convinced enough to modify their opinion?

I didn't think we were debating, merely exchanging POV's.

I believe that my view of Paul’s view of Jesus’ resurrection and the general resurrection are consistent. I am not convinced Paul believed there was any physical side to the resurrected body (1 Cor 15).

There is nothing in 1Cor 15 that indicates a disemboded spiritual being, Paul simply states the resurrected body will be impershiable and spiritual not "immaterial".

I

do understand that people believe that Jesus’ resurrected body was flesh and bone, however I don’t because his resurrection body is the same as ours will be at the general resurrection time and no existing flesh and blood body is needed for us to be resurrected. Also I haven’t seen any evidence that a physical body is needed at the end of time for someone to be resurrected in the general resurrection at the end of time.

Jesus's resurrected body was fleash and bone (no blood) and he ate with it and he could be touched.
http://biblia.com/bible/nasb95/Luke%2024.42-43
http://biblia.com/bible/nasb95/Luke%2024.39
http://biblia.com/bible/nasb95/John%2020.27
http://biblia.com/bible/nasb95/Matt.%2028.9

Are you PaulSacramento saying that Paul believed in a spiritual existence for the dead before resurrection? If you are what texts do you have to support it?

The spirit returns to God on our death.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 "Then shall the dust return to
the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.
Psalms 31:5 Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.
Ecclesiastes 8:8 There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.
Acts 7:59 And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
60 And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.