Please read:
Genesis 35:18;
"Soul" - "nephesh" = "life". The passage is essentially saying that "LIFE" was departing her body which is what happens when God withdraws His Breath of Life from a creature. James says, "As the body without the Spirit is dead..."
It does NOT mean some disembodied "soul" thing was departing from Rachel, because according to Genesis 2:7, the "Living Soul" exists only as a consequence of the union of a creature's Body and the Breath of Life from God. At death, God's Spirit returns to Him, the creature returns to the dust, and what was a Living Soul becomes a "dead soul" or a soul that has ceased to be.
The Rich Man and Lazarus passage is a
parable which Jesus used to warn the Jews, as in the case of other parables He told for the same purpose, that their time of probation to get their act together was almost up. Got nothing to do with what happens when we die, especially in light of the fact that making this passage literal creates all sorts of contradictions which you seem unwilling or unable to refute.
Take out the comma and it reads "I say unto you today you will be with Me in paradise" or "I say unto today - while I'm hanging here looking like I can't promise anyone anything - you will be with Me in paradise." Throughout the Bible, the word "today" is used to modify the verb that follows it around 50 times,
but is used to modify the verb that precedes it over 170 times...which means the majority use of "I say" supports "I say unto you
today" and not "
today you will be with Me". Besides, neither Jesus nor the thief went to paradise that Friday. The thief was still alive as the sun was setting and Jesus testified that He'd not ascended to the Father on Sunday morning.
I agree that the resurrection is in the last day, but if Jesus wants to resurrect somebody before then, He has the power to do it as does anyone to whom He imparts that power. This in no way says the dead are conscious somewhere. There were 12 resurrections in the Bible and
not a single one of those resurrected had the slightest thing to say about what was going on while they were dead - because according to the testimony of the smartest man to ever live: "The living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything."
Pastor explains this passage:
If you keep reading, you'll see that the "spirits in prison" were the
Antedeluvians who were
"prisoners of sin" - the Bible over and over and over depicts sinners as "slaves" to wickedness and "in bondage" as prisoners. Jesus Himself applies the prophecy "to set at liberty the captives" to Himself - those who are captives of sin.
So, blood platelets were "crying out to God", right? Abel's blood plasma also cried out to God, right? What we have here is a
fantastically symbolic book depicting the
injustice of slain innocents causing God to feel a deep desire to avenge their deaths, much like when we look upon some great injustice and feel the same desire for justice against the unjust. When people die, they can't speak, according to David, Solomon, Hezekiah, etc.