“These are consistent with pagan practice.”
So is eating, drinking, sleeping, walking, talking, reading, praying, marrying, having a family, growing old, dying, etc.
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And don't forget that "breathing" is also consistent with pagan practice. Do you know any non-Catholic Christians who do not incorporate "breathing" into their worship practice? (That would give a brand new meaning to the phrase being "slain in the spirit"!)
Well that is a distortion of the original point. The Hebrews hold Torah as the ultimate authority. None of the pagan practices of praying to the dead or for the dead is mentioned in Torah, the Prophets or even the Writings. You would have to refer to the A.D. Talmud for such. Which is manmade tradition and not TaNaKh. At every turn Jesus Christ rebuked the manmade machinations of the Pharisees.
The NT tells us it is appointed unto man to die once and then judgment. Also the gulf between the Rich man and Lazarus could not be passed. All of these matters Jesus and the apostles address. We have no OT Hebrew accounts of Hebrews praying for the dead. There are no NT accounts for praying to Anyone other than The Father.
There are however plenty of TaNaKh and NT references to marriage, kids eating and drinking since the Hebrew tribes had to live too. And as having the flesh of a man, Jesus Christ ate food and drank wine, endorsed marriage etc.
So linking such necessary functions of human life to non Torah and non NT practices is a fallacious premise.
You may now quote the various non Hebrew texts and which I of course will respond with "show me the command from YHWH through a prophet instructing this process of praying for the dead or showing approval of such."