[hopespringseternal]

However, as that book points out, were there no purgaroty, there would be no need to pray for the departed, as we are instructed to do numerous times in both the Old and New Testaments.

Can you post those references?

[presidio9]

Can you post those references?

If you are questioning weather those referrences exist, you'd be better off looking for them yourself. You seem to be in need of a better acquaintance with the Bible.

[RobbyS]

Protestants reject the Books of the Maccabees, which means they ignore several hundred years of the development of Judaism. During this time, especiallly during the wars with the Syrians, martyrdom became inportant to the Jews, along with the notion of the Resurrection. Both doctrines focus attention on the dead and the afterlife. So it became the custom to pray for the dead. Christianity came out of the same body of opinion, and the early Christians honored their martyrs the same way, as we know from tomb inscriptions. The underlying sentiment is fellowship between the living and the dead.