I am somewhat mystified by your line of argumentation that insists on finding a basis in the Scriptures for all that the Church knows and does. There is not basis in the Scriptures for the Feast of the Entry of the Theotokos, nor for making the sign of the Cross, nor for facing East in Prayer, nor fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, nor (at the level of the text) for the Holy Icons (though the fact that Christ took our nature, and with it depictability, makes the entire history of the Incarnation an indirect support), nor for that matter for the solemnizing and keeping of festivals to note the passing from this life to Paradise of the various ranks of saints or events in the life of the Church, whether of during Christ's earthly ministry (as Transfiguration, Great Friday or Pascha) or subsequent (as the Exaltation of the Holy Cross or the Protection of the Theotokos).
For prayers for the dead, and their benefit, we have at least Second Maccabees, and yet you object that the Maccabees were still living under the Old Covenant and offered their prayers according to its customs and usages with animal sacrifices. Is not this simply the Old Covenant analog of what the priest does at the end of every Divine Liturgy when the particles of bread removed from the prosphoron in commemoration of the dead (and living) are swept from the diskos into the chalice, into the Very Blood of Christ with the words, "Wash away, Lord, by Your holy Blood, the sins of all those commemorated, through the intercessions of the Theotokos and all Your saints. Amen."?
Well, I am mystified that people are willing to believe in something that the Church says is not in the Scriptures! I would like to believe that what the Church does is indeed in the Scriptures, or else where did it come from?
The standard answer to that is -- the Church did it from the beginning. I beg to differ. Our customs, making the sign of the Cross, length and content of our fasts, manners of worship, bowing, kneeling, ranks of clergy, you name it -- all of it is man-mande, is not in the Scriptures, does not make or break the faith, and were not implemented on the Pentecost.
I am trying to stay focused on faith (our personal relationship with God), and not on personal opinions of individual Fathers which range from one extreme to another.
My objection to the Maccabees is that they believed (of no fault of their own) that burnt offerings atoned for the sins of the departed. They had a longing for Christ but they did not know Him. We don't practice Judaism because the concept of salvation in Judaism is not the same as in Christianity. So how is it profitable to say that burnt offerings atone for our sins?
We are taught by the Christian Scripture that we are forgiven our sins by God's mercy and that nothing we do will make us worthy of such a gift. Nothing, not even prayer. That doesn't means we can "sin boldly" as Luther suggested, because faith leads to theosis, and no one can approach the likeness of Christ and "sin boldly!"
I think in all these discussions we forget our relationship with God, which always brings back to mind the spiritual purity of the Three Little Hermits of Leo Tolstoy who, by their own admission and humility, did not know how to serve God, but they walked on water. God is not a legalist. His is Love and what can love do but offer blessings?
Saint Paul says we die once and then we are judged. Period. Based on that, we foretaste eternal bliss or perdition. What possible suffering could our departed -- whom God just saved -- be in to require our prayers if, as St. Chrystostom says, they are "near Him?" We should rejoyce that they are finally free from temptations and corruption of the flesh. It is more likely that we -- ungreatful sinners in the ocrrupt world and tempted by flesh -- need their prayers because we can still repent.
If anything, we should pray for those poor souls who, at the moment of their death, rejected God in their pride and arrogance and made it impossible for God to save them. For Love does not force itself on anyone. If it is true that, as St. Genoa, mentioned by Hermann, the Purgatory is incomparably more glorious than anything on earth, does it not seem like we should be the subject of their prayer rather than we praying for their already accomplished but not finalized salvation?
But, don't get me wrong -- I am not against praying for the dead. I do pray for the dead. I pray for them because I love them and because through prayers I send them my love, even if they don't remember me. My prayers are not beseeching Almighty God to do what He has already done in His mercy, but praising Him. I don't think the saved are in need of much comfort being "close to Him." Believing otherwise would express doubt in the salvific Love that is our Lord, as something that needs our support and without which all of God's mercy is not sufficient.