“They provided scriptural references supporting the facts that the souls of the saints who departed pray on the behalf of the living, that the living can participate in the atonement of other sinners, that those who die in grace but with the stain of sin suffer temporal punishment in the afterlife (purgatory), etc.”
Do you have a reference? I’ve yet to see any Scriptures like that...
We’ll just end up in a debate about the interpretation of those scriptures; the relevant point is that Luther conceded the point, causing him to start removing books from the bible. The Old Testament books stayed out of Protestant bibles since then, although Luther removed portions of Daniel and Esther. The New Testament portions were restored, once Protestant apologists offered different interpretations.