Prayers for the Dead

Prayers for the dead were a Jewish practice in the Second Temple period, before the time of Jesus Christ (who lived circa 4 BCE–30 CE).

The clearest evidence comes from 2 Maccabees 12:38–46, a Jewish text composed around 124 BCE during the Hellenistic era. In this account, Judas Maccabeus and his men discover that fallen Jewish soldiers had worn idolatrous amulets, a sin under Jewish law. They respond by turning to prayer and offering a sin sacrifice in the Temple on behalf of the dead:

“They turned to supplication, praying that the sin that had been committed might be wholly blotted out… He also took up a collection… and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering… Therefore he made atonement for the dead, so that they might be delivered from their sin.”

The text explicitly praises this as “a holy and wholesome thought” and ties it to belief in the resurrection of the dead, noting that praying for them would be pointless without hope of future life and forgiveness. This reflects a belief among at least some Jews (likely aligned with Pharisaic traditions) that actions like prayer and offerings could benefit the deceased in the afterlife, aiding expiation of sins.

Protestants removed these [Deuterocanonical] books from their Bibles.