I Don't Think Second Maccabees Is an Inspired Scripture

If you think second Maccabees is inspired scripture, it clarifies the question of is it good to pray for the dead explicitly. But even if you don't, if you're a Protestant who rejects secondMaccabees, I think the questions you should be considering are a few. If you go with, well, Jewish practice, how can you use Jewish practice to contradict Jewish belief and purge for the dead? Yeah. You'd be taking like a Jewish canon developed after the time of Christ to reject a Jewish prayer practice that existed before the time of Jesus. It's a very strange kind of argument.