JJM wrote:
"However Catholics believe that Jesus is physically there in the Eucharist and I doubt you would say that they are not praying to Him. So that also seems to be a bad definition."
The reason I would say that they're praying to Jesus if they speak to Jesus in the presence of the eucharist is because I don't think Jesus is physically present in the eucharist. If He was present, I wouldn't consider it prayer to speak to Him.
You write:
"I suggest that the word means more along the lines of a form of communication with a religious entity (excluding those of the same arbitrary level as you, in this case human beings who are materially living on earth and do not yet have a glorified body). In other words it is a term to denote religious communication. In this sense if anyone asks something of Jesus in the NT they are praying to Him."
That's not how the term is commonly defined. I've seen many scholars and other sources address the issue of prayers to Jesus, and none that I've seen think that discussions with Jesus during His earthly ministry are equivalent to prayers to Jesus. If prayer was commonly defined as you're defining it, then I don't think that the issue of praying to Jesus would be as controversial as it is. Revrobor's posts in this thread are an illustration of my point. Those who have opposed prayers to the dead and angels over the centuries haven't denied that humans sometimes speak with angels, for example. Somebody like Origen can write a treatise on prayer, and be aware that humans have sometimes spoken with angels, yet say that we shouldn't pray to angels. And I doubt that many people, if anybody, would classify exorcisms that involve speaking to demons as instances of prayer to demons, for example.
Prayer is commonly defined as involving a being who hasn't been physically manifested. If an angel or demon manifests himself in a physical form, one we can perceive through our senses, we wouldn't normally classify communication with that angel or demon as prayer.
You write:
"Besides this it is never prayer to the dead in the OT that is condemned but communication with them."
Are you suggesting that prayer to the dead is significantly different from attempting to contact the dead? If so, how is it significantly different?
You write:
"And as far as I know the one instance of necromancy in the OT the dead person actually shows up (I think it is in kings or Samuel please forgive for not looking it up. One of the prophets is called from the dead by a witch)."
The fact that Saul didn't think he could contact Samuel through prayer is significant.
You write:
"While this is true in the strict sense, prayer to the dead is only acceptable to those who are in heaven so the OT and the NT up until a few chapters into Acts, are basically right out. That leaves a very small section left."
Where are you getting the concept that "prayer to the dead is only acceptable to those who are in heaven"? That's a conclusion that would have to be argued, not just asserted.
And where are you getting the timeframe of "a few chapters into Acts"? People are referred to as being in a state we would commonly call Heaven, a condition of peace and joy in the presence of God, well before "a few chapters into Acts" (Psalm 49:15, 73:24-26, Luke 16:19-31, 23:43, etc.). There are different regions or conditions within what's commonly called Heaven, such as the New Jerusalem, but what do such distinctions have to do with prayers to the dead? If you want us to believe that something relevant changed "a few chapters into Acts", you'll need to explain what it was.
The "very small section" of scripture you refer to includes a history of the first few decades of the church (Acts), all of the letters of Paul and the other letter writers in the New Testament, and Revelation, which says a lot about prayer and events on earth in a wide variety of circumstances.
You write:
"That said, Jesus prays to the dead in a sense at the transfiguration. Technically both Moses and Elijah were assumed into Heaven body and Soul (though Moses did die). But most people who pray to Mary think this about her too so at least we could talk to her."
Why do you think Moses was assumed? If you're thinking that the concept is implied by Jude's use of some apocryphal literature, I disagree. See
here and
here.
And what about your earlier claim that "prayer to the dead is only acceptable to those who are in heaven so the OT and the NT up until a few chapters into Acts, are basically right out"? How could Jesus have been praying to the dead before then?
In the Mount of Transfiguration incident, Moses and Elijah had returned to life on earth. No prayer is involved. And the only one who spoke with them was Jesus. Peter, James, and John didnt speak to them. Even if we were to conclude, without good reason, that Jesus had been praying to Moses and Elijah, Jesus isnt merely human. Hes also God. To cite His conversation with Moses and Elijah as justification for Christians to pray to the dead is to assume that anything Jesus did must be acceptable for Christians to do. But its possible that praying to the deceased, if Jesus had ever done such a thing, was done through His unique attributes as God. There would be no way for us to know. Given the absence of any prayers to the dead in the remainder of scripture, your interpretation of the Mount of Transfiguration is highly dubious.
You write:
"Besides that whenever angels appear to people they are permitted to talk to them and even ask (pray) them for/about things (Luke 1:26-28)."
The fact that such discussions occur when angels manifest themselves in order to initiate a conversation tells us something. That's not what's normally classified as prayer, and the absence of human initiation of such discussions, when angels haven't manifested themselves, is significant. How would you know that an angel hears you, if his presence isn't known by means of a manifestation?
You write:
"Plus the jews have a tendency of worshiping things they shouldn't which is why you don't see them addressed often. It may have been a mistake to confuse them while they were still trying to get the whole no idolatry thing down."
How would a Jewish tendency to "worship things they shouldn't" explain an absence of Biblical prayers to angels and deceased humans? The Biblical writers included faithful servants of God, such as Moses and Daniel. The sins of other Jews wouldn't explain the absence of encouragement to pray to the dead and angels in the writings of Jews who were more faithful to God and whose writings would be read by others who were faithful. And you've claimed that discussions with angels who manifested themselves should be considered prayer, so, by your definition, prayer to angels is mentioned in the Bible repeatedly. But, then, why is it only mentioned in the form I referred to above, namely in the form of angels initiating discussions when they manifest themselves?
You write:
"However angels are addressed in the psalms for example Psalm 103:20-21"
When the psalmists speak to the mountains (Psalm 68:16, 114:6), or somebody writes a message to a deceased person on his gravestone, that isn't equivalent to prayer. The psalmist isn't praying to the mountains, and the message on the gravestone isn't meant to be a prayer. To equate such rhetorical devices with prayer is erroneous. Nobody who goes to a Protestant graveyard and sees "rest in peace" addressed to a dead person, or who sees angels being addressed in a Protestant hymn, would conclude that Protestants must therefore believe in praying to the dead and angels. Such data would be inconclusive at best. You cite verses 20-21 of Psalm 103, but you don't cite the next verse, which tells all of God's "works" to bless Him. Should we conclude that it's acceptable to pray to all of God's works?
Again, if praying to angels was considered an acceptable practice, we would expect to see it reflected in historical narratives, such as what we have in Genesis, Judges, 1 Kings, Acts, etc. Prayers to God are found there many times, under many different circumstances, from many sources. But in order to make a case for praying to the dead and angels, you have to go to passages in which an angel manifests himself to initiate a discussion, a passage in the Psalms that then goes on to address all of God's works after addressing angels, or the account of the Mount of Transfiguration, which, once again, involves beings who manifested themselves on earth.
You write:
"By the end of the OT there are only three people in heaven. Moses, Elijah, and Enoch and for all technical sense they are not dead but living in their bodies."
Where are you getting that concept? And even if it was true, one of those three men, Moses, was among the most highly regarded figures in ancient Israel, and the other two were highly regarded, though to a lesser extent. Why wouldn't we see prayers to them?
You write:
"In the NT the dead who are prayed to are in the presence of God and through that connection know what is happening on earth (or at least that is implied by Hebrews 12:1 and Luke 15:7 & 10) so they know it if we are addressing them."
You're making a lot of dubious assumptions. As I documented earlier, deceased people were "in the presence of God" long before "a few chapters into Acts".
And your interpretation of Hebrews 12:1 is disputed. Surely you know that. You would have to argue for your interpretation.
Luke 15 refers to rejoicing in Heaven among the angels, concerning the repentance of a sinner. How do you know the means by which the angels acquire that knowledge? You don't. And how are you getting from angels knowing some events on earth to their knowledge of prayers? How are deceased humans being assigned the same capabilities?
Angels can be aware of some events on earth without being aware of every event. They have limitations in understanding and interacting with events on earth (Daniel 10:13, 1 Peter 1:12). Passages like 1 Kings 8:38-39 and Revelation 2:23 suggest that only God thoroughly knows the human heart, and 1 Kings 8 is addressed specifically to the context of prayer. We would need some further warrant before concluding that the deceased and angels are aware of people's thoughts and speech. Angels are messengers. They're sent to perform particular tasks. Different angels work in different parts of the universe. The fact that an angel is highly knowledgeable in the earthly context he's sent to address, or in some other contexts, doesn't suggest that he would be aware of a prayer in the heart of a child in some other part of the world, for example.
You write:
"This is not unanimously true."
You then go on to cite Cyril of Jerusalem, who wrote about a century after the latest source I cited. And opposition to prayers to the dead and angles wouldn't have to be "unanimous" in order to be significant. Regardless, the passage doesn't mention prayers to the dead. And it's beyond the timeframe I was addressing. I don't deny that prayers to the dead and angels became popular within the patristic era later on.