*****"Reference to a Jewish custom of reverencing the dead is found in Maccabees,"
Praying "for" the dead is an entirely different matter. Not that I agree to its validity, it's just not the topic at hand.
*****"which Protestants disregard by removing it from the canon (By what authority? )"
We can come back to that.
*****"Where in the New Testament is there any prohibition for asking something of the dead?"
Where is the prohibition against laying with a beast? Or praying to the devil? Are you aware of how occultic that statement of your's sounds?
*****"In Revelation John describes the martyrs wonders about the injustice that has been done to them. Are they only "accessible" to the mystic?"
He was caught up into heaven. That is not analogous to praying to saints. Incidentally, while he was up there he didn't ask them to pray for him did he?
*****"As for Paul's remarks, they speak to the distinctive Jewish and Christian notion of the resurrection of the body. He is not addressing our subject at all."
Of course, but it his his presupposition I am getting at - the pre supposition that the fate of the believing dead can be ascertained from the fact of Christ's resurrection and not from personal contact with them.
Does it no give you the slightest pause that EVERY prayer in Scripture is addressed to God?
Every prayer addressed to the saints is ultimately addressed to God. You don't get the analogy of the court, where all power belongs to the sovereign and the courtesans are but his ministers. According to the doctrine of the communion of saints, living and dead are alike ministers of God. The Church is, in our view, the ultimate sacrament, the very means of Grace.
As for John, caught up to heaven he found the martyrs alive, and not "asleep."