In few words, is it possible to see a hint of veneration of the saints in a common Gospel passage? I think so. Mark 15:34-36 records for us a short episode:
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, “Look, He is calling for Elijah!” Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink, saying, “Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down.”
Jesus quotes the 22nd Psalm and certain Jews present at the crucifixion confuse this for Him asking Elijah for intercession. This is an interpretation that more than a few Protestant interpreters hold.
One can see that the Gospel, written in Greek, is transliterating the Aramaic of the 22nd Psalm into Greek. Hence, Hellenistic Jews would have heard “Eloi, Eloi” (Ἐλωῒ) and confused this with Elias (Ἠλίαν)–the former sounding like “eh-low” and the latter “eh-lee-on.” The words are really not that close, but as the same Protestant interpreters conjecture, fit a “dominant expectation of the coming of Elijah.”
In short, if Jesus words were interpreted by some people as Him calling for Elijah, then this means that the belief in saintly intercession was fairly well accepted.
Though some Protestant interpreters, as I have said before, would accept that Jews thought Jesus was asking for Elijah’s intercession, not all do. I think verse 36 disproves those who reject the conjecture of Matthew Henry and other interpreters.
This is because Christ is given sour wine to drink in the hope that this would prolong His life, thereby perhaps giving time for Elijah to come. As David Matthis of DesiringGod.com points out, Jesus was given wine mixed with myrh at first to numb His pain and later He was given sour wine (the Gatorade of the ancient world) to accomplish the opposite–to refresh Him and prolong His life. So, even if the tone was mockey or whether the mood had become serious (which appears to be the case), the end result is the same.
Sour wine was given because of some belief in the possibility of saintly intercession. Any other reading of the passage renders the words of the Jews as senseless and confusing.
Orthodox Christian Theology 
Craig–
We are not told whether the bystanders mistook Jesus’ words on purpose or whether they mistook them honestly.
The clear allusion to the vinegar in Psalm 69 argues that it was done in derision: “This ignoramus thinks he is the Messiah and is calling on Elijah, his prophesied precursor. He hasn’t shown up yet as expected. Poor delusional wretch! Let’s humor him.”
Yes, if it is an honest mistake, perhaps an onlooker is hedging his bets, hoping Jesus holds on long enough for Elijah to actually come and rescue them all.
But in both cases, we’re talking about Elijah, a man who never died. So this wouldn’t be a typical prayer, but a “calling down.” That Elijah would physically descend as he had once ascended.
And even then, we are talking about a superstitious folk belief, not part of official Jewish dogma.
It may well be the case that Mark is commenting perjoratively regarding the practice. (Remember, Jesus isn’t actually calling on Elijah. He’s querying his Father. No veneration of any saint is going on.) Mark could be saying that calling on Elijah is exactly the opposite of what they should be doing. They should be calling on their Heavenly Father, even as Christ is modeling for them.
To sum up:
This may or may not indicate any normative Jewish prayer to saints. And even if it does, it’s not likely to be in support of the practice. The followers of Jesus, standing at a distance, do not participate.
I think this is a good response and I myself am not completely convinced that the vinegar was given without any hint of ostracism. Nevertheless even if the passage does not explicitly endorse asking Saints for petitions it does as a matter of History show that the practice predated Christianity. And being that St veneration is most popularly the key reason why Protestants won’t join Apostolic churches I find it interesting that Jesus and the apostles would have never explicitly forbade the practise. After all it is supposedly worship according to observers like you. If the scriptures are sufficient and they show a practice and they don’t forbid it on what basis do we put a yoke on Christian’s that God himself does not put on?
This is why most Protestant including myself simply presumed that veneration of the Saints is a later Roman import.. because if it was not it’s hard to see how it can be so evil that the apostles in Jesus Christ did not seek the reform the Jewish practice.
I will say this I do think that a first century Jewish heresy was the worship of angels. This is purely speculation on my part but I think we could see that ass in the book of Colossians and perhaps even Hebrews. We see mentioned in Acts chapter 7 and Galatians chapter 3 that’s a Jewish law was mediated through angels. In the book of Colossians it appears that Paul calls this the religion of angels. There might have been Jews that interpreted this in conjunction with their belief in guardian angels that the Angels had to be appeased in a fashion similar to Mediterranean paganism and their belief in the manes.
The reason I bring this up is that in the scriptures we do have a hint of an apostle forbidding Henotheism . It seems to be a perversion of venerated ones guardian angel in conjunction with first century beliefs with how the Jewish law was given to man. Yet there is no criticism of building monuments and tombs for the Jewish Saints other than not to do so the spirit of hypocrisy.
Being that the Reformation doesn’t practice Mass pilgrimages to the burial sites of holy men and the apostolic churches do it shows that the ladder have a much more close connection 2 first century Judaism.
Craig–
If you want to feel closer to second-temple Judaism, then become unitarian, legalistic, ethnocentric, and intensely anti-Christian! Also, make sure you give up on ham hocks, bacon, and pork chops…and grow your ear locks long.
The intercession of saints is not an official tenet of any form of Judaism I know of…so you’re talking about folk religion. Is that really what you’re basing all this on? Folk religion?
There are all kinds of practices Jesus never specifically forbade, including bestiality, incest, and homosexuality. Start practicing those.
Protestants shy away from venerating saints for one obvious reason: the extremism of Catholicism and Orthodoxy. We have all kinds of Evangelical groups that visit the Holy Land and the primitive churches in Asia Minor. A good friend of mine was in Wittenberg for the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation last year. We’re not against veneration, and we’re not against pilgrimage: we’re against worship!
No one is building shrines to Martin Luther or asking for prayers at pilgrimage sites. I am speaking of protestants. Quite frankly they are not following the Jewish practices we see in the scriptures themselves and your rough equivocation of following popular Jewish practices with bestiality I think is intellectually bankrupt. The fact that Orthodoxy maintains popular Jewish religious practices is a strong argument for its continuity with early Christianity especially because early Christianity was mostly a gentile religion to begin with. They were not going to be borrowing Jewish practices from Jews that weren’t Christian.
“The intercession of saints is not an official tenet of any form of Judaism I know of…”
Orthodox Jews actually invoke Elijah at every circumcision. After the child is circumcised, he is placed on the seat of Elijah, and the rabbi prays, “This is the Seat of Elijah the Prophet, may he be remembered for good. For Your deliverance I hope, O Lord. I have hoped for Your deliverance, Lord, and I have performed Your commandments. Elijah, messenger of the Covenant, here is yours before you; stand at my right and support me. I rejoice in Your word, [O Lord] like one who finds great spoil. Those who love Your Torah have abounding peace, and there is no stumbling for them. Happy is the man You choose and bring near to dwell in Your courtyards; we will be satiated with the goodness of Your House, Your Holy Temple.” And the Talmud records a tradition about the story in Numbers 13: “Raba said: it teaches that Caleb held aloof from the plan of the spies and went and prostrated himself upon the graves of the patriarchs, saying to them, ‘My fathers, pray on my behalf that I may be delivered from the plan of the spies’.” (Sotah 34b) And whatever you may say about its canonical status now, the Book of Ben Sira (quoted in the Talmud several times as Scripture) in its Hymn in Honor of Our Ancestors (44-50) it 1. Directly addresses Phineas, Solomon, and Elijah, and 2. Recounted the 2 Kings 13:20-21 account of Elisha’s grave like this: “Nothing was beyond his power; and from where he lay buried, his body prophesied. In life he performed wonders, and after death, marvelous deeds.” (48:13-14)
While it may not be understood in exactly the same sense as the Christian Doctrine is today, it seems pretty clear that they had to believe in something like the invocation and intercession of the saints for things like this to exist.
Craig–
It depends upon what you’re calling a shrine. There are museums and memorials and the like. Just nothing devoted to the worship of our “saints.”
You have yet to show that there is any veneration of the saints depicted in Scripture. And everything you bring to the table will be mere speculation on your part.
The “bestiality” remark was offered in jest. The point being that, as I’ve said before, the absence of opposition is more or less meaningless.
Religions are often syncretistic even with opposing faiths. Much of modern Jewish practice mimicks that of the Christian cultures surrounding them throughout their history.
You basically have nothing to go on in terms of solid evidence. You just want it to be true.
Just compare John Calvin’s and Martin Luther’s graves, and then later Protestants (i.e. Spurgeon or whomever) with Jewish burial sites (i.e. King David’s supposed tomb).Jewish sites are used for veneration and prayer. Protestant ones are simply gravesites. This is not to bash gravesites, but to mark a historical discontinuity. So, you can oppose veneration of the saints for it not being specifically endorsed in the Scriptures, but then you would have to apply that standard to everything–being that your hermeneutic has no other living authority other than the constraints of logical consistency.
I think if you concede that veneration and saintly intercession are pre-CHristian Jewish doctrines, then I don’t think much more concession is even necessary. You ahve already conceded the historical argument. Your problem at this point is hermenutical.
Anthony–
You’re right. I’ve taught some rudimentary coursework on Judaism in the past, and I was just going off the top of my head.
Jewish theology is not very exact. They themselves joke that if you put two rabbi’s in a room, you’re going to have at least three opinions. Some rabbinic sources forbid any contact with the dead, based on Deuteronomy 18:11 and Ecclesiastes 9:5. Others allow for requests that the “saint” intercede for us with God. And still others that personal incidentals are OK (like asking someone whom you have harmed in life for their personal forgiveness). This might include something like asking Elijah to simply stand there as a witness.
What is never included is what RC/EO adherents often practice: directly requesting gifts and blessings from the saints.
I do wonder if the blessing thing is the difference between the saints living in hades before the resurrection, and the harrowing of hell afterwards.
Craig–
The Reformation Wall monument in Geneva, Switzerland is a football field in length, with statues of Farel, Calvin, Beza, and Knox 16 feet tall. That’s more than just a gravesite!!
No, we don’t build shrines, per se. Calvin famously observed that the human heart is an idol factory. Nehushtan, the bronze serpent that Moses set up (legitimately) was later taken down because it was too much of a temptation for the people.
Even if prayer to saints was a legitimate (if peripheral) practice of the Jews doesn’t mean we should continue it.
Craig–
In general, the Reformed DO reject every practice that lacks biblical warrant. I’m not quite that draconian, but I need to see a darn good reason.
Hermeneutically, Protestants lean on the living voice of the church in ways similar to RC’s and EO’s. We simply don’t see this guidance as some sort of an unaccountable talisman or oracle that can defy common sense or the clear declarations of Scripture.