The Real Story of Hanukkah

Judas Maccabeus

Many people say that Hanukkah is the Jewish Christmas.  I suppose for secular Jews it essentially has become that but for religious Jews it has a deeper meaning.  What is that deeper meaning?  Tomorrow Jews around the world will begin celebrating this holiday.  What is it about and where did it come from?

A little less than 200 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, the Jews were under occupation by the Greeks.  They put idols in the temple, banned the teaching of the Torah, and promoted other immorality which people who followed the religion of the Mosaic Covenant would find intolerable.  In non-Protestant Bibles one can read about the story in 1 and 2 Maccabees.

If you ask a Jew about Hannukah they’ll be quick to tell you about the oil that burned for a few extra days; eight days in total.  It seems odd that one would make a holiday around this mere miracle.  Well, originally that wasn’t the case.  If one goes to read 1 and 2 Maccabees the story of the oil is nowhere to be found.  This is telling because these books were written not long after the events that they narrate.  It only appears in the Talmud which is several hundred years after the event.

There is actually a brief mention of this in the New Testament.  In the Gospel of John we read:

Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade.

– John 10: 22-23

Most Bibles will give a footnote saying that the Festival of Dedication is Hannukah.  It makes sense that they were celebrating this in the time of Jesus since it had happened less than 200 years prior.  Why is it called the Festival of Dedication?  The only reasonable explanation is that it celebrates the re-dedication of the Temple after the pagan Greeks had defiled it.  Here are some explanations of early accounts.

So they celebrated the dedication of the altar for eight days, and joyfully offered burnt offerings; they offered a sacrifice of well-being and a thanksgiving offering.  They decorated the front of the temple with golden crowns and small shields; they restored the gates and the chambers for the priests, and fitted them with doors.  There was very great joy among the people, and the disgrace brought by the Gentiles was removed.  Then Judas and his brothers and all the assembly of Israel determined that every year at that season the days of dedication of the altar should be observed with joy and gladness for eight days, beginning with the twenty-fifth day of the month of Chislev.

– 1 Maccabees 4: 56-59

Now Maccabeus and his followers, the Lord leading them on, recovered the temple and the city; they tore down the altars that had been built in the public square by the foreigners, and also destroyed the sacred precincts.  They purified the sanctuary, and made another altar of sacrifice; then, striking fire out of flint, they offered sacrifices, after a lapse of two years, and they offered incense and lighted lamps and set out the bread of the Presence.  Whey they had done this, they fell prostrate and implored the Lord that they might never again fall into such misfortunes, but that, if they should ever sin, they might be disciplined by him with forbearance and not be handed over to blasphemous and barbarous nations.  It happened that on the same day on which the had been profaned by the foreigners, the purification of the sanctuary took place, that is, on the twenty-fifth day of the same month, which was Chislev.  They celebrated if for eight days with rejoicing, in the manner of the festival of booths, remembering how not long before, during the festival of booths, they had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals.

– 2 Maccabees 10: 1-6

We see a focus on the dedication of the temple.  We see a focus on celebrating for eight days.  We see a large focus on the sacrificial system being restored as it was the atonement system of the Mosaic Covenant.  What we don’t see is the oil that burned for eight days.  That only shows up in the Talmud, long after the temple was gone.  What happened?

In 70 AD there was a change of real estate in the holy land.  The temple was no longer standing.  Following the religion of Johanan ben Zakkai, it was pointless to have a celebration thanking God for restoring the temple when they no longer had it.  The oil miracle was then inserted as a substitute.

Now, why not just cancel the holiday?  Well, people like celebrating.  In the Soviet Union, you had an atheistic communist regime, but people still liked celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah.  For Russians, Christmas was in January and Hanukkah was in December.  The Soviets made New Years the new big celebration where people could exchange gifts, drink, and be merry all without religion.  The internals changed but the externals didn’t.  The same goes for the Festival of Dedication being turned into Hanukkah and the introduction of the miraculous oil.