The Original Meaning of Chanukah

David Flusser, “The Dedication of the Temple by Judas Maccabaeus: Story and History” in, The Jews in the Hellenistic-Roman World. Studies in Memory of Menahem Stern (eds., Isaiah M. Gafni, Aharon Oppenheimer, and Daniel R. Schwartz; Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1996), 55–78 [61-63, Hebrew].

For the military background of Judah’s achievement, see Betzalel Bar Kokhva, Judas Maccabaeus. The Jewish Struggle against the Seleucids (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1989), 276-282. For the chronology of the books of Maccabees and the evidence on Antiochus IV’s death, see Flusser 1996.

See also 1 Macc 4:46. Antiochus Epiphanes originally placed the “loathsome structure” in the Temple on 25 Kislev, the date of festivities in honor of Dionysus, as well as his own birthday; see Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism. Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period, 2 vols. (trans. John Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974) 2.201 n. 271, 2.203 n. 289. James C. VanderKam “Chanukah: Its Timing and Significance according to 1 and 2 Maccabees,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 1 (1987), 23-40 [34-36].

On the absence of the oil miracle in second temple literature, see Malka Simkovich, “Uncovering the Truth about Chanukah,” TheTorah (2013).

On Chanukah as Sukkot and the relationship to other inaugurations of the Temple in chronological proximity to Sukkot, see in detail Eyal Regev “Hannukkah, Succot, and the days of Milluim in II Maccabees,” Beit Miqra 166 (2001): 227-243 [Hebrew]; Eyal Regev, “Hanukkah and the Temple of the Maccabees: Ritual and Ideology from Judas Maccabeus to Simon,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 15.2 (2008) 87-114.

For other evidence for the Hasmoneans as religious leaders, see Eyal Regev, The Hasmoneans: Ideology, Archaeology, Identity (Journal of Anthropology and Archaeology Sup. 10; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 104-120.

Elias Bickerman From Ezra to the Last of the Maccabees(New York: Schocken, 1962), 120-121, 131. Several features of Hellenism characterize the Hasmoneans; see, Eyal Regev, “The Hellenization of the Hasmoneans Revisited: The Archaeological Evidence,” Advances in Anthropology 7 (2017): 175-196.

Frank Walbank, Polybius, Rome, and the Hellenistic World: Essays and Reflections (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 81-83; Dorothy J. Thompson “Philadelphus’ Procession: Dynastic Power in a Mediterranean Context,” in Politics, Administration and Society in the Hellenistic and Roman World (ed., Leon Mooren; Leuven: Peeters, 2000), 365-388.

We have no details whatsoever regarding the manner it was celebrated in the Hasmonean period, but the fact that the letters preceding 2 Maccabees called upon the Jews in Egypt to celebrate it proves that there were specific acts of celebration outside the Temple, as also attested to in John 10:22. The lighting of candles is not mentioned prior to rabbinic literature, but Josephus’ designation of it as the “festival of Lights” (Ant. 12.325) may refer to some candle-related ritual.

On how the Hasmoneans shaped and enhanced Jewish collective identity, for example, by the annual tribute of the half shekel to the Temple, see Regev, Hasmoneans.

For these aspects of ritual, see Steven Lukes, “Political Ritual and Social Integration,” Essays in Social Theory (New York: Columbia University Press 1977), 52-72 [p. 68].

For more on this, see Zev Farber, “Yom Nicanor – 13th of Adar,” TheTorah (2014).

On the Hasmonean ideology and the ways their tried to create a legitimacy to their rule (such as in arguing that they ae religious leaders and the defenders of the Temple), see, Regev, Hasmoneans.