Page 8 - Issue 9

DEVELOPMENT OF THE FESTIVAL
After reading any accounts, most of us would immediately notice that there is no mention of the well-
known story about the oil that lasted eight days. Josephus, writing about 250 years after the event, gives
a very similar account. The lamp stand is still not an especially important feature of the festival. He does
not yet know the Festival by the name Chanukah, instead he calls it the Festival of Lights. Whiston's
translation says "I suppose the reason was because this liberty beyond our hopes appeared to us; and
that thence was the name given to that festival. " He appears to be uncertain about the reason for light.
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He seems to think it is probably connected with the light of liberty.
By the time of the Mishnah, about 370 years after the revolt, the festival has become known by the name
Chanukah, but it is only mentioned in passing and no rules are laid down for its observance. There is a
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reference to Chanukah lights , but this tells us almost nothing about the ritual observance.
(3.) Antiquities, 12, 7, #6 and #7. (4.) Baba Kama 6, 6.
THE MIRACLE OF THE OIL
It was not until the Babylonian Talmud was completed in the fifth century CE that we find the story
about the jar of oil that lasted eight days. That is approximately 600 years after Judah the Maccabee. The
Talmud says:

What is the reason for Chanukah? For our Rabbis taught: On the twenty-fifth of Kislev
commence the days of Chanukah, which are eight on which a lamentation for the dead and
fasting are forbidden. For when the Greeks entered the Temple, they defiled all the oils
therein, and when the Hasmonean dynasty prevailed against and defeated them, they
made search and found only one cruse of oil which lay with the seal of the High Priest, but
which contained sufficient for one day's lighting only; yet a miracle was wrought therein
and they lit the lamp therewith for eight days. The following year these days were
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appointed a Festival with the recital of Hallel and thanksgiving.

WHY THE OIL STORY?
The story about the miraculous oil must have been written by the Amoraim (Rabbis of the Talmudic
period) between the years 210 and 450 CE. There were two reasons why they did this.

1. The Rabbis used to base their laws and practices on Biblical verses to give them divine
authority. But the events which Chanukah commemorates occurred after the Hebrew Bible
was completed. The only way left to make the Festival important was to give it a miracle
story.
2. The practice of lighting Chanukah lights was being mixed up in peoples' minds with an
even older pagan mid-winter festival. So the Rabbis wanted to give the lights Jewish
significance and meaning. The Talmud says:
Our Rabbis taught: When Adam saw the day getting gradually shorter, he said, 'Woe is me,
perhaps because I have sinned, the world around me is being darkened and returning to its state
of chaos and confusion; this then is the kind of death to which I have been sentenced from
Heaven!' So he began keeping an eight days' fast. But as he observed mid-winter's day and noted
the day getting increasingly longer, he said, 'This is the world's course', and he set forth to keep an
eight days' festivity. In the following year he appointed both as festivals. Now, he fixed them for
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the sake of Heaven, but the heathens appointed them for the sake of idolatry.
The Talmud naturally says that the Jewish observance came first. But archaeological evidence
shows that midwinter's day was kept by special observances from very ancient times. In Egypt,
some pyramids were aligned to the rising sun on mid-winter's day. While in the Britain, the tombs
at Maes Howe in Orkney and Newgrange in Ireland were observing the phenomenon from about
3000 BCE.
(5.) Shabbat 21b. (6.) Avodah Zarah 8a.