Re: Question About Hanukah
Originally posted by will_ebert
Can anyone tell me what the Jewish celebration, Hanakah is all about?
I've heard the name Macabees tied in with Hanakah, does Hanakah have anything to do with Macabees 1,2 & 3 in the Old Testament Apocrypha? If, so, why isn't aren't the Macabees books in the "Jewish Bible"?
The answer to that, is that the book was not old enough, when the Hebrew (Old) Testament was canonized (made official). In the City of Javneh (also known as Jamnia) Israel, in about the year 80 AD. A counsel was held, in order to create an official list of books that would be considered scriptural. This was done by a group of Rabbis that had been expelled from Jerusalem 10 years earlier, with Rome's destruction of the city. Their major criteria for accepting a book into the canon, was that it must be at least 400 years old, the last book being Malachi.
The events in the book of Macabees occured around the year of 170 BC. The writing of the books of Macabees would therefore only be about 250 years old then, at most, and would therefore not qualify under the 400 year old rule. Books less than 400 years old were included in the Septuagint, but not in the Hebrew Bible. These books in the Septuagint, but were not in the Hebrew Bible were called the apocryphah.
Concerning the holiday of Hanukah, we have to trace history back to Alexander the great of Greece. When Alexander died, he left his 4 commanding generals to divy up his empire. We will be interested in two of them. One is known as Ptolomey, which took over the area of modern day Egypt, and the other was named Selucus, who took over what is present day Syria.
Because of a lack of central leadership, lost with the death of Alexander, the generals used to fight each other in order to gain more territory. Once, in around 200 BC, when a decendant of Selucus, known as Antiocus (self-named Epiphanies- meaning "God in the Flesh") was returning to Syria, after a defeat at the hands of Ptolomies men, he was marching through the land of Israel, when he decided to vent his wrath on the Israelites, subjecting them to bondage, attempting to convert them to poly-theistic Hellenism, away from their mono-theistic heritage. In his rage, he sacrificed a pig (unclean to Jews) to the god Zeus on the altar in the temple in Jerusalem. Antiochus declared it illegal to learn Hebrew, and to circumcise baby boys.
After about 30 years of this oppression, resentment had grown strong enough amongst the Israelites, to attempt an over-throw. The Israelites succeded in overthrowing their Selucid (decendant of Selucus) oppressors. The Jews then needed to clean and dedicated their temple. It was an 8 day process to make olive oil of the quality required for the temple menorah. Only one days worth was found. By a miracle, the one day's worth of oil burned for 8 days.
The festival is mentioned in the New Testament, but has been named the feast of Dedication. In the new testament, when it is talking about Jesus going up to Jerusalem for the feast of dedication, it means Hanukah.
