Dedication - Feast of Dedication

Feast of Dedication

The Feast of Dedication, today Hannukah, once also called "Feast of the Maccabees" was a Jewish festival observed for eight days from the 25th of Kislev (i.e. month of December). It was instituted by Judas Maccabeus, his brothers, and the elders of the congregation of Israel, in the year 165 B.C. in commemoration of the reconsecration of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and especially of the altar of burnt offering, after they had been desecrated in the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes (168 BC). The significant happenings of the festival were the illumination of houses and synagogues, a custom probably taken over from the Feast of Tabernacles, and the recitation of Psalm 30:1-12 HE. J. Wellhausen suggests that the feast was originally connected with the winter solstice, and only afterwards with the events narrated in Maccabees.

The Feast of Dedication is also mentioned in John 10:22 where it mentions Jesus being at the Jerusalem Temple during "the Feast of Dedication" and further notes "and it was winter." The Greek term used in John is "the renewals" (Greek ta engkainia τὰ ἐγκαίνια). Josephus refers to the festival in Greek simply as "lights."