What Really Happened at Hanukkah?
And What About the Drunken Elephants?
The story of Hanukkah, as told in the Books of the Maccabees contains a startling omission. There is no mention of the main theme of the festival, the miracle of the oil.
There are four books of the Maccabees, all written by different, anonymous authors, at different times and in different places. With the exception of Book 3, each book tells, in its own way, the story of the Maccabean revolt against the Syrian - Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes, in 167 BCE. Each book agrees that Antiochus invaded the land of Israel, prohibited the practice of Judaism, promoted idolatry and desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem. A rebellion, instituted by the priest Mattathias and led by his son Judah Maccabee and his brothers, succeeded in defeating the Greeks. The triumphant rebels re-dedicated the Temple and instituted an eight day festival to commemorate their victory. That, in a nutshell, is how Books 1,2 and 4 of the Maccabees tell the story of Hanukkah.
The most prominent feature of the festival of Hanukkah, as celebrated today, is the lighting of candles every night, in an eight-branched candlestick designed to symbolize the lamp that was permanently alight in the Temple. The point of the ceremony is to commemorate the miracle said to have taken place when the Maccabees rededicated the Temple and relit the lamp. Searching among the chaos and rubble of the desecrated Temple, they had only been able to find one small jar of oil, marked with the seal of the High Priest and suitable to be used in the lamp. It contained only enough oil to light the everlasting lamp for one night. It took eight days for fresh supplies of oil to arrive yet, miraculously, the oil in the small jar kept the lamp alight the whole time, only running out as the fresh supply arrived. Surprisingly, there is no mention of this in the three books of the Maccabees that describe the dedication of the Temple.
The earliest mention of the miracle occurs in a source quoted in the Talmud, which was completed around 500 CE. The compilers of the Talmud don’t seem to have known much about the festival because they ask the question “what is Hanukkah?” They then quote the source that describes the miracle of the oil. All this suggests that before the Talmud was compiled Hanukkah was an obscure event, in which the miracle of the oil did not feature.