Tales from Jerusalem Winters Long Past

"Behold, our enemies are crushed; let us go up to cleanse the sanctuary and dedicate it." So all the army assembled and they went up to Mount Zion. And they saw the sanctuary desolate, the altar profaned, and the gates burned. Then they rent their clothes, and mourned with great lamentation, and sprinkled themselves with ashes. They fell face down on the ground, and sounded the signal on the trumpets and cried out to Heaven. They cleansed the sanctuary and removed the defiled stones to an unclean place. Early in the morning on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, which is the month of Kislev, in the one hundred and forty-eighth year, they rose and offered sacrifice, as the law directs, on the new altar of burnt offering which they built. All the people fell on their faces and worshiped and blessed Heaven, who had prospered them. So they celebrated the dedication of the altar for eight days, and offered burnt offerings with gladness; they offered a sacrifice of deliverance and praise. There was very great gladness among the people, and the reproach of the Gentiles was removed. Then they determined that every year at that season the days of the dedication of the altar should be observed with gladness and joy for eight days, beginning with the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kislev (Adapted from 1 Maccabees 4:36-52).

No, not exactly the Christmas story that many are used to. No angels in the fields, no wise men, no manger, no "little town of Bethlehem." Yet, in mid-December, while us westerners are heading out to get our Christmas trees (or digging out our fake ones from storage), decorating our houses, and listening to our favorite Christmas songs, most of the inhabitants of Israel are visiting family, giving gifts to their children, lighting the nine-branched menorah, and reading this story, the story of Hanukkah. Interestingly, the story of Jesus' birth and ministry does coincide with this winter holiday celebrated by the Jewish people and makes for some interesting reflections.

In the year 275 B.C.E. the kingdom of the great Greek conquerer Alexander was divided into three dynasties: the Antigonids in Mesopotamia, the Ptolemies in Egypt, and the Seleucids in Syria. In 175, Antiochus IV Epiphanēs (perhaps a shortened version of the title Theos Epiphanēs or "God Manifest") took control of the Seleucid Empire. Antiochus IV was an ambitious king and upon becoming king of the Syrian empire, managed to conquer Ptolemaic Egypt as well. During this time in Palestine, quarrels were constantly breaking out between the Jews who had chosen to accommodate Greek religion (known as "Hellenized Jews") and those who wanted to remain true to orthodox Judaism. The conflict, of course, trickled into the cultic personnel of the Jerusalem temple and people from both the Hellenistic and Orthodox persuasion wanted their respective representative in the position of High Priest. A devout Jew named Onias III was the high priest until his brother Iason, a Hellenized Jew, paid Antiochus in order to have himself appointed as High Priest. The Greek king, who had little knowledge (or sensitivity toward) Jewish religion appointed Iason. Eventually another Jew, Menelaus, who also tended more toward the accommodation of Greek religion, usurped the position of High Priest, from Iason. However, Iason, began a bloody rebellion in order to take back the position from Menelaus.

About this time the extant sources tell us that Antiochus, heard about the battle that Iason had waged in Jerusalem and took it to mean that Palestine was in revolt. Leaving Egypt, the king went to Jerusalem and sacked the temple, he took out the temple furniture, stripped it of its gold and "profaned" it. The author of 1 Maccabees notes that on the altar Antiochus "built a sacrilegious object of desolation" (1:54), which, though not explained in the text, was probably something having to do with Zeus, the high-god of the Hellenistic pantheon (2 Macc 6:2-6). This event occurred in the winter of 167 B.C.E. It was not long after this point that Antiochus decreed that the Jews were no longer able to worship in their traditional ways but had to follow the religion of the Greeks, which meant the worship of Hellenistic deities and the sacrifice of non-kosher animals, such as pigs. While this was no problem for many Jews, it was devastating for devout Jews who only wanted to worship according the ways prescribed in the Torah of Moses, and persecution of the orthodox Jews inevitably followed. Many of these pious Jews were murdered at this time for their desire to maintain their traditional religion.

In Israel's hill country, in a town called Modein, there dwelled at this time five Jewish brothers and their father Mattathias. Of Mattathias it is said that he "burned with zeal for the law" (1 Macc 2:26) and he gathered around him many who supported his cause, including a renowned band of warriors called the Hasideans. Mattahthias, along with his sons and his army, skirmished with local Greek rulers and Hellenizing Jews, those who did not follow the pure teaching of Moses. Before Mattathias died he admonished his sons to be zealous for the law and to give their lives for the covenant of their fathers.

Mattathias' son Judah, called in Hebrew the Maqabi (in Greek, Maccabeus) or "the Hammer," so-called for his prowess as a warrior, became the head of the army and led the lead of the warriors in one successful battle after another, killing thousands of impious Jews and Gentiles. In the winter of 164 B.C.E. in the month of Kislev, roughly three years to the day that Antiochus had defiled the temple, Judah and his ten thousand soldiers marched on Mt. Zion following their battle against Lysias, an official of Antiochus. They cleansed the temple and restored it as best they could to its former state, as the above excerpt says. They determined that a festival should be held yearly to celebrate the day that the temple was cleansed and dedicated, the day that the "disgrace of the Gentiles was removed."

Later tradition developed around the story told in the books of 1 and 2 Maccabees regarding the dedication of the temple. In the Talmud (the compilation of Jewish literature ranging in time from 200 - 500 C.E.) it is noted that rabbinical thought on Hanukkah is as follows:

"On the twenty-fifth day of Kislev Hanukah commences and lasts eight days, on which lamenting (in commemoration of the dead) and fasting are prohibited. When the Hellenists entered the sanctuary, they defiled all the oil that was found there. When the government of the House of Hasmoneans [founded by Judah the Maqabi] prevailed and conquered them, oil was sought (to feed the holy lamp in the sanctuary) and only one vial was found with the seal of the high priest intact. The vial contained sufficient oil for one day only, but a miracle occurred, and it fed the holy lamp eight days in succession. These eight days were the following year established as days of good cheer, on which psalms of praise and acknowledgment (of God's wonders) were to be recited (Tractate Shabbat 21b; bracketed insertion my own).

Thus the miraculous occurrence of the oil lasting for eight days, supplemented the account in the history of the Maccabees. This has then been the basis for the "Festival of Lights" and the activities of the celebrants of Hanukkah over the past 500 years.

We now fast-forward to another winter's day in the Roman province of Judea, during the reign of Tiberias Caesar (ca. 14-37 C.E.). In the month of Kislev, ca. 28 C.E., a teacher of no small repute from the hills of Lower Galilee was walking in the courts of Jerusalem's temple during the Festival of Dedication. It was some 194 years that had passed since Judah the Hammer had succeeded in taking Jerusalem and cleansing the temple. However, the memory of the events were no doubt still important to the pious Jews living in and around what was now Herod's Jerusalem. Yeshua, the Galilean teacher, is said to have been approached by a group of Jews who said to him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly" (John 10:22-24).

It was no coincidence that these people asked this question of Jesus during the Hanukkah festival. Jesus of Nazareth was a person of great renown, and thought by many to be the long-awaited Messiah from his birth. Two gospel writers tell us that the birth was heralded by divine messengers, like the birth of the warrior/judge Samson of old. Further, according to the author of the gospel of Luke, when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple for his dedication, they met a man named Simeon, a devout and righteous person, who was looking for the "consolation" or "salvation" of Israel. Upon seeing the child, Simeon proclaimed, "Lord, my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel" (Luke 2:29-32). Jesus' parents also encountered a prophetess, named Anna, who was praying in the temple. Recognizing something unique about the child, Anna "gave thanks to God, and spoke of him to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem" (Luke 2:38). People like Simeon and Anna would likely have viewed Jesus in light of the mainstream messianic expectations, which were influenced by the exploits of people like Judah the Maqabi - a devout leader, whose actions demonstrated his zeal for the law and his willingness to give his life for the sake of the ancient teaching. In Jesus' day, the miraculous aspect of Hanukkah was the retaking of the temple and the establishment of freedom for the Jewish people to worship as their ancient texts mandated without the intervention and harassment of foreign rulers or Jews who were happy to accommodate foreign religious practices. This time would have been before the Talmudic supplement to the story, which is now the larger focus of the holiday. In the first century C.E., people hoped for a Messiah who would be able to do something similar to what Judah did two hundred years before - establish a free Jewish nation, in this case one in which the Jews were out from under the control of the Roman Empire. No doubt these were at least some of the winter reflections in the minds and hearts of the first century inhabitants of Jerusalem as Hanukkah approached.

In response to the demanding question of whether Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus' simply responds: "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep" (John 10:25-26). As far as what can be ascertained about Jesus from the gospel narratives, Jesus believed himself to be the Messiah , but had a unique take on what the Messiah was supposed to be and do that was different from traditional messianic expectations. In Luke we find an interesting account (4:16-30) in which Jesus is in his hometown of Nazareth in the synagogue on the Sabbath. He stands up and reads the first few lines of Isaiah 61, saying, "The Spirit of Yahweh is upon me, because he has anointed me..." Jesus' audience marvels in hope that the Messiah had appeared before them and that the redemption of Jerusalem and the salvation of Israel was at hand. Jesus put down the Isaiah scroll and began to tell two stories from the Hebrew Bible centering on the prophets Elijah and Elisha. In both of these stories, Jesus points out that God's help was given to foreigners, NOT Israelites. Wait a minute - what about the salvation of Israel...the redemption of Jerusalem? The people in the synagogue were enraged, the author notes, and they threw Jesus outside the city, intending to kill him. No wonder they were upset. Nevertheless, many people believed.

Toward the end of the summer of 70 C.E. the Roman army under the future emperor Titus sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple. This event came about following a major revolt in Palestine in which a group of Jews, tried to overthrow Rome's control on Jerusalem by force. They were successful to some degree, but ultimately could not stand against the siege of the city by Titus. By this time it had been nearly forty years since Jesus of Nazareth had been put to death. His followers, who held that he was raised from the dead, had been dispersed all over the known world. Written chronicles of Jesus' life and ministry were circulating and many people, both Jews and non-Jews, had become "Christians," due to the tireless efforts of believers like the former rabbi Shaul, better known as Paul. Jesus' followers believed that he was the promised Messiah who, it turns out, had not come to deliver people from the dominion of Rome, but from their sins; and to build upon the ancient promises made to the Jewish fathers and create a new body of believers that would encompass anyone who chose to believe.

That many did not believe in the messianic nature of Jesus of Nazareth or his teaching, is seen in numerous places in the New Testament, but also outside the Bible. Following the fall of the temple and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman army, an interesting piece of Jewish literature, designated by scholars as 4 Ezra (or 2 Esdras in the Apocrypha), was penned. The book is an apocalypse, not unlike the Christian text of Revelation, which was contemporary to it (it is interesting to note that the Gospel of John was also written at this time). Within the body of this text, colored with descriptive imagery, the author denounces Rome for its wickedness and looks forward to the day when the Son of the Most High would come and judge the enemies of Israel, setting right the wrongs of the past (13:1-58). The author notes, while relating the words of the Most High concerning his son:

And when all the nations of the earth hear his voice, every man shall leave his own land and the warfare that they have against one another; and an innumerable multitude shall be gathered together...desiring to come and conquer him. But he will stand on the top of Mount Zion. And he will reprove the assembled nations for their ungodliness...and will destroy them without effort by the law. When he destroys the multitude of the nations that are gathered together, he will defend the people who remain. And then he will show them very many wonders (4 Ezra 13:33-35, 37-38, 49-50).

This Messiah sounds a lot like Judah the Hammer and less like Jesus of Nazareth as he appears in our sources that detail his life. Indeed this is a major part of the explanation of why people did not accept Jesus as the Messiah. Though in the book of Revelation, once Christians began to endure difficult times, Jesus of Nazareth is envisioned as assuming the role of the divine warrior, battling the forces of darkness (perhaps Rome) in Yahweh's stead on behalf of the Church.

People over the millennia have always had situations where they needed someone to stand up for them - this is built into the very fabric of what it means to be human. When people are oppressed they hope for a way out, someone or something to come along and offer some respite. Following the exile to Babylon a gradual hope began to grow among the ancient Israelites, a hope for a person that would reestablish the House of David and lead the people in the proper worship of Yahweh according to the Torah of Moses. Hanukkah commemorates the battles of a righteous leader, Judah the Maqabi, who won independence for the Jewish people and dedicated the temple for proper use, thus removing the reproach on the people. Christmas represents, for many, the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, a devout Jewish teacher from Galilee who proclaimed the need for repentance from sin and taught about the kingdom of God. Jesus was executed, a factor, which in the minds of some, effectively ended any hope of him being the Messiah. His followers, however, proclaimed that he had triumphed over death and by doing so had made it possible for people to have a relationship with God.

One winter's day in 165 B.C.E. a Jewish warrior took back Jerusalem on behalf of the Jews devoted to a pure religion, free from the influence of the Greeks. Almost 200 years later, a renown teacher, walked in the temple during the festival commemorating Judah's victory, a time when the air was practically electrified with questions of whether this or that person was the Messiah. Was this teacher the One? Would he lead the hopeful Jews to victory over Rome as the Maqabi had done against the Greeks? Many people, no doubt, wished that he would. Jesus own response to the question in the passage from John, considered above, was simply that he had already told them the answer. Was he the Messiah? Is he the Messiah? "I have already told you," the teacher said one wintry day as he stood in the temple courtyard, "the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness to me."