Below is a response we received regarding "Should
Believers Observe Hanukkah?", which we thought you all might enjoy. It
contains some more profitable insight.......
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2008 1:58 PM
Subject: RE: Should Believers Observe Hanukkah?
Very nice study. I should point out two things:
1) Hanukkah was optional feast happening in the RAINY SEASON, an extremely unpleasant time to travel 90 miles from Galilee to Jerusalem. There is NO WAY Y'shua would have walked in all that mud all that distance to Jerusalem at all if he had a problem with Hanukkah. He simply would have stayed home in Galilee, as we know he did at other times of the year when he was not required to go up for a Great Feast. The very idea that he "happened to be in Jerusalem on that day" is therefore absolutely ludicrous. Anyone who says this obviously has zero appreciation of the logistics involved. To see just how nasty this time of year is, let's see this from Ezra:
- Ezra 10:6-14
- 6 Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and went to the room of Jehohanan son of Eliashib. While he was there, he ate no food and drank no water, because he continued to mourn over the unfaithfulness of the exiles. 7 A proclamation was then issued throughout Judah and Jerusalem for all the exiles to assemble in Jerusalem. 8 Anyone who failed to appear within three days would forfeit all his property, in accordance with the decision of the officials and elders, and would himself be expelled from the assembly of the exiles. 9 Within the three days, all the men of Judah and Benjamin had gathered in Jerusalem. And on the twentieth day of the ninth month, all the people were sitting in the square before the house of God, greatly distressed by the occasion and because of the rain. 10 Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, "You have been unfaithful; you have married foreign women, adding to Israel's guilt. 11 Now make confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples around you and from your foreign wives." 12 The whole assembly responded with a loud voice: "You are right! We must do as you say. 13 But there are many people here and it is the rainy season; so we cannot stand outside. Besides, this matter cannot be taken care of in a day or two, because we have sinned greatly in this thing. 14 Let our officials act for the whole assembly. Then let everyone in our towns who has married a foreign woman come at a set time, along with the elders and judges of each town, until the fierce anger of our God in this matter is turned away from us."
And that brings me to this:
2) The Aramaic of John's Gospel contains a huge clue about the importance of Hanukkah. Every part of Y'shua's life has resonance in an ancient moed. He was born between Yom Kippur and the start of Sukkot, he is crucified at Pesach, rises on Bikurrim and ascends towards the end of the omer count, with the Ruach HaKodesh coming at Shavuot. I think the evidence for a birth around Sukkot is very solid and I won't detail it here. Suffice to say for now both the astronomical evidence of the sole king's star that the Magi would have tracked for 2 years starting at 7 BCE had to be Jupiter, and we know when that emerged from behind the sun and stopped over Bethlehem. That timing also synchs well with what we know about when Abijah course served 15 months prior to the birth. Combine this with Luke's commentary that Y'shua was "about thirty" during the 15th year of Tiberius (going with co regency with Augustus in CE 12 and agreeing with John's comment that the same year was 46 years after the Temple was expanded by herod in 19 BCE), and ALL these lines converge with 27 CE as the initial ministry year and 5 BCE as the birth. Plus, tell your friend that shepherds NEVER "abide in the fields" with their sheep in Jerusalem after mid November. They are sheltered in the rainy season, for obvious reasons. 9 months before Sukkot brings us to a Hanukkah CONCEPTION, the light of the world coming forth during the Festival of Lights, Hanukkah. Whether the Talmud, Josephus or Macabbees is 100% correct in all details misses the point. The point is that Y'shua believed it and proved as such. He is our halachic master and I defer to him. Finally, the phrase in John 1:9 has another clue. The Aramaic reads, nohra d'shrara d'menhar (light of truth that shines). Now take the first and last words:
NOHRA MENHAR
Now reverse them:
MENHAR NOHRA
The word MENORAH literally means "from light/flame"--appropriate for a candlestick. The word HAR in the middle of the phrase may be a reference to the light of MOUNT (har) Sinai that Y'shua certified with his Transifiguration with Moshe and Elijah later on another HAR, or the HAR where he delivered his Sermon. Whatever the case may be, I have doubt in my mind that Yochanan embedded this clue on purpose.
Not a required feast to be sure, but hardly irrelevant either.
Shlama w'burkate (Aramaic for "peace and blessings")
Andrew Gabriel Roth
www.aramaicnttruth.org
www.tushiyah.org
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