The Festival of Dedication now introduces us to the fourth festival of Judaism that Jesus attends and that, like the others, becomes a place of discourse and revelation. Unlike the other feasts, the Feast of Dedication was a minor, more recent celebration. It recalled the desecration of the temple in 168 BC by the Greek monarch Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the corrupt priests installed by him, and the Maccabean wars, which finally regained and purified the temple in 164 BC. A moving account of this is given in 1 Maccabees 4:36–58, which is followed by Judas Maccabeus’s announcement that this dedication (Hanukkah) should be celebrated each winter on the twenty-fifth day of the Jewish month Kislev (November-December).

This Jewish background provides striking depth to the discourse of Jesus in c…