The rabbis didn’t like the Hasmoneans, and tried to take their holiday away from them with an invented miracle.
Lis Riba’s friend Ian has more information about the development of the Chanukah ritual and myth, though not on the relationship between the two that was the subject of my Gravesian speculation. Ian’s reading of the Talmudic sources is broadly consistent with Jonathan’s original post on the subject: the rabbis didn’t like the Hasmonean dynasty, and reconfigured the holiday to point it toward an invented miracle rather than a real, though not praiseworthy, military/political victory.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
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