I recently came across an article that discusses how some of the "miracles" in ancient temples were done. Among the miracles it describes is "miraculous" lamps that never went out. There were several ways of achieving the effect. The simplest was for the priests to refill the lamps when no one was around. Alternatively, a small hidden pipe connected the lamp's reservoir to a back room, through which the priests could refill the lamp with no worshiper ever knowing.
I wonder if the Chanukah miracle was achieved this way. Or, perhaps more realistically, if such "miraculous" lamps were common in temples, and they became conflated with the lighting of the menorah at the re-dedication of the Beis HaMikdash or otherwise inspired the story of the oil burning for eight days.
Hero of Alexandria's "Pnuematics," mentioned in the article, makes fascinating reading. It's a catalogue of how various "miracles" were done. I can imagine the worshipers who witnessed these miracles knowing with certainty that their gods were real. They had seen the god's power for themselves!
I wonder what the priests thought. I would guess that they saw their mechanical miracles as ways to create a properly inspiring atmosphere for the worshipers at their temples. A kind of pious lie told for the greater good of the masses and the glory of their gods.
Ha! Reminds me a little of benavuyah's post from way back when ...
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"I wonder if the Chanukah miracle was achieved this way."
ReplyDeleteWhat Chanukah miracle is that? Yeah, I get your point but it really doesn't seem relevant since the lights story was made up hundreds of years after the Maccabee wars...
Zdub, it's relevant.
ReplyDeleteYou're correct that the miracle of the oil was added later, to give a miraculous cover to the military victory. Which may have been needed especially since Maccabean rule had gone south by that time, and true independence wasn't that long lived.
But the concept of lamps burning seemingly without sufficient fuel may have come from somewhere. And if the article that G3 found is accurate, that may have been the source of the concept for those that instituted the story.
By the way, I don't like to think of it in terms of being "made up". Judaism is an evolved religion, and in the ancient world, where oral narratives were extremely powerful in shaping legends, the story of the oil lasting for 8 days may have simply have evolved into being. I have issues with the thinking that the tana'im were fraudsters. They likely believed the stories.
It was the Ziz!
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