John notes that it is the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, that it is winter, and that Jesus is walking in Solomon's Porch. The festival supplies an important historical setting for the renewed debate over Jesus' identity.
Jesus in Context
The Feast of Dedication: Hanukkah
John places Jesus in Jerusalem during the winter Feast of Dedication, the festival later known as Hanukkah, commemorating the rededication of the Temple after its desecration under Antiochus IV.
Introduction
Historical and Cultural Context
The Feast of Dedication arose from the Maccabean crisis of the second century BC. After Antiochus IV Epiphanes desecrated the Jerusalem Temple, Judas Maccabeus and his forces recaptured and rededicated it in 164 BC. The celebration is described in 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees and became the festival known as Hanukkah, meaning dedication. Unlike Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, it was not one of the Torah's pilgrimage feasts.
John's reference to winter fits the festival's Kislev season.
Why It Matters
The setting is especially suggestive because a feast celebrating the sanctification of God's Temple becomes the occasion on which Jesus speaks of himself as the one whom the Father 'sanctified, and sent into the world.'
The historical background does not prove that every sentence in John 10 is a deliberate Hanukkah symbol, but the juxtaposition is difficult to ignore.