Dedication (ritual)
Dedication is a ceremony to mark the official completion or opening of something. Such rituals include ceremonial ship launching and a variety of events for buildings including builders' rites or an opening ceremony. Many religions have specific dedication rituals, which serve to consecrate items, places, or people to sacred purpose, such as the dedication of churches or Child dedication.
Feast of Dedication
The Feast of Dedication, today Hanukkah, once also called the "Feast of the Maccabees", is a Jewish festival observed for eight days from the 25th of Kislev. It was instituted in the year 165 B.C. by Judas Maccabeus, his brothers, and the elders of the congregation of Israel in commemoration of the reconsecration of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and especially of the altar of burnt offerings, after they had been desecrated during the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes. The significant happenings of the festival were the illumination of houses and synagogues, a custom probably taken over from the Feast of Tabernacles, and the recitation of. According to the Second Book of Chronicles, the dedication of Solomon's Temple took place in the week before the Feast of Tabernacles. Julius Wellhausen suggests that the feast was originally connected with the winter solstice, and only afterwards with the events narrated in Maccabees.The Feast of Dedication is also mentioned in, where the writer mentions Jesus being at the Jerusalem Temple during "the Feast of Dedication" and further notes "and it was winter". The Greek term used in John is "the renewals". Josephus refers to the festival in Greek simply as "lights".