Talk:Hanukkah

How Exactly Do We Know This Was A Miracle?

Has it been determined how much oil is actually needed to keep a lamp burning for one day?

What makes olive oil "holy"?

Could this have just been reality? There actually being enough oil in the sealed vessel to keep the particular lamp in question lit for eight days? What kind of lamp; not a menorah with candles clearly.

Any links or sources where actual of-the-day lamps were lit, and oil consumed measured? Just how much oil was actually in the sealed vessel? What was the vessel size back then? Some of the amphoras recovered from ancient Mediterranean shipwrecks stand five feet tall.

Seriously, the lamps stayed lit for eight nights, why might they not simply have been efficient lamps fueled by a sufficient quantity of oil?

I'd like to see some real information in this article.

edit: I looked up oil consumption and found these:

It is the experience with this lamp that taught me many things about myself. No matter what quality of oil etc., if I am back- sliding the lamp will not stay lit for more than a couple of hours. Under the same physical conditions however it would burn for up to 4 days over a long festal week-end if I were attending to "the one thing needful."

Which ironically was posted by an Orthodox Jew about celebrating Hanukkah. He got a small amount of olive oil to burn in a lamp for FOUR days. Maybe the the oil lamps were attended to more closely when it was known the oil supply was limited? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:243:0:abe7:803a:2544:5006:d0c5 (talk) 10:31, 20 September 2017

More actual experiences:

We use antique glass lamps when the power goes out, we have kerosene in some and parafin in others. We've used them for eight hours after filling and the 'oil' level has only gone down about a 1/4 inch.

One of the lamps we used to use would go through about half a reservoir (a quart or so) in a week but we had babies when we were camping and left the lamp burning overnight on a very low setting.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:243:0:abe7:803a:2544:5006:d0c5 (talk) 11:04, 20 September 2017

- Answer: I'll expand the question: You can ask the same question about basically every miracle recorded in the Bible. The response is that if you believe in the G-d of the Torah, then you ought to believe in His miracles. (Why you should believe in Him is because 3 million people simultaneously witnessed His giving the 10 commandments. If someone made that up, they would not be able to answer the obvious question: "well, where are your 3 million witnesses?" (Unlike Christianity and Islam, who claim that one person on their own got a revelation...))

- Answer 2: The sources discussing this miracle indicate that finding the vial of oil was in itself remarkable, because all others had been rendered impure by the Greeks. And the sources record that it was small, sufficing only for one day. This one still had the Kohen Gadol's seal on it, indicating it hadn't been tampered with. So again, if you accept the sources that discuss Hanukkah in the first place, you ought to accept that they could measure volume and know how much oil was used daily. (Incidentally, the kohanim would set new wicks/oil daily (as described in the korbanot, "hatavat hamesh nerot kodemet... hatavat shtei nerot ... etc), so it's not about x amount of oil burning continually for 8 days, but x amount of oil filling 8x the volume of Menorah lamps.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.219.163.100 (talk) 08:18, 7 November 2017‎

Answers via an employee at [1]http://www.JudaicaWebstore.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.219.163.100 (talk) 08:17, 7 November 2017

Alternative Spellings

Do we really need a whole section discussing the difference between ‘Ch’ sound and ‘H’ sounds? This is not adding anything specifically about the festival. It belongs somewhere else. IMO, it just needs 2 lines: “It can be spelt Hanukkah or Chanukah, with Hanukkah being the most common” Agreed? Riskit 4 a biskit (talk) 16:44, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. It is simply unnecessary. 21:03, 4 March 2023 (UTC)Debresser (talk)

Would it be worth mentioning that this represents a glottal sound not present in English? Real question, not rhetorical. IAmNitpicking (talk) 01:03, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I changed my mind. The section may be a bit oversized, but it is noteworthy, and has quite a few sources. About the "glottal sound not present in English", that is there already, and should be kept, as being one of the most important sentences in that paragraph. Debresser (talk) 10:43, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I feel that whatever could be said about that paragraph, it is a good idea for the whole article to consistently use one of the two spellings. The current situation where both are used is just confusing. Plokmijnuhby (talk) 22:28, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Spelling

Is there a reason why the lede uses the spelling "Chanukah" while the title and rest of the article use the "Hanukkah" spelling? Jessintime (talk) 21:10, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

The lead now uses Hanukkah as the primary title, and I scoured the rest of the article to consistently change it to Hanukkah, as there were still quite a few instances of Chanukah sprinkled throughout the text. However, since 1/3 of the cited sources in the article use the Chanukah spelling, and footnotes aren't terribly accessible (especially on mobile), I added that spelling as a parenthetical alternative per MOS:LEADALT. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:11, 18 March 2024 (UTC)