As Chanukah draws to a close, I figured it would be appropriate to post something about it. The Chanukah story comes from the Old Testament books of the Maccabees. If you're a Protestant or a Jew, or grew up Protestant or Jewish, you may not be familiar with these books -- Luther threw them out during the Deformation in favor of an alleged Jewish canon of the Old Testament, based on a Jewish "council's" rejection of these books (the so-called Council of Jamnia), convened after the Resurrection, the destruction of the temple and the elimination of the Jewish priesthood (met any Levitical Priests lately?) -- a council which met as a direct result of what they saw as the Christian heresy, by the way. In any case, the Jamnian Jews threw the books out and kept Chanukah, and Luther thought these Jews were more reliable than the first millennium and a half of Christian testimony. Quite telling, I think, as is the rejection by both these groups of the Jewish canon/translation developed by the Alexandrian Jews a couple centuries earlier (Septuagint), and quoted by the Apostles and other New Testament writers. But that's another story... (If you're interested in the canonical part of this post, read more here.)

In any case, here's a link to a radio-style presentation of the Miracle of the Maccabees, as hosted by a Jewish site. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to link straight to the audio, so this link takes you to the page at www.chabad.org. The program is about 30 minutes long and fairly well produced.