Behold, the winter is gone

Quick: in which Testament is Hanukkah mentioned? The answer is: the Gospel of John, in its literal translation enkainía.

I assume of my readers that you knew that already. (I admit - I didn't.)

The Encenia (to Latinise) isn't, I think, noted anywhere in Qumran, which was antiHasmonaean so did not store 1 Maccabees (nor Jason of Cyrene "2 Maccabees"). There's a Simoniac calendar but you know how the Essenes were with calendars.

Before all that, the menorah looks like a midwinter takeover from ... somebody. Somebody who saw a fight between the light of summer against the darkness of winter. In Jerusalem / Judaea at the time the winter would have been the storm season. Not everyone likes SR Donaldson's Rain Sun. The Song Of Songs 2:11-12 waxes poetic on how the winter is gone and the rains are ended, flowers appear on the earth [NIV]. (Not considering the Desert Sun on its way...)

I wonder if the menorah was brought, not from Babylon or Egypt - but from Iran.