According to II Maccabees after the temple was redidcated, Judas Maccabeus instructed his followers to celebrate the event for eight days, and there is a evidence that this might have been a postponed celebration of the seven-day Sukkot festival, along with its eighth day, Shemini Atzeret. According to the Babylonian Talmud, when Judas Maccabeus entered the Second Temple of Jerusalem, he found only a small jar of oil that had not been defiled by Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The jar contained only enough oil to burn for one day, but miraculously the oil burned for eight days until new consecrated oil could be found, establishing the precedent that the festival should last eight days.
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