What the text says, and what it withholds. "After these things there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem" (John 5:1, ASV). That is all. The same writer names the feast every other time he dates a scene by one, Passover at 2:13, 6:4 and 11:55, Tabernacles at 7:2, Dedication at 10:22, which makes the silence here conspicuous rather than careless.
The proposals, and why none of them settles it. Commentators have argued for Passover (it would give John's chronology a further year, and some manuscripts read "the feast" with the article, which would point to the greatest of them); for Tabernacles or Pentecost (each a pilgrimage feast, which fits "went up to Jerusalem"); and for Purim (it falls between the Passovers of 2:13 and 6:4, which suits the sequence, though Purim did not require a journey to Jerusalem). ⚠️ The argument from the article is itself unsettled: the manuscripts differ over whether John wrote "a feast" or "the feast", so the strongest textual lever is not firm ground. Each proposal rests on an inference about sequence or wording, and none rests on anything John says.
Why this entry exists. Because a reader deserves to know when the answer is "the text does not say". Naming a feast here would put a fact in the reader's hands that no source supports, and a confident guess is indistinguishable, on the page, from something we know. A festival is named here only where the text names it, and John 5:1 is the place that rule is visible.
Sources: John 5:1; John 2:13; John 6:4; John 7:2; John 10:22; John 11:55; ISBE 1915, "Feasts and Fasts".
---