Post by Watchman on Nov 4, 2006 14:44:21 GMT -5
Should you observe your own birthday or attend birthday parties? Whose birthday would be the most important? Christ's! Yet the Bible nowhere gives the date of His birth. Most Bible commentators recognize that the Bible hints at a fall (not winter) birth for Christ. Yet many believe they honor Him in December. If the Savior's birthday was important, don't you think God would have revealed the exact day of this most important birth?
Note what Job 3:3 says: "Let the day perish wherein I was born . . . ." The other Biblical references to birthdays are not favorable. See Genesis 40 where Pharaoh celebrates his birthday by hanging his Chief Baker. In Matthew 14:6-10, we find Herod beheading John the Baptist on Herod's birthday. Many believe that Job's children were apparently celebrating a birthday when calamity befell them Job 1:4-19.
A good brief history of birthday observance is "Happy Birthday? WHAT IS THE VERDICT," by Chuck W. Henry. He quotes "Horoscope" from the World Book Encyclopedia:
HOROSCOPE, . . . is a chart that shows the influences the stars supposedly have on a person because of their positions at the time of his birth . . . . Astrologers also use positions of the stars a t the time they cast the horoscope to predict the person's future. The word horoscope comes from the Greek horoskopos meaning the one who observes the hour . . . .
Further, Let's hear what the World Book -- Childcraft International on "Holidays and Birthdays" has to say on this subject:
. . . For thousands of years, people all over the world have thought of a birthday as a very special day. Long ago, people believed that on a birthday a person could be helped by good spirits or hurt by evil spirits. So when a person had a birthday, friends and relatives gathered to protect him or her. And that's how birthday parties began.
The idea of putting candles on birthday cakes goes back to ancient Greece. The Greeks worshipped many gods and goddesses. Among them was one called Artemis . . . the goddess of the moon. The Greeks celebrated her birthday once each month by bringing special cakes to her temple. The cakes were round like a full moon. And, Because the moon glows with light, the cakes were decorated with lighted candles.
He also shows the pagan origins of spankings, noisemakers and other birthday customs. Quoting Kenneth C. Herrman "Should Christians Celebrate Birthdays" from the December, 1959, Plain Truth magazine:
The Jews in Christ's day knew God's law forbids celebrating birthdays. Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first century, declares: 'Nay, indeed, the law does not permit us to make festivals at the birth of our children . . . .' (Against Apion, book II, #26).
A still greater deterrent to annual birthday observance is the insertion of a 13th month in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th,17th, and 19th years of a 19-year cycle. Imagine the confusion of attempting to schedule birthday parties!
Solomon tells us "It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart," Ecclesiastes 7:2. God is telling us that it is better to visit those grieving from a recent death rather than with those celebrating or partying (birthdays?).