by Buck 9 Replies latest jw friends
I know it was probably during the change over from Russell to Rutherford. Is there a specific WT article that I can point to when reviewing this topic. Ive been reading Reasoning from the Scriptures and I cant find nothing banning birthdays. Maybe certain celebration elements, but not banning observing the day.
Any answers?
Thanks
BUCK
I haven't been able to narrow it down, but it had to occur between 1907 and the 1930s.
Well, I'd really like to hear the answer to this one, because I distinctly remember candles and gifts on my fourth birthday (1965). I don't remember any after that (well, not until 40, but that's another story). I think birthdays hung around for quite a while.
Birthdays were banned during Rutherord's era.
Perhaps someone here can find the exactly when.
--VM44
1926
*** Proclaimers Book chap. 14 p. 200 "They Are No Part of the World" ***
Practices That Have Been Abandoned
This Christmas celebration at Brooklyn Bethel in 1926 was their last. The Bible Students gradually came to appreciate that neither the origin of this holiday nor the practices associated with it honored God
In their "Daily Manna" book, Bible Students kept a list of birthdays. But after they quit celebrating Christmas and when they realized that birthday celebrations were giving undue honor to creatures (one reason that early Christians never celebrated birthdays), the Bible Students quit this practice too
*** go chap. 8 p. 145 Marked Days During the "Time of the End" ***
So, in due time, in order to put on record the Kingdom activities of Jehovah’s people for the significant year of 1926, there appeared the "Year Book of the International Bible Students Association with Daily Texts and Comments." (320 pages) The "Daily Heavenly Manna and Birthday Records," which had been used in daily Christian worship since its publication in 1907, now went out of use, as new daily texts and comments appeared in each succeeding Year Book published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society down to date.
Huh! So a birthday celebration is "Giving undue honor to creatures" but a big 50th anniversary gala is not? What strange logic!
---"one reason early Christians never celebrated birthdays"---
And they know this how? Because a birthday celebration isn't recorded in the bible? I guess they never cut their toenails or went to the bathroom either, as I don't remember reading about them doing such things.
So not only do we KNOW they did not celebrate birthdays, but we KNOW their reasons too. Amazing what you can learn from nothing.
does it mention in the bible where they answered nature's call?
Anniversaries give honor to Jehovah's institution of marriage. That's why marriage gets all the nice cards and presents.
Jehovah's Witnesses celebrated birthdays until late 1951.
I know because my birthday is in December and I was a very, very unhappy kid when told by my mother that my upcoming birthday in 1951 would not be celebrated.
I remember it well. Still!!!!!! Please keep in mind that my family were very faithful witnesses, my mother was baptized in 1914 and up until 1951 our family had celebrated each member's birthday. This was the question from readers that stopped us in our tracks.
***
w51 10/1 p. 607 Questions from Readers ***• Is it proper to have or attend celebrations of birthday anniversaries?—F. K., Nevada.
Such celebrations have their roots in pagan religions, and not Scriptural grounds. Some Bible commentators suggest that birthday celebrations may have had their origin in the "notion of the immortality of the soul". Astrologers and stargazers laid great stress on offering sacrifices to the gods each year when the stars and planets were in the same position as when one was born. In Egyptian mythology the "birthdays of the gods" were celebrated on certain days, and in Chinese mythology individuals offered special sacrifices on their birthdays to Shou Hsing, the god of longevity. The ancient Anglo-Saxons celebrated the birthday of the "Lord Moon", spoken of as meni at Isaiah 65:11 (margin), by making cakes "called Nur-Cakes, or Birthcakes"; and candles also are of pagan origin.—See Hislop’s Two Babylons, pages 95, 191-196.
After telling us that December 25 was the traditional birthday of Nimrod, and not of Jesus, the new book What Has Religion Done for Mankind? states: "The inspired Scriptures do not give the birth date of Jesus, and it does not matter, for neither Jesus nor God his Father nor the inspired apostles instructed us to celebrate Jesus’ birthday. The only birthday celebrations that the Holy Scriptures mention are those of pagans, those of Egypt’s Pharaoh and of Herod Antipas who marked his birthday by having John the Baptist’s head chopped off. (Gen. 40:20; Matt. 14:6; Mark 6:21) Christ’s disciples of the first century shunned birthday celebrations as being pagan, unchristian!"
Doubtless many things practiced by Christians today were also practiced by pagans; but when these practices are steeped in false worship contrary to Bible principle they become objectionable. The celebration of birthday anniversaries centers the mind on the creature and exalts the creature, giving him and his birth undue importance. Romans 1:25 (NW) warns of those who "venerated and rendered sacred service to the creation rather than the One who created". Birthday celebrations could tend to take on this objectionable quality. If Christians wish to come together occasionally for profitable fellowship and relaxation, they do not have to await a day reminiscent of pagan religion. If they wish to present a brother with a gift, they do not have to await the anniversary of the day of his entry into the world, as though that were such a memorable occasion. If the precise day of Jesus’ birth and its remembrance were of no such noteworthiness, whose are?
yesidid
