birthdays

[angell1]

why were the early christians against them? they said only sinners celebrated their birthdays and not saints.

why are they ok now?

and i knwo some groups still don’t celebrate them because they think they are influenced by pagan elements, like putting candles on cakes. i don’t know how much truth there is to that though

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

why were the early christians against them? they said only sinners celebrated their birthdays and not saints.

why are they ok now?

and i knwo some groups still don’t celebrate them because they think they are influenced by pagan elements, like putting candles on cakes. i don’t know how much truth there is to that though

Who said they did not celebrate Birthdays?

 

[prodromos]

why were the early christians against them? they said only sinners celebrated their birthdays and not saints.

why are they ok now?

and i knwo some groups still don’t celebrate them because they think they are influenced by pagan elements, like putting candles on cakes. i don’t know how much truth there is to that though

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, we don’t celebrate birthdays so much as namedays. By celebrating the feast day of the saint we are named after, we bring to mind the struggle of the saint and how with God’s grace they were able to overcome all they were faced with for the glory of God. Because we are celebrating Christ’s image in their lives, namedays are Christocentric. Traditionally, the person celebrating their name day (or their family if they are still a child) offer small gifts and hospitality to all who come to wish them well for their name day.

Birthdays, on the other hand, are all about us. It is about people giving us gifts and celebrating our lives. Thus, birthdays are very egocentric.

It should be pretty obvious which of these two is most appropriate for the benefit of our souls.

 

[thistle]

why were the early christians against them? they said only sinners celebrated their birthdays and not saints.

why are they ok now?

and i knwo some groups still don’t celebrate them because they think they are influenced by pagan elements, like putting candles on cakes. i don’t know how much truth there is to that though

Can you please provide us with support for your statement. Where did you read this?

 

[angell1]

Can you please provide us with support for your statement. Where did you read this?

…of all the holy people in the Scriptures, no one is recorded to have kept a feast or held a great banquet on his birthday. It is only sinners (like Pharaoh and Herod) who make great rejoicings over the day on which they were born into this world below (Origen, in Levit., Hom. VIII, in Migne P.G., XII, 495)

 

[angell1]

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, we don’t celebrate birthdays so much as namedays. By celebrating the feast day of the saint we are named after, we bring to mind the struggle of the saint and how with God’s grace they were able to overcome all they were faced with for the glory of God. Because we are celebrating Christ’s image in their lives, namedays are Christocentric. Traditionally, the person celebrating their name day (or their family if they are still a child) offer small gifts and hospitality to all who come to wish them well for their name day.

Birthdays, on the other hand, are all about us. It is about people giving us gifts and celebrating our lives. Thus, birthdays are very egocentric.

It should be pretty obvious which of these two is most appropriate for the benefit of our souls.

not necessarily. but they definitely can be egocentric.

but i don’t think gathering some close friends together and thanking for God for everything in the past year as well as the gift of life ie particularly egocentric

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

…of all the holy people in the Scriptures, no one is recorded to have kept a feast or held a great banquet on his birthday. It is only sinners (like Pharaoh and Herod) who make great rejoicings over the day on which they were born into this world below (Origen, in Levit., Hom. VIII, in Migne P.G., XII, 495)

I have never understood this argument. It is quite common in the JW religion. It makes no sense to me to think that people did not celebrate birthdays. Especially in Jewish culture where many many rules were made to decide what could or could not be celebrated.

1. We know that the Jews of the Bible including Jesus marked milestones in life. We know that they were circumcised at an interval of time after their birth. We know that there was an “age of reason” and that there was a jewish prayer thanking God for relieving fathers of the responsibility of the child. That day was usually about 20 years old. We also know that even though a Bar Mitzvah was established later that there were celebrations in the lives of Jewish people.
2. We know that people in the Bible were human and had human emotions. we know that Mary experienced great joy when her baby was born as did all mothers throught all time. The idea that birthdays were not celebrated in these households is not only odd but has no basis in history or anthropology.

It would seem that if God had not wanted birthdays to be celebrated he would have had to expalin that pretty explicitly. Not only that but it would seem to fly in the face of current feast days and even Christmas itself. But this is the time of year when these kind of oddities about “early christians” (whatever that means) and “in the Bible” (whatever that means get a personal spin put on them by seemingly every “expert” there is.

 

[thistle]

…of all the holy people in the Scriptures, no one is recorded to have kept a feast or held a great banquet on his birthday. It is only sinners (like Pharaoh and Herod) who make great rejoicings over the day on which they were born into this world below (Origen, in Levit., Hom. VIII, in Migne P.G., XII, 495)

I’m aghast that you could jump to such conclusions from that. Your conclusion makes no sense at all.

 

[angell1]

I’m aghast that you could jump to such conclusions from that. Your conclusion makes no sense at all.

i’ts not my conclusion, it’s other people’s accusations. that birthday celebrations stem from paganism. and i doubt that the early christians really did celebrate their birthdays, they generally regarded their day of death as better because it was their birth in to heaven.

what conclusion would you get from that?

 

[thistle]

i’ts not my conclusion, it’s other people’s accusations. that birthday celebrations stem from paganism. and i doubt that the early christians really did celebrate their birthdays, they generally regarded their day of death as better because it was their birth in to heaven.

what conclusion would you get from that?

The conclusion is that celebrating birthdays is not a problem and never has been for Christians.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, we don’t celebrate birthdays so much as namedays. By celebrating the feast day of the saint we are named after, we bring to mind the struggle of the saint and how with God’s grace they were able to overcome all they were faced with for the glory of God. Because we are celebrating Christ’s image in their lives, namedays are Christocentric. Traditionally, the person celebrating their name day (or their family if they are still a child) offer small gifts and hospitality to all who come to wish them well for their name day.

Birthdays, on the other hand, are all about us. It is about people giving us gifts and celebrating our lives. Thus, birthdays are very egocentric.

It should be pretty obvious which of these two is most appropriate for the benefit of our souls.

That sounds fishy to me. Why must a person necessarily be egotistical because others are celebrating their birthday?