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BIRTHDAY.—Birthday celebrations are mentioned only in connexion with royalty, viz. Pharaoh’s birthday (Gen_40:20), the monthly celebration of that of Antiochus Epiphanes (2Ma_6:7), and the birthday feast given by Herod Antipas (Mat_14:6, Mar_6:21). The ‘day of our king,’ to which Hosea refers (Hos_7:5), may have been the anniversary either of the king’s birth or of his accession. Some authorities (e.g. Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus, i. 672) regard Herod’s feast as celebrating the anniversary of his accession—a view based on a mistaken exegesis of the Talmudic passage Aboda zara I. 3 (see the full discussion in Schürer, GJV [Note: JV Geschichte des Jüdischen Volkes.] 3 i. 438–441).
A. R. S. Kennedy.