Are Birthdays Pagan Celebrations?

Q. Does the Bible attach any significance to birthdays?
A. That is a good question and it comes up every now and then. There are some denominations and believers in general who feel birthdays and their celebrations are wrong, but let’s see what the Scriptures say.

Two biblical holidays celebrate birthdays. Rosh Ha Sha-nah means “head of the year” and is biblically known as “Yom Teruah” (day of the awakening blast). This term is found in Num 29.1 and is the first day of creation while others believe it was the day Adam was created.

It begins the civil year and it is how the years were counted from creation, so at least it is the “birthday” of the world and it is celebrated every year.
The other is Passover which is the collective birthday of Israel according to Ezek 16.1-14.

A birthday can be a day to express thanksgiving to God for another year, for bringing you into this world to experience life with Him, entrusting you with a calling to know Him and to be a light to the world. This day is like a personal ”Rosh Ha Sha-nah” and it is a good time to recommit to the calling God gave you and realizing with another year of experience you can accomplish things better. Birthdays are not “evil” and everybody has one.

You don’t learn about birthdays from the pagans. Birthdays were recognized by Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and anyone who had a genealogy and age mentioned in the Scriptures. If they didn’t keep track of them, how would a priest know he was 30 to enter service in the Temple? Yeshua knew how old He was and marked the time.
In Luke 2.42 it says He “became 12” so He had a birthday.

In Luke 3.23 it says He began His ministry when He was “about 30” so He had to know when His birthday was. Genesis 5.1-2 makes reference to Adams birthday. In Genesis 12.4 it says Abraham was 75 years old when he departed from Haran so he knew how old he was.

In Genesis 15.9 it gives the ages of animals, which you would have to keep track of in order to have a proper sacrifice to God. Exodus 30.11-15 gives a command to give a half shekel by those 20 years old and older.
A widow can be put on the list for help at 60 years old in 1 Tim 5.9 and the list can go on.

There is no connection between the birthdays in the Bible and the evil which happened.

Job’s children were not struck down for celebrating a birthday. Is it any surprise Pharaoh and Herod had ungodly birthday celebrations?
Bad things happened at weddings in the Bible too so does that mean we shouldn’t have weddings? Birthdays are part of our life-cycle so let the Lord lead you about celebrating birthdays or not, but there is no command against it. What it comes down to is it really doesn’t matter whether you have a celebration or not, it’s up to you.