Genesis 40:20
Genesis 40:2020On the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, he held a feast for all his officials, and in their presence he lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker.
is one of two passages (the other is , Herod's birthday) that Reasoning From the Scriptures (pp. 68-70) uses to establish a universal prohibition on birthday celebrations. The argument is descriptive-to-prescriptive: the Bible records only two birthdays, both pagan tyrants, both ending in executions — so Jehovah is reporting unfavourably and Christians should abstain. The rule is then enforced against school classmates, cake, candles, and family gifts.
The Watchtower's inference is the incidental fallacy — treating what happens in a narrative as what God prescribes. Pharaoh hanged his baker at a feast; Herod killed John the Baptist at a feast. The common factor is the tyranny and the oath, not the cake. Counter- texts in the same canon: and both curse the day of birth — an act that presupposes the day was normally blessed. prophesies that at John the Baptist's birth "many will rejoice." tells us Pharaoh was a ruthless ruler; it tells us nothing about what Jehovah forbids. The authoritative ruling on day-observance is : "the one who observes the day observes it to Jehovah" — in the Watchtower's own translation. Paul decides the question; the Governing Body overrules him.