IN May 1976 a New York newspaper advertised as a gift for ‘the woman in your life’ a necklace that should show her “that she’s as dear to your heart as you are to hers.” On a silver chain hung the pendant, a “porcelain heart embedded in silver.”

Many who saw that advertisement had no objection to the pendant’s shape. But some persons might feel strongly that a Christian woman should not wear a heart-shaped decoration. Why not?

Well, objectors might consider the heart to be an idolatrous decoration, having learned that it formerly was used in non-Christian worship. They may sincerely want to apply this Bible advice: “What agreement does God’s temple have with idols? . . . ‘Therefore get out from among them, and separate yourselves,’ says Jehovah, ‘and quit touching the unclean thing’; ‘and I will take you in.’”​—2 Cor. 6:15-17.

Alexander Hislop’s book The Two Babylons points out:

“The ‘Heart’ was one of the sacred symbols of [the Egyptian god] Osiris when he was born again, and appeared as Harpocrates, or the infant divinity . . . The veneration of the ‘sacred heart’ seems also to have extended to India, for there Vishnu . . . is represented as wearing a heart suspended on his breast . . . Now, the worship of the ‘Sacred Heart’ was just, under a symbol, the worship of the ‘Sacred Bel,’ that mighty one of Babylon.”

Similarly, the first printing of the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures presented this captioned drawing:

[Picture on page 12]

Heart of the Babylonian God Bel