BC and AD

JackRT said:

I agree with what you have said here but none of that contradicts anything that I said.

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I'll accept that because you say so, but this:

...calendar is based on mythology masquerading as theology. We do well to treat it all with the humour it deserves.

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surely seems to be saying something else, wouldn't you agree?

Eerin said:

I am sure this has been around a while but,
I have just recently noticed in a lot of dictionaries online they replace BC and AD with BCE(before current events) and CE (current events)....I didn't realize it had escalated that quickly to remove Christ from the mind of this world....scary. Lord have mercy.

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I don't honestly think it's an attempt to remove Christ from the dating scheme. In my own book I prefer BCE and CE, for Before the Common Era and of the Common Era, because Christ wasn't born in 1 CE. He was born at least two or three years earlier. Ergo, AD and BC are misnomers. The BCE and CE acronyms are more academically accurate.

But we would have to be picking nits to argue, seriously, that the conventional and historic system known the world over needs to be changed merely because Christ was born two years earlier than the calendar suggests. And the fact that his birth was several years earlier has been known for a long time, anyway.

No one even thinks of this trivia, even while most of us do realize that the dating system relates to the life of Christ.

Eerin said:

I am sure this has been around a while but,
I have just recently noticed in a lot of dictionaries online they replace BC and AD with BCE(before current events) and CE (current events)....I didn't realize it had escalated that quickly to remove Christ from the mind of this world....scary. Lord have mercy.

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There is also BP; that is years before present. Early writing began about 5000 BP or 3000 BC/BCE depending on what dating convention you use.

You might see people rejecting Christianity in man's inhumanity to man more than whether or not they use BC or BCE in their historical descriptions.

Albion said:

But we would have to be picking nits to argue, seriously, that the conventional and historic system known the world over needs to be changed merely because Christ was born two years earlier than the calendar suggests. And the fact that his birth was several years earlier has been known for a long time, anyway.

No one even thinks of this trivia, even while most of us do realize that the dating system relates to the life of Christ.

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Again, I use the BCE/CE acronyms because they are more academically appropriate. The first year of our common era is not the year of our Lord 1. And frankly, I think the nit-picking is on the part of those insisting on BC and AD. As you say, we know what the calendar is based on, and we know that it is in error. So why make a stink about the acronym? It doesn't bother me if someone uses BC/AD, and it shouldn't bother them if I use BCE/CE.

AFrazier said:

As you say, we know what the calendar is based on, and we know that it is in error. So why make a stink about the acronym? .

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IMO, that's rather a strange way to argue on behalf of a change that is, after all is said and done, little more than change for change's sake.

This particular change .... BC/AD to BCE/CE was absurd. It says more about the insecurity of scientists, than it does about logic. BTW, I am a scientist.

I suggest that you keep using BC and AD. And if anyone tries to correct you, tell them that your system is "more accurate". Because it is (in a way) ... it is tied to the birth of Christ. The CE system is not anchored to anything, if they reject Christ then they have no starting point !!

According to Wikipedia the first use was in 1615 by Kepler. I first ran into it when I was in high school. It's been largely confined to academic circles until recently. I first saw it in OT scholarship where Jews and Christians both worked. Usage seems to have started spreading.

I know some consider sensitivity to be "political correctness." I don't see any problem with it, nor do I think Jesus would.

.

gideon123 said:

This particular change .... BC/AD to BCE/CE was absurd. It says more about the insecurity of scientists, than it does about logic. BTW, I am a scientist.

I suggest that you keep using BC and AD. And if anyone tries to correct you, tell them that your system is "more accurate". Because it is (in a way) ... it is tied to the birth of Christ. The CE system is not anchored to anything, if they reject Christ then they have no starting point !!

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The reason the change is not absurd is that AD is for Anno Domini Nostri. The year of our Lord. The first "year of our Lord" is not the first year of the common era. Neither is the first year before the common era the first year before Christ.

If AD 1 were equivalent to the third year before the common era, then I'd be all for retaining the BC/AD acronyms. But it isn't.

All you're really fighting for is the desire to retain the religious nomenclature. But in the end, it just doesn't matter, and the BCE/CE acronyms are more accurate.

But feel free to think as you please. Just don't go around talking smack to or about people because they disagree with you.

RaymondG said:

Maybe they want to change it because it was too hard for Christians to understand. BC cant be "before Christ", While AD is "after death"........What? would that give Christ a year of life?

And why pick a moment of time and try to say that Christ was not here before then anyway? I say Christ was present on the earth before "BC"

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Strangely BC=Before Christ while AD= Anno Domini (year of the Lord)

JackRT said:

Strangely BC=Before Christ while AD= Anno Domini (year of the Lord)

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You have shown me the error in my ways...... I foolishly assume that the op did not know what AD stood for.....just like you have foolishly assumed the same of me.

RaymondG said:

BC cant be "before Christ", While AD is "after death"........What? would that give Christ a year of life?

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Anno Domini, the year of our Lord, counts time in relation to Christ's reign. In times past, the years were numbered according to the reign of various kings. For example:

1 Kings 14:25

And it cometh to pass, in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, gone up hath Shishak king of Egypt against Jerusalem,

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By using the term A.D. we suggest that we are currently living during the reign of Christ. That makes it a sort of Amillennial perspective.

Honestly, I just cannot bring myself to regard as Christian anyone who would insist on divorcing the enumeration from the reign of Christ upon whom it is based.

nonaeroterraqueous said:

Anno Domini, the year of our Lord, counts time in relation to Christ's reign. In times past, the years were numbered according to the reign of various kings. For example:

1 Kings 14:25


By using the term A.D. we suggest that we are currently living during the reign of Christ. That makes it a sort of Amillennial perspective.

Honestly, I just cannot bring myself to regard as Christian anyone who would insist on divorcing the enumeration from the reign of Christ upon whom it is based.

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Count me as a Christian in that number. It was the Christian colonial powers of Europe that have imposed our calendar on the world. Most are not Christian and we do not need to rub our Christian colonialism in their faces.

Eerin said:

I am sure this has been around a while but,
I have just recently noticed in a lot of dictionaries online they replace BC and AD with BCE(before current events) and CE (current events)....I didn't realize it had escalated that quickly to remove Christ from the mind of this world....scary. Lord have mercy.

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I always thought "Before Christ" and "Anno Domini" where inconsistent and this is why many think AD is "after death" trying to somehow reconcile the language conflicts. I really have no issue with BCE and CE as regardless which term you use they are all marked by Christ. It is also arbitrary for us to demand Christian culture over societies as having it or not having is no longer anything to do with the Gospel.

• Eerin said:

  I am sure this has been around a while but,

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Eerin said:

I have just recently noticed in a lot of dictionaries online they replace BC and AD with BCE(before current events) and CE (current events)....I didn't realize it had escalated that quickly to remove Christ from the mind of this world....scary. Lord have mercy.

Click to expand...

Just noticed Chesterton beat me to it but I have always thought of them as "Before Christian era" (BCE) and "Christian era" (CE).

It is one of the more ridiculous features of modern political correctness that they use the Christian calendar while labelling it something else.

Any calendar is totally arbitrary. We could equally well use BC= Before Charles and AD= After Darwin.

Personally I think Christians should use the phrase "In the year of our Lord" (Anno Domini) when describing a certain year.

Does it really matter whether one uses BC/AD or BCE/CE? Unless one is writing about ancient history there is no need to reference either. When we write that Theodore Roosevelt was president of the US in 1904, we can assume that our readers will understand that we are nor referring to 1904 BCE.

For the record, I use BCE/CE on the very rare occasions when I am writing something that references ancient history simply because 1) it is more accurate and 2) my articles are not limited to a Christian audience.

Doesn't bother me much. They are the same in my mind. I tend to use BC and AD, though.
What should be remembered, is that actually AD should precede the date, but is often written afterwards. So AD is sometimes not even written correctly.

My opinion is that any history book worth its salt, would reference the people's own systems - such as Abs Urbs Condita, or Anno Mundi, or Diocletianic years, or so forth, in addition. Directly related systems such as BC/AD vs BCE/CE, are merely preference as all would know which date is meant thereby.