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Summary
- BC means “before Christ” and AD is the Latin anno Domini, “in the year of the Lord”, so AD does not mean “after death”.
- A sixth-century monk named Dionysius Exiguus began counting from the incarnation while he was continuing an Easter table, because he did not want to go on numbering the years from the persecutor Diocletian.
- The count travelled slowly: Bede was using it by 731, and it was not general in Europe until after AD 1000.
- There is no year zero, so to count across the line we add the two numbers together and take one away.
- On the usual reckoning Jesus was born a few years before the year one, because he was born under Herod and Herod’s death is generally dated to 4 BC, though some scholars argue for 1 BC.
- BCE and CE grew from the Latin “vulgar era” that the astronomer Kepler wrote of in 1615, and “Common Era” is first recorded in English in 1708.
- Many Jewish writers use CE and BCE, and the columnist Philologos says for himself that he cannot be expected to call Jesus Lord in a date, while Albert Mohler and the Southern Baptists want BC and AD kept.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture is quoted from the King James Version: Matthew 2:1, 2:19, 2:22; Luke 1:5; Galatians 4:4; Psalm 31:15.
- Dionysius Exiguus, On Easter, or the Paschal Cycle, preface translated by Roger Pearse, tables and rules translated by Michael Deckers (tertullian.org).
- John Gerard, “Dionysius Exiguus”, The Catholic Encyclopedia (1909).
- “General Chronology”, The Catholic Encyclopedia (1908).
- Bede, Ecclesiastical History of England, translated by A. M. Sellar (1907), Project Gutenberg.
- Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 17, translated by William Whiston, Project Gutenberg.
- Biblical Archaeology Society, “Herod’s Death, Jesus’ Birth and a Lunar Eclipse”, letters by John Cramer, Jeroen Tempelman, Jeffrey Chadwick and Andrew Steinmann.
- Fred Espenak, “Year Dating Conventions”, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
- Philologos, “Why the Terms CE and BCE Replaced AD and BC, and Why Jews Care About It”, Mosaic (20 December 2017).
- R. Albert Mohler, Jr., “B.C. and A.D. or B.C.E. and C.E.? The Battle Over History” (2 June 2006).
- Southern Baptist Convention, “On Retaining The Traditional Method Of Calendar Dating (B.C./A.D.)” (2000).
- James Thunder, “Lord of Time”, New Oxford Review (21 December 2022).
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