By Robert R. Cargill
Center for the Digital Humanities,
Qumran Visualization Project
UCLA
September 2009
I have heard every argument. I have read every justification. And I have spent far too much time on Wikipedia changing BCs and ADs back to BCEs and CEs. It is a centuries-old argument that some maintain is integral to one’s identity as a Christian. Despite the rise of science, Christians have used—and many times have insisted upon—the continued use of the labels “AD” and “BC” to designate calendrical years, and thereby portray human history as directly relative to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. But in our modern world of scientific reason and religious plurality, the battle over whether or not to use the increasingly accepted international scientific standard of BCE (“Before Common Era”) and CE (“Common Era”) has not waned, but rather has intensified. However, it is time for this battle to end; Christians should leave behind the BC/AD labels and adopt the BCE/CE dating system for all calendrical references.
Christians have offered many reasons for maintaining the BC/AD system. Many Christians perceive the BCE/CE system to be an affront to Christianity. They see the system as an attempt to eliminate “Christ” from the calendar, just as many reject the expression “x-mas” for removing “Christ” from Christmas. Some simply appeal to arguments of tradition and familiarity with the system. Still many other Christians object to the “scientific” origin of this designation. For whatever reason, be it an aversion to natural selection and evolution, the debunking or explanation of many so-called “miracles,” or a bad grade in a freshman biology class, some Christians cling to the BC/AD system because of the symbolic superiority they feel it offers its adherents over science. Because when all else fails, one can always deny the facts and use different labels (i.e., “intelligent design”).
There are, however, several excellent reasons for Christians to leave behind the BC/AD dating system. In fact, the use of BC and AD causes more problems for Christians than it solves. For one, it perpetuates the stereotype that Christians are arrogant tyrants who insist on couching all of human history (including Jewish, Islamic, Indian, Chinese, etc.) as relative to the birth of Christ. Rather than living the lives of humble servants that their Bible calls them to do, many Christians maintain that all history should be subject to their own religious claims. Even the period of history that took place before Jesus supposedly came to earth is relegated to mere anticipatory events prior to the birth of Jesus.
However, this insistence upon subjecting all of human history to one’s own religious interpretation opens Christians up to accusations of sectarian fundamentalism. Every time Christians insist upon the BC/AD dating system, they open the door to claims by adherents to other faiths that wish to impose their own relative dating system upon society. Jews will claim that the year 2009 is actually year 5770 (based on the supposed date of the creation of the earth in the Jewish tradition), while Muslims will insist that we are in year 1430 (AH = Anno Hajiri, or the year of the pilgrimage (“hajj”) of the Prophet Muhammad). By adopting a BCE/CE system, we avoid any haggling over religious origins of calendrical dates.
Adopting the BCE/CE also allows us to avoid having to re-date significant periods in the world’s history. The “Common Era” dating system uses the same dates as the “Anno Domini” (“Year of our Lord”) system, which designates dates as either “Before Christ” (BC), or “Anno Domini” (AD). Because the BCE/CE system utilizes the same dates as the BC/AD system, no alteration of historical dates is necessary; only a change of the label is needed to convert BC/AD to BCE/CE.
But, the continued insistence upon the BC/AD system causes even bigger theological and historical problems for Christians, problems of which many Christians are not even aware. These theological and historical problems are accentuated by the continued use of the BC/AD system.
Our present calendar is based upon the Gregorian calendar of 1582 CE (named after Pope Gregory XIII), which was a reform of the earlier Julian calendar of 45 BCE (named after Julius Caesar). The labels BC and AD were added in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus, who used them to compute the date of Easter. However, Dionysius miscalculated, and this error has been retained in the BC/AD system. While the Gregorian calendar accurately represents years of 365.25 days, Dionysius’ calculations skipped the year zero, jumping immediately from the year 1 BC to the year 1 AD. The result is a calendar that claims to be based upon the birth of Jesus, but which skips the first year of his life.
But besides the absence of the first year CE from our present calendar, an even greater problem exists with the BC/AD system: Jesus was not born in year zero. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great. According to multiple ancient sources, Herod died in 4 BCE. If the Gospel of Matthew is historically accurate, this would mean that Jesus of Nazareth was born on or before 4 BCE—meaning Jesus was born 4 BC (4 years Before Christ)! If we add to these 4 years the fact that Herod the Great did not die immediately after the birth of Jesus, but, according to Matthew, ordered the death of all children two years of age and younger in an attempt to kill Jesus, we can add an additional two years to the birth of Jesus, making his birth approximately 6 BCE. If we also add the missing year zero, it is most likely that, according to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was born around 7 BCE!
Thus, the BC/AD system is fundamentally flawed in that it misrepresents the birth of Jesus by approximately 7 years. This means that Jesus’ ministry did not begin around the year 30, but instead around the year 23. Likewise, Pentecost and the origin of the Christian Church should not be dated to “33 AD,” but to about 26 CE.
An even greater problem still exists with the BC/AD system: the year of Jesus’ birth differs depending on which Gospel one reads. While the Gospel of Matthew states in chapter 2:1 that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great, the Gospel of Luke states in chapter 2:1-2 that Jesus was born during the first census of the rule of Quirinius, governor of Syria. According to ancient sources, the date of this census is about 6 CE. Thus, the Bible is internally inconsistent regarding the year of Jesus’ birth. Was Jesus born about around 7 BCE under the reign of Herod the Great as Matthew states, or was Jesus born about 6 CE under the reign of Quirinius, long after Herod the Great had died as Luke contends?
Insisting that the world use a calendar based upon the birth of Jesus only exacerbates the internal biblical inconsistencies of dating the birth of Jesus. Therefore, it would be better for all people—Christians and non-Christians alike—to adopt the BCE/CE system of dating. While it was originally supposedly based upon the date of Jesus’ birth, it in fact was not, but is rather loosely tied to events in the Roman Empire during that time that we can arbitrarily refer to as the beginning of a modern, common era. The BC/AD system no more accurately reflects the reality of Jesus’ life than does Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.
Thus, it is time for Christians to let go of the inaccurate, and to many, offensive BC and AD calendar labels and adopt the BCE/CE system. If using BC and AD to designate calendrical dates is the central identifier of a person as a Christian, then that person has bigger problems than an insistence upon a calendar. Likewise, adopting the BCE/CE system allays the discrepancies of the chronologies of Jesus’ life, while the archaic BC/AD system only highlights them. The BCE/CE system is the de facto dating system for the scientific community, joining the metric system as a standard that peoples of all nations and faiths can accept. This dating system is also the most widely used system outside of the scientific community. The BCE/CE system requires no conversions and no re-dating of historical events; only the renaming of BC to BCE and AD to CE is needed. And, as has been demonstrated above, because the AD/BC system is not actually based upon the birth of Jesus, but is rather off by approximately 7 years, there is no concern from non-Christian peoples to be suspicious of being surreptitiously forced into adopting a dating system based upon the life of Christ.
In the end, it is better to allow the calendar to arbitrarily differentiate the Common Era from the period Before the Common Era, and let Christians demonstrate their faith in some more meaningful way than simply insisting upon a particular set of calendar labels.
Article Comments
What if BCE and CE are…
What if BCE and CE are offensive to someone? That person's opposition is just as valid. Besides, changing from B.C. and A.D., which have been commonly used for centuries, simply for "wokeness" is hardly a sufficient reason. When you mention other calendar systems, consider that had those cultures made more of an impact on scholarship and history as that using the B.C. and A.D., I dare say we would be using one of those. When you mention that the calendar we use is inaccurate with regard to the Christ's birth, the exact year is unimportant and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. To think of it, a seven-year error in the span of two-thousand years is a pretty small one, in my opinion.
Thank you an interesting…
Thank you an interesting article, although I found it many years after it was written. Some seekers are not convinced Jesus was a real person. By using BC, and the fact that BC was used for so long, can provide a doubting Thomas with faith in Jesus' existence.
You moved the headstones,…
You moved the headstones, but you didn't move the bodies. BCE and CE still represent the Gregorian calendar. The separation between BCE and CE is still the estimated date of the birth of Christ (off by 4 to 6 years, incidentally). The religious significance is unchanged. If anything, BCE/CE are MORE religious because nobody cares what BC and AD stand for; they use them because they're common. Whereas BCE and CE draw attention to the fact that some wanted change.
Why did they want change? Because they were offended. Why were they offended? Because their sensibilities were agitated by two letters following a date...
Also, we don't live in an increasingly diverse world. We live in an increasingly homogenized and politically sanitized world. Political correctness is the toady in the front of the class reminding the teacher he forgot to give everyone homework, and we (people who've seen this spiel time and time again) are doing what we've always done: Saying No.
The change is unnecessary. Why not just use the one you prefer and let a thousand flowers bloom? I've certainly never told atheists and Jews they shouldn't use BCE/CE. Use whichever one you want, it doesn't matter.
It is a mistake to assume…
It is a mistake to assume religions-based year counting will change around the world just because you try to erase your own western civilisation heritage. The only lasting result is just you helping to erase your own culture. This is a rather naive and dangerous position, given the current world we live in, where being a Christian is becoming almost like a mortal sin (once again).
I respectfully disagree with…
I respectfully disagree with this post- I think Vitor above makes good points. Proponents of the BCE/CE system still use the birth of Christ as the key date in their system (the fact that it may be 4 or 6 years off is irrelevant in this debate, since CE does not correct for that mistake either)- they just refuse to acknowledge why that event is being used. If the origins of the BC/AD system were Islamic, Jewish, or Chinese and that system were used universally, and then some academics came along and attempted to eliminate it on the grounds of fairness, I think there would be a lot of (fair) accusations of attempting to whitewash history. It's funny how academics object to BC/AD on the grounds that it is too Christian-centric, but have zero problem with English being the universal language that people all over the world are expected to learn :)
My main comment is regarding…
My main comment is regarding your statement about inconsistencies in the Bible. This shows ignorance, pride and lack of biblical knowledge. Rather than embarrassing yourself, you should do a closer examination of the Bible and history before making such claims. Time and time again, history and science stand corrected by the facts laid out by the Bible, even if for a time they seem questionable or misunderstood by men. I grew up in a communist country where God was made illegal and all references to calendar were switched to BCE/CE. Well, after years of suffering and struggling in “enlightened” and “science based” darkness, my country turned back to God, and the old dating method is coming back. The dating system you are advocating against may return.
I never realized this topic had become such an argument. thank you !