kitsch1
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posted on January 15, 2001 08:31:19 PM new
Anno Domini (year of our lord) and Before Christ.
I kept thinking that there were other more scientific words for this universally used date thingy. I was wrong. It is all about Christ and that strikes me strange because it seems the keepers of time and history are for the most part scientific.
[ edited by kitsch1 on Jan 15, 2001 08:33 PM ]
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donny
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posted on January 15, 2001 08:38:55 PM new
At least one other set of abbreviations is being used, C.E. (common era), to replace A.D., and B.C.E (before common era) to replace B.C., but the dividing line is still the birth of Christ.
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plsmith
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posted on January 15, 2001 08:59:02 PM new
And as soon as China's in a position to call the shots, we'll leapfrog forward to whatever year they're up to now (several thousand ahead of us, at any rate) ... timekeeping, like darn near everything else, is political, Kel.
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krs
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posted on January 15, 2001 09:01:26 PM new
Don't forget Julian.
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kitsch1
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posted on January 15, 2001 09:26:54 PM new
Julian?
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december3
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posted on January 16, 2001 03:47:26 AM new
The Julian calendar. The day begins at noon. Mine does that anyway if I stay up too late.
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Zazzie
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posted on January 16, 2001 08:57:42 AM new
So you are not talking about Julian Bashir---the doctor on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine???
What year is it going to be for The Chinese Year of the Snake??---and what year is it on the Jewish Calendar and other calendars??? And which Roman Emperor was the one that started all this new counting anyways???--and what year (in his count--not B.C.E. count was it????
Questions questions---I've got a million of them???
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jamesoblivion
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posted on January 16, 2001 10:26:36 AM new
This is an oversimplification, but essentially the current year was calculated in the year 525 by a monk named Dionysius Exiguus. He calculated the year of Jesus' birth as corresponding to the Roman year 753 (the Romans counted from the founding of Rome by the mythical twins Romulus and Remus). It actually was pretty close. It is known with certainty that Herod the "Great" died in what is now known as 4 BC. Since he figures in the story of the birth of Jesus, he could not be born later than that. This system of measuring years was adopted by the Church officially, and was spread across most of Europe by the year 700.
The current Jewish year is 5761.
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Zazzie
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posted on January 16, 2001 10:30:59 AM new
Jamie---so it's only 240 years to the Jewish Millineum !!!
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codasaurus
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posted on January 16, 2001 10:31:46 AM new
How about the Mayan or Sumerian or Hindu calendars?
Many cultures had calendars based on the year of the reign of the current ruler.
All calendars are based on some seminal event. The "Big Bang", the birth of Christ, the establishment of a kingdom or dynasty.
In scientific terms, the age of the Universe is considered to be the time that has elapsed since the "Big Bang". The last I heard, it was generally accepted that the "Big Bang" occurred about 18 billion years ago.
Even our standard measure of time (the day) is relative. Why? Because the days are getting longer as the Earth slows in its rotation.
All units of measurement are relative to a standard and the standard is often arbitrarily chosen.
Take longitude, for example. Longitude is calculated based on the Prime Meridian. The location of the prime meridian was arbitrarily chosen at a point in Greenwich, England where the Royal Observatory was established.
Most countries calculated longitude based on a prime meridian located in their own country. But England's dominance as a seafaring nation resulted in the adoption of the Greenwich meridan as the standard.
Because mainstream Western civilization has its roots in Christianity, B.C. and A.D. have been defacto standards. However, the historical and archaeological communities have generally switched to B.C.E. and C.E. to make the standards less suggestive of the religious basis for B.C. and A.D.
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gravid
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posted on January 16, 2001 03:20:33 PM new
Also because the dating is probably off a little bit - Jesus was probably born about Oct of 2 B.C.E.
Nobody is about to change the calendar again.
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Zazzie
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posted on January 16, 2001 03:25:11 PM new
Me---I'm waiting for Star Dating--like they have in Star Trek !!!
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kitsch1
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posted on January 16, 2001 04:03:11 PM new
Interesting and informative! Thanks!
I think it should be before tools and after tools, or before recorded history and after recorded history.
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Zazzie
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posted on January 16, 2001 04:15:54 PM new
Maybe with the dawn of the computer age--and the access to computer by the 'common' folk we should start a new counting of the years
B.P.C. A.P.C
Before Personal Computers
After Personal Computers
anyone else wanna try a new
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