I second Roy on that one. I actually like the proposal that we just add 10,000 years to our calendar to move everything in recorded history into positive years, and then use years before the start of that era for deep time.
I am not saying recalculate every historical event. Just when reporting NEW scientific discoveries use the units of YBP (Years Before Present) as the units.
Ah, but how often have you seen YAP used? YAP 69 has a nice ring to itā¦
it doesnāt matter. We do and they should follow us. not us them in thier measurements of time.
Anyways its about the peoples rights and heritage.
BC /AD is used because of the centrality of christ coming to earth. Christendom uses this method. Then we have used it ever since. It belongs us. It belongs to the people.
These arrogant usurpers in acedemia or anywhere have NO MORAL, LRGAL, POLITICAL, right or once of need to change our dates.
I accuse they only change it to overthrow Christs centrality. Yet donāt have the ability to actually change the BC/AD line. So they change only words. a obvious rejection of Christ.
If this is to be done it must be done with the peoples consent. Not sneak it in.
It has not come from the other side of the planet. Its the usual suspects right here.
Take 'em to court. (well not these courts!)
Why is this guy still here?
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So all discoveries will be in the year 0 YBP? Sounds like it will be an amazing year.
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I am only talking about archaeology and geology research papers. It gets confusing when you read that Gobekli Tepe was 9000 years BCE rather than 11,000 YBP.
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It becomes very confusing because YBP really means years before 1950. Will that really be YBP one hundred years from now? YBP is broken.
Others have propose B2K, years before 2000, which would at least not require ongoing revision.
http://www.iceandclimate.nbi.ku.dk/research/strat_dating/annual_layer_count/gicc05_time_scale/
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Well that isnāt true. There are clear examples from at least 2nd Temple of them being read literally. The myths of Tubal-cain are really interesting.
I was talking about in the Bible, not in the extra-biblical literature. The fact that theyāre read literally in texts such as Jubilees and other apocrypha just reinforces how differently theyāre treated in the Bible. Theyāre never cited anywhere in the Bible, even when people like Noah are actually mentioned. The Bible never uses them to create a chronology, and certainly never cites them as evidence for the age of the earth.
So, in what year was Julius Caesar assassinated? If you use YBP, the date will change with the passing of each year. It is far easier to remember what I learned in history class: 44 BCE.
And in a nation (i.e., the USA) which never even managed to change to the Metric System, I doubt that we will be changing from the BCE/CE timeline for anything but the most ancient ābefore recorded history.ā
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I learnt 44 BC. I suspect you did too.
No, Roy. You suspected wrong. Even when I was in college long ago, BCE was the standard in most every current history textbook (unless one attended a private Christian educational institution which used textbooks specially written for that market, or very very old textbooks.)
Obviously, 44 BC and 44 BCE are synonymous. āBCā (Before Christ) is an implied claim that Jesus is the Christ, that is, the prophesied Messiah. āBCEā (Before the Common Era) uses the very same timeline based on the traditional dating of the birth of Jesus but without the Messianic declaration. Non-Christians canāt be expected to make claims that Jesus is their Messiah or Lord.
If someone wants to argue whether or not Jesus is the Messiah, that is a separate issue. Meanwhile, BCE and CE have been the academic standard for a very long time.
I suppose it is comforting to some of my Christian brethren that BC and AD (Anno Domini, āYear of our Lordā) comes from a time many years ago when even non-Christians were forced by convention to make a kind of āfalse faith statementā every time they referred to a date in history. Yes, the Bible says that in the future every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord (i.e. Dominus) but that prophecy has not yet been fulfilledāand certainly not in most university-level history books. Meanwhile, I see no reason to expect nor see any advantage to be gained from non-Christians making claims about Jesusā Lordship and Messiah-ship which they do not personally believe.
As a Christ-follower, I care about the Great Commission but not about old traditions which only provide lip service for a faith confession which few more than casually thought about when using the old conventions. Another example of that kind of largely empty tradition is the In God We Trust on American currency which dates from a U.S. Congressional resolution from 1956. [The motto was found on U.S. coins long before that but the 1956 law made it mandatory on all U.S. currency.] The phrase sounds nice and pious but does the government and the people of the USA actually trust in God? No. (Some people do. Some people do not.) Indeed, as I understand it, even U.S. courts have ruled that In God We Trust on the currency doesnāt violate the Establishment Clause of the Constitution because it is largely nothing more than a tradition and a general nod to cultural history rather than any sort of meaningful propositional statement about God and religious faith. As for me, Iām not a big fan of empty traditions which people follow with very little thought or heartfelt sincerity.
I donāt believe Jesus (whom I consider the Son of God) is greatly honored by people thoughtlessly referring to him being Lord and Messiah when they donāt actually consider him their personal Lord and Messiah (āAnointed Oneā) . I suspect that you donāt either. Of course, I may be wrong in suspecting that.
@Patrick often posts on Peaceful Science about Constitutional law issues. Iād be curious as to his opinions about what Iāve described here. Of course, Iām also interested in what everybody else has to say on this topic.
{I would have moved this topic to its own thread but I can no longer find the āmove to new threadā option. Perhaps it was reconfigured in the latest version of the Discourse Software and Iāve overlooked its new location, @Michael_Callen?}
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These would be great to discuss with Andrew Seidel, should he make an appearance here at PS.
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I have to respectfully disagree. I suggest you have a look at the following article [bolding is mine - VJT] by New Atheist Dr. Richard Carrier, who, despite his eccentric views on Jesusā historicity, is a classical historian: B.C.A.D.C.E.B.C.E. (January 26, 2012):
You may know there are two conventions for representing historical years: the traditional A.D. and B.C., and the chic new C.E. and B.C.E. (if you donāt know about that, Wikipedia will get you up to speed). People often ask me why I use one or the other, or what (as a historian) I think we should use. I always use B.C. and A.D. when I have a choice, and I believe we should only ever use that convention. The other should be stuffed in a barrel filled with concrete and tossed to the bottom of the seaā¦
But why do I think C.E. and B.C.E. are dumb? Really dumb, in fact. The newfangled convention has been promoted in an idiotic and patronizing attempt not to āoffendā non-Christians who have to use the Christian calender (yes, itās a Christian calendar, full stop). Thatās the same non-Christians who (weāre to suppose) are still being regularly offended by having to call a day Saturday even though they donāt worship the God Saturn. Christians donāt get offended by naming a calendar day by a non-existent pagan god. So why should non-Christians get offended by naming a calendar year after a non-existent Christian god? Calling the sixth day of the week āSaturdayā (literally āSaturnās Dayā) does not entail embracing a Eurocentric worldview or belief in the God Saturn. Itās just using the English language. So, too, the labels B.C. and A.D.
The new convention is even stupider than that, of course, because itās embarrassingly Orwellian. The traditional convention of B.C. (āBefore Christā) and A.D. (āAnno Dominiā = āIn the Year of the Lordā) is supposed to be improved by replacing it with the culturally neutral B.C.E. (āBefore the Common Eraā) and C.E. (āCommon Eraā). But both indicate the same exact division, made by the same exact religion, for the same exact reason, to honor the same exact god. Either way, itās the same demarcation, which was the invention of Christians, and only makes sense as such. There is no other reason for starting āyear 1ā where it does, other than what Christians mistakenly believed to be the birth of their Lord and its cosmic importanceā¦
Anyway, point is, the only reason whatever for starting the calendar at year 1 in the B.C.E. / C.E. system is the wholly erroneous medieval belief that the god Jesus was born in that year. Changing the acronyms does nothing to conceal that fact and therefore serves no purpose, other than to please a pernicious form of liberalism that believes you can change what things are by renaming them. And like all stupid attempts to conceal what things really mean by renaming them, the B.C.E. / C.E. notation is less intelligible (era common to whom?), less explicable (why does the ācommon eraā begin in the year it does, instead of some other year?), less practical (repeating the same two letters in each designator slows visual recognition), and less efficient (using five letters to do the work of four). Itās therefore just monumentally stupid.
I donāt often agree with Carrier, but for once, I think heās right.
As for BCE and CE being the academic standard, hereās what Wikipedia says:
Some academics in the fields of theology, education and history have adopted CE and BCE notation, although there is some disagreement.[51]
More visible uses of Common Era notation have recently surfaced at major museums in the English-speaking world. Furthermore, several style guides now prefer or mandate its usage.[52] Even some style guides for Christian churches prefer its use: for example, the Episcopal Diocese Maryland Church News .[53]
In the United States, the usage of the BCE/CE notation in textbooks is growing.[47] Some publications have moved over to using it exclusively. For example, the 2007 World Almanac was the first edition to switch over to the BCE/CE usage, ending a 138-year usage of the traditional BC/AD dating notation. It is used by the College Board in its history tests,[54] and by the Norton Anthology of English Literature. Others have taken a different approach. The US-based History Channel uses BCE/CE notation in articles on non-Christian religious topics such as Jerusalem and Judaism.[55]
Australia (my country of birth) has also courageously resisted the push for change:
Also in 2011, media reports suggested that the BC/AD notation in Australian school textbooks would be replaced by BCE/CE notation.[60] The story became national news and drew opposition from some politicians and church leaders. Weeks after the story broke, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority denied the rumour and stated that the BC/AD notation would remain, with CE and BCE as an optional suggested learning activity.
Finally, if the thought of imposing a Christian way of speaking on people offends you, then hereās my suggestion: keep the letters but get rid of the dots in BC and AD, so that they donāt have to stand for anything. My two cents.
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Absolutely. The fact remains that BC and AD do reflect the historical reality that the Western calendar bases its origin on the birth of Christ, just as the names of the days of the week are named after deities from the ancient Roman pantheon. Renaming the era in our calendar to BCE and CE is not just political correctness; it is historical revisionism ā an attempt to deny the factual reality of the role played by Christianity in the creation of the calendar that we use today.
There are other widely used calendars with different origins ā for example, the Jewish calendar, the Islamic calendar, the Japanese calendar, or even good old Unix time. If anyone has a problem with a calendar that places its origin at the birth of Christ, they should go all the way and campaign for one of the alternatives instead.
You have found something where I agree with Richard Carrier.
Iām all for changing to the metric system. But a change from BC/AD to BCE/CE is still the same measuring system. So it is just a pointless change of names.
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