Is A.D. Here to Stay?

When were you born, full date?

You probably did not remember to use the abbreviation A.D. (Duh! Not necessary.) Yet, if you were writing the birth date of Alexander T. Great of Ancient Greece, you might want to use B.C.

So, just where did those abbreviations come from and what do they mean?

The easy part first...

(And a really cool conclusion at the end...where conclusions belong.)

You might remember their meanings from school days: 

     B.C. = Before Christ and 

     A.D. = [I almost put 'After Death' (of Christ)]

Tempting, but incorrect. If A.D. meant 'After Death' there would be no way to account for the years between the birth of Christ and his death. So, think Latin...

     A.D. = Anno Domini (meaning: in the year of the Lord.)

Obviously, folks in Ancient Rome could not use B.C. Christ had not yet been born, so they could not know how many years it was 'before Christ.' (Not only that, they were not really interested in Christ.) Yet, they had a calendar, in fact, several calendars. In fact, civilizations have been counting days and years as long as there have been days and years. In fact, there have been many calendars in many countries through the ages. In fact, that is one reason why it is so difficult to figure out the specific dates for ancient events and the dates when ancient people lived.

OK. OK. Enough of that.

So, when did the B.C. and A.D. get started?

It's complicated...REALLY complicated.

So, here's the short answer, oversimplified.

We know that A.D. means 'in the year of our Lord' and that it is a reference to Jesus Christ. However, the early Christians were not the ones to start counting years this way. It would not be until 525 A.D. that an Italian monk named Dionysius Exiguus invented a calendar system that began counting days based on the birth of Christ. Even then, his calendar was not widely accepted, not until the 11th century.

And if you didn't know, his calendar was off track from the beginning. Though the Bible tells us that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great, 'Dion the monk' started his calendar after Herod's death. OOPS! Nevertheless, it did finally catch on. (That's why most scholars agree that Jesus was actually born between 8 B.C. and 4 B.C.)

The calendar we use today is an adjusted version of the Dionysius calendar, adjusted to account for not using leap years for centuries. Our calendar replaced the Julian calendar, named for Julius Caesar, and is called the Gregorian calendar, named for Pope Gregory XIII who ordained the calendar in 1582 A.D.

In recent years some scholarly folks started using B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era) to replace B.C. and A.D. I've always thought it amusing that the 'Common Era' is still based on the birth of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, it is clearly distasteful for some folks to say or write anything that references Christ.

But wait...

Do you see why some people would find the use of B.C. and A.D. so offensive?

Read on...

Really Cool Conclusion:

In ancient times special events were often dated according to the sitting king. Since ancient Israel and Judah did not have a nifty Julian calendar hanging on the palace wall things were dated by the king's reign. Other nations did the same thing. Here are a couple of examples...

At the end of three years they captured it; in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was captured. (2 Kings 18:10)

Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them. (2 Kings 18:13)

Our current calendar year is A.D. 2018. Do you know why?
Our King lives.

You may have never thought about it, but A.D. 2018 is literally "in the 2,018th year of our Lord." I don't know how long this calendar will last, but my King is going to reign forever. Our calendar kind of reminds us of that...