As we say goodbye this week to 2023 (“Good riddance,” you might say), and 2024 comes in, have you ever thought much about what our calendar year is based upon?
Most people have heard the terms “BC” and AD as designations that divide dates and events in the ancient world (“BC”) from those that came afterward (“AD”). For instance, one might learn from history that Alexander the Great was born in 356 BC, or that the Romans sacked Jerusalem in AD 70. But have you ever pondered what great historic event might have begun the move toward using a designated division of historic time, between BC and AD? Of course, that event was the birth of Jesus Christ, as the entire world, even today – including the non-Christian world - uses this dividing timeline system, originally based upon His birth. This division of history into historic events per a “zero” year (“AD”) that began immediately upon Jesus’ birth was originally developed by a 6th century Roman monk named Dionysius Exiguus, and eventually widely adopted by Christian churches.
The term “BC,” adopted much later, stands for “Before Christ” (before Jesus’ birth) and “AD” stands for Anno Domini – from its longer and original Latin phrase, “Anno Domini nostri Jesu Christi" - which translates to "in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ." And so, “AD” would reference time and events that occurred after Jesus’ birth. Of course, as chosen by Dionysius, the year widely adopted as AD’s “Zero Year” was a guess utilizing his own method of calculating Christ’s birth and surely is inaccurate. In fact, scholars today still debate the precise year of his birth – with opinions ranging somewhere between 3 and 6 BC.
Here’s a short video explaining the development of the BC / AD system, and it’s secular spinoff, BCE / CE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppJIF39QXoU
And for a REAL mind-blowing analysis of what exact year Jesus was born, see what scholar Dr. Michael Heiser observes about the possibilities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWbi9FZ2Mf4
Of course, you’ve perhaps stumbled across the historic time divisions using the terms “BCE” and “CE” – particularly in the academic world, as many secular and unbelievers began to have a distaste for using the widely accepted, historic time dividers based upon Jesus’ birth. So, they re-cast “BC” as “BCE” (Before Christian Era), and “AD” as “CE” (Common Era). And yet, as the use and system of “BC” and “AD” were already in common use around the world, these, far-newer designations, nonetheless divide time at the point of Jesus’ originally calculated birth, per the “BC” and “AD” system.