Peter Kirby

Since the "Early Writings" family of sites is not a sectarian publication in the least, it would favor the use of what is most appropriate for publication generally. (The "Early Latin" site is not written "by Romans for Romans"; neither are the "Early Christian" or "Early Jewish" sites.)

Jewish: Taking the top result for the search "Jewish newspaper", the top result is "Forward", where the predominant use is BCE/CE when noted.

Muslim: Taking the top result for the search "Muslim newspaper" leads to a closed-database site. Taking the top result for the search "Arab newspaper" leads to "Arab News", where the only use is BC/AD when noted. (Yes, I know that Muslim != Arab.)

Hindu: Taking the top result for the search "Indian newspaper" or "Hindu newspaper" leads to "The Hindu", where the predominant use is BC/AD when noted.

My conclusion is that BC/AD is inappropriate for a Jewish publication, but appropriate in publication generally, including Muslim and Hindu publications. (As well as most news sources in the UK, including the BBC.)

regards,
Peter Kirby

hatsoff

Just fine I would imagine.

MJ67

The howevers are interesting. Gender matters intellectually does it? You have attached a stigma to "BCE" simply because it may be one more word or even one more keystroke.

The correct answer without the need for even asking is to accommodate everyone--BCE and ACE...gender, age, affiliation, demographic and continent has no bearing on the appeal to all.

Toto

Jesus is a prophet in Islam, so Muslims would have less of an objection. I suspect that many Muslims and Hindus are the products of British Colonial education systems, and would find BC and AD familiar.

There is a discussion of the issue here in the context of high school history and geography. An interesting point: ETA: There is a Wikipedia discussion here on the issue.

Peter Kirby

Don't put your slimy assumptions into my mouth.

ACE is a hardware store.

regards,
Peter Kirby

mountainman

Peter Kirby,

If I were in your position I would be investigating the feasibility of
creating a specially designed database to house all the information
related to all your projects, the dates, the authors, the names of
the texts, their textual transmission history, their translations, down
to the actual texts themselves, introductions, related articles, etc.

Many of your reference web pages are then simply generated or
regenerated from the database (as the database grows). The benefit
of this approach is that you establish an automatically refreshed set
of web pages on some automatic periodic schedule, and just keep
pumping data into it, refining elements here and there.

Otherwise, you are separately maintaining large numbers of web pages
and their indices, and may also be working on a simple database.

The database principle says do things just the once, and its
emloyment will save much work in the long run, although there
may be a few problems that require resolution before you get there.

Finally, these CE/AD/JUL/etc conventions are simply algorithms which
you code once and once only in the output script. While the data is
held in your database in one format, it may be presented in multiple
formats on demand, on all or any pages, or for specific users, etc.

For example I recently created a page listing a set of the "Authors of
Antiquity" out of a database which had a simple coding system
attached to the authors, as to whether they were pagan philosophers,
christian bishops, roman emperors, historians, etc. The output script
can use this for color-coding as is demonstrated here.

Because these outputs can be automated, it seems to me, that if
you intend to be in the business of "Early Christian Writings" for some
years, if not decades, then by using such database technology, you
will maximise your efficiency, and in the end gain time back for yourself.

Just my 2c worth.


Pete Brown

Peter Kirby

Pete Brown:

That is the idea.

Early Christian Writings and Early Jewish Writings are already in a database. (Those HTML file extensions are misleading, put up for backwards compatibility with all the inbound links.) I may do more with the "views" of the database than I am doing now; but the data is there.

Early Latin Writings is being built from the ground up with an extension of the Drupal CMS, with custom node types, filters, etc. to suit the subject. When Early Latin Writings is done, I will migrate the old data in ECW and EJW into a similar system.

regards,
Peter Kirby

Peter Kirby

I recently crossed the following AdWords ad (under search "Adam"):

Biblical Adam, First Man
Adam, first man per Bible records,
archaeology dates him to 14,000 BP

I didn't know how to parse "BP". Was it another way of writing "BC"? The thought of "British Pounds" also entered my head. In fact, it was supposed to be an acronym for "Before the Present."

This gives me a taste of the confusion that people must feel when they encounter "CE" and "BCE". It's not immediately obvious what they mean to everyday people.

regards,
Peter Kirby

Phoenix From Ashes

BCE/CE is just plain meaningless. Common era of what, of whom? If one makes it "Christian Era" and "Before Christian Era", then one hasn't really changed anything much.

Secondly, why change a convention (ie. BC/AD) that has meaning (regardless of a faulty base) and has been in use for approximately 1450 years and yet still base a new convention on the same point in time? Of course, it is argued that it should be changed because some find it offensive, but that seems like a silly argument, as someone will be offended no matter what it is changed to.

Aside from that, I've got a couple of questions for those in the know:

AD stands for Anno Domini, as most likely know, but one sees a variety of translations of this phrase. My meager Latin knowledge says it should be "Year of the Lord", Domini being a genitive. However, one often sees "Year of our Lord". This is incorrect, is it not? Would this not be translated "Anno Domini Nostri"? Anyone know how this confusion arose?

I've always wondered why BC (ie. Before Christ) was not applied for another approximately 200(?) years or so, by the English Bede(?), I believe. This is the reason we have an English BC and a Latin AD. I guess my question, here, is what would Dionysius Exiguus have used to represent dates before the system he created? The Roman Emperors? It seems natural to us today to think "backwards" into the BC era, but perhaps this wasn't really something Exiguus and others of his time were really concerned with?

Peter Kirby

All dates, pretty much, were dated counting forward from some other event in the past, such as the ascension of a ruler (or the creation of the world). The decision to count forward and backwards from a single point in history was a breakthrough in "dating technology," as it were. It's a shame that the concept of zero, which was just gaining currency, didn't also make it through to Bede when designing the BC system.

regards,
Peter Kirby