Ben C Smith

I have never understood how a change of name would ease Jewish-Christian tensions, since I imagine nobody interested in the issue supposes that the origins of the CE/BCE system are anything other than the good old AD/BC system.

I would hypothetically be in favor of changing the entire system as it stands so as to rid it of any particular religious base, if that could even be accomplished (and I doubt it could; the eminently reasonable metric system never really caught on in the US, either).

But to keep the same reference point (the inaccurately calculated birth of Jesus) and simply give it a different label seems disingenuous to me.

Ben.

ynquirer

I’ve voted for BC/AD because it seems to me that it is more easily understood. I recently posted in a forum akin to the American Democratic Party and I wrote “CE,” which came to a surprise for several readers.

On the other hand, I must confess that I feel uncomfortable to write, for instance, “fourth century AD,” which I deem inconsistent. AD means “Anno Domini” (year of the Lord), and fourth century AD literally means fourth century year of the Lord, which is nonsense. Accordingly, I clearly like CE better when it comes to qualify centuries.

Still, AD seems more difficult to make use of. Most people write, for instance, 475 AD, which is incorrect. The correct form is AD 475, as meaning “Anno Domini 475” rather than “475 Anno Domini” - an inaccuracy in Latin. That renders the BC/AD usage hard to handle, since one must write AD 800 but 212 BC.

I dislike BCE - it’s too long. Perhaps BC/CE might do, yet it points at the name “Christ,” which is the crux of the problem.

There is no easy solution, it seems. Let’s the market decide.

Toto

"Vulgar Era" can be found in more than a few documents - just google it.

Example here

Roger Pearse

Well, I think my knowledge of English literature is pretty extensive, and I have never come across it. It might be used incidentally, but not as a system.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Sounds right. Whereabouts? (If you don't mind my asking)

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Peter Kirby

The thought occurred to me to state all dates in the form "BK", before Kirby, counting the number of years before year 0, or 1981. In which case, we are in the year AK 25. Caesar was murdered in 2024 BK.

In all seriousness, at least three methods of reckoning years were in use during the days of the Roman Empire:

consular years, which just names the two guys who were consuls that year.

regnal years, which names the number of the year relative to the ascension of the most recent emperor.

founding years, or AUC, years from the founding of the city of Rome.

I think something would be amiss if on a site about "Early Latin Writings" we did not attempt at least to give a flavor of the systems then in use, by offering information on the years regnal, consular, and since the founding in addition to the more familiar Julian or Gregorian years.

And another thing. The Julian and Gregorian calendars are not the same. For example, on the Gregorian calendar (in day to day use around the globe right now), Caesar was murdered on 13 March, not 15 March. So, should one use the Julian calendar or the Gregorian calendar for talking about specific dates before Pope Gregory instituted the reform?

Other systems for naming a day include the Macedonian calendar (used widely for commercial purposes), the Jewish calendar (used internally by Jews), and of course the week system (naming a day Monday-Sunday). [I won't talk about importing calendars that aren't useful to our subject, such as the Mayan, Egyptian, or Chinese.]

Other systems for naming a year include the Olympiad and the Anno Mundi (year since the creation as calculated by Jewish scholars).

When discussing antiquity, it may be useful to have a quick way for knowing whether someone is using a Julian or Gregorian calendar. One thought is to use BC/AD for the Julian calendar (since nobody using the Julian calendar on a day to day basis ever did anything else) and to use BCE/CE for the Gregorian calendar (to give it a distinguishing siglum, and one that will be understood at least by scholars).

My thoughts from a technical point of view:

The author (me or Chris Weimer) writes a date such as "15 March 44 BC" or "13 March 44 BCE". Around it, the tags "<era>" and "</era>" are wrapped.

I write a filter that takes this text, on the server side, and produces something like:

<noscript>15 March 44 BC</noscript>
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
displaydate("15 March 44 BC");
// -->
</script>

If there is no cookie set, the default behavior is to display the same thing as what's in the noscript tags, which is going to be 15 March 44 BC in this case, but which could have been 13 March 44 BCE if Chris or I found that a more useful way to write it.

The default behavior is also to show different ways of displaying this date in other calendars when the user mouses over the date. If the user selects one of these ways of displaying the dates, they get a cookie, and the dates on the current page and other pages are transformed into the new dating system.

The date list in this case would be:

15 March 44 BC (Julian)
13 March 44 BCE (Gregorian)
15 March 710 AUC (Ab Urbe Condita)
24 Adar 3717 (Jewish)
[Insert Macedonian Date Here] 1-184th (Olympiad)
1705426 (Astronomical 'Julian Date')

Does anyone know a resource for converting to and from the Syro-Macedonian calendar made popular by Alexander the Great?

regards,
Peter Kirby

hatsoff

I really don't think it matters very much. Personally, I prefer AD/BC. I think anno domini is a bit more poetic than "common era," and "BC" is slightly more efficient than "BCE"--though for undergraduate students such as myself I suppose every bit of padding helps at times! I'm not sure CE/BCE is more common in academia, either. Its usage is growing, to be sure, but that's not quite the same as having dominance. Simply, I think, as noted in the wikipedia article on this subject, it's just an unnecessary attempt at being politically correct. Nevertheless, the damage has been done. The two forms shall doubtless be in frequent usage after my lifetime.

Peter, I'm rooting for AD/BC, but whichever form you choose you can bet a lot of folks are going to be as pissed as if you'd written "FU" at the top of every page of your site.

Oh, well.

EDIT: Hey, I think you may have something there with scripting. You could make it so Explorer or AOL get AD/BC, while Firefox, Netscape and Safari get BC/BCE.

Peter Kirby

But the numbers are all the same in any case. No inaccuracy has been corrected by BCE/CE notation. None. Ever.

So far, the scorecard for clarity is...

AD/BC wins! Everyone, who understands it at all, understands this.

The scorecard for neutrality is...

Nobody agrees! Hardcore Christians think AD/BC is more accurate or neutral, whlie hardcore secularists think CE/BCE is more accurate or neutral, while less extreme members of each camp think they are equally inaccurate or unneutral.

(Yes, there is a similar poll on TheologyWeb with 75-25 numbers in favor of AD/BC. There is a serious sampling problem with using either TWeb or IIDB as a polling place.)

More important, I want to optimize for clarity, which is easier to recognize.

AD/BC wins as the top dog in clarity for a default display. Julian dates, and years without specific dates, should be displayed with this notation.

This change will go into effect on Early Christian Writings and Early Jewish Writings after being implemented for Early Latin Writings.

The main issue now is winning Chris over--he's been using a combination of BC and CE (for their respective eras).

Those who prefer can have the Gregorian years and dates displayed with the BCE/CE notation. (If I'm smart enough to program this. <grin>)

regards,
Peter Kirby

spin

How appropriate is BC/AD for Jewish, Muslim or Hindu readers?


spin

J-D

I know in general about the difference between the two, but how are you calculating that particular result for Caesar's murder? It doesn't sound right to me.

When dealing with British history between 1582 and 1752, dates are sometimes seen shown in alternative forms, referred to as 'OS' (for 'Old Style', the Julian calendar) and 'NS' (for 'New Style', the Gregorian calendar).Or rather, in the interests of neutrality, Sunday-Saturday.Or Aetos Kosmou, as calculated by the Byzantines.