{"id":4834,"date":"2023-08-04T20:25:10","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T20:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/historyed.site\/?page_id=4834"},"modified":"2024-05-31T02:25:47","modified_gmt":"2024-05-31T02:25:47","slug":"bc-ad-versus-bce-ace","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/historyed.site\/index.php\/courses\/big\/civilization\/fundamentals\/bc-ad-versus-bce-ace\/","title":{"rendered":"BC\/AD Versus BCE\/ACE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once upon a time, there was a monk named Dionysius Exiguus. He decided to calculate the exact year that Jesus Christ was born. He calculated that it was 525 years before his year at the time.<\/p>\n

That year of Jesus Christ\u2019s birth became the focal point for numbering the years. Every after that point was called \u201cThe year of our Lord\u201d (\u201canno domini\u201d in Latin). Every year before that was called \u201cBefore Christ\u201d. Historians used the abbreviations \u201cAD\u201d and \u201cBC\u201d. Everything was fine and this numbering system<\/a> of identifying the years in history was widely used.<\/p>\n

But there was a problem. Modern scholars checked blank\u2019s math and found out that blank had been four years off. According to blank\u2019s numbering system Jesus Christ was born in the year 4 BC. By this time blanks numbering system had been so widely used that it was just too disruptive to revise the year numbers. So, blanks numbering system remained and it remains in effect today<\/p>\n

Then came another problem. A couple of generations ago historians decided that the numbering system was too Christian. After all it was based on the life of Jesus Christ. So, they decided to remove the terms \u201cAnno Domini \u201c and \u201cBefore Christ\u201d and replace them with \u201cAfter Common Era\u201d (ACE) and \u201cBefore Common Era\u201d. So, what was the common era<\/a>? Well, it turns out that this is just a fictional construct in order to get around the Christianity of the year numbers.<\/p>\n

My view is that history is hard enough to remember without having to learn fictional concepts, too. Whatever the problems with having a numbering system based on Jesus Christ\u2019s birth, at least you have a numbering system which attempts to be based on something historical. That\u2019s why we\u2019re sticking to the traditional system of numbering the years.<\/p>\n

\n

Prehistory<\/a><\/span><\/strong>
\nReal vs Legendary Persons<\/a><\/span><\/strong>
\nGreat Ages of History<\/a><\/span><\/strong>
\nWhat Are Civilizations?<\/a><\/span><\/strong>
\nMilitary Terms<\/a><\/span><\/strong>
\nBig Themes of History<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Our History Websites<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Space Age<\/a><\/td>\nEntertainment and Sports<\/a><\/td>\nLands Down Under<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Pre-History<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Back to the Fundamentals Homepage<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Left<\/a>back to Big Civilization<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once upon a time, there was a monk named Dionysius Exiguus. He decided to calculate the exact year that Jesus Christ was born. He calculated that it was 525 years before his year at the time. That year of Jesus Christ\u2019s birth became the focal point for numbering the years. Every after that point was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":4831,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4834","page","type-page","status-publish","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/historyed.site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/historyed.site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/historyed.site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historyed.site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historyed.site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4834"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/historyed.site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5389,"href":"https:\/\/historyed.site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4834\/revisions\/5389"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historyed.site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/historyed.site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}