On the Shelf – 7/30

Don’t Miss Our Monthly Evening Hours

Yep, it’s almost that time again. “What time?”, you ask. Why, the time when the Downieville Library is open in the evening, so that those among us who have difficulty getting there during the regular daytime hours (Tuesdays, 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, and Thursdays, noon to 4:00 PM) have the opportunity for all the same services, but during evening hours. “And, what time is that?”, you ask. Well, it happens on the second Monday of each month, 6:00 to 8:00 PM. And, the next second Monday is coming up soon: August 10. And, to anticipate your third “What time?” question, the answer is: a great time!

BC & AD = BCE & CE

Discerning readers of this column may have noticed over the years that, when referencing dates by years, I use the designations of BCE and CE, rather than BC & AD. It recently occurred to me that not all of us might be familiar with what any of those designations mean, nor how we came about using them. So, here’s an explanation of the whole business.

First of all, here’s what the initials represent: BC = Before Christ; AD = Anno Domini (“in the year of the Lord”); BCE = Before the Common Era; and, CE = Common Era.

As you can probably tell, this dating system was created with respect to the presumed birthdate of Jesus, the Christ. It was a monk named Dionysius Exiguus who first came up with the idea of dividing the timeline based on the birth of the Christ. He came up with the AD system in 525 AD. At the time, the years were named after the Roman emperor Diocletian, who had persecuted countless Christians during his reign. The monk wished, by eliminating this dating system, to also eliminate the memory of the emperor. So, in the old Diocletian year of 247, Dionysius declared that the new year was 525 years “since the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ”, and the new dating system was born. However, nowhere did he explain or justify his conclusion about the birthdate of the Christ. Also, he did not go further back in time to create the BC system. It wasn’t until 731 AD that the Anglo-Saxon historian Bede introduced the concept of dating years before the birth of the Christ. Of course, he didn’t use the English notation of BC; rather, he referenced, in Latin, “…in the sixtieth year before the Lord’s incarnation…”. So, while Anno Domini (AD) was in widespread use by the 9th century, the term “Before Christ” (BC) did not become common until much later — possibly the 15th or 16th century.

The newer dating labels of BCE and CE were first used during the 17th century. They were created for the sake of including all religions in the dating system, rather than just Christianity. (Of course, several religions and cultures have entirely different dating systems than the one being considered here. But, that is a topic for future columns.) Jewish academics were the first ones to adopt the BCE/CE system. They argued that the BC/AD system was controversial, because its origin was rooted in Christianity, and therefore it might be offensive to people who are not Christians. An additional reason for adopting the newer system was because of a perceived error in the birthdate of Jesus, with varying opinions that he was born two years before 1 AD up to 5 years after that date. In either case, the BC/AD system would be inaccurate. Therefore, the BCE/CE system was deemed more suitable, because it did not refer to any particular event, but still used 1 AD (1 CE) as its starting point. On a personal note: I use the BCE/CE dating system in referencing years because I know that not all readers of this column are Christians, and I intend, as much a possible, to be inclusive of each reader’s identity and beliefs.

An additional note: in neither the BC/AD or BCE/CE system is there a year Zero, i.e., there is no year zero in the calendar — thus, no 0 BC, 0 BCE, 0 AD, or 0 CE. The calendar, moving in both directions from the starting point begins with the year One — thus 1 BC and 1 BCE, as well as 1 AD and 1 CE. What this means, in practical terms, is that each century begins with the year One, e.g., 2001 — and, thus, each century ends with the year One Hundred, e.g., 2100. (To posit that a century ends in the year Ninety-nine, e.g., 1999, and the new century begins in the year One Hundred, e.g., 2000, means that you have to short some century by one year. That is not a nice or kind thing to do to any century.)

A further note: the term “common”, as used in the BCE/CE dating system, comes from the first usage of the term for dating during the “Vulgar era” in the 17th century. However, the definition of “vulgar” does not correspond to the modern-day meaning of “crude” or “indecent”. Instead, it is derived from the Latin word “vulgaris”, meaning ordinary or common. The era was named keeping the common people in mind.