Okay - how about BC and AD?
<< Okay - how about BC and AD? >>
I can't figure out how this has anything to do with the discussion -- and I am sure you could google the answer -- but I'll go ahead and answer it:
Throughout history different cultures have had different calendars, based on various time-lines. The Hebrews, in the Old Testament, for example, would date things from the timing of reigns of kings.
The Romans dated their calendar from the founding of the city of Rome [in our calendar -- 753 b.c.]. To the Romans, the death of Julius Caesar was not in 44 b.c. -- which would be meaningless to them -- but in 709 A.U.C. [anno urbis conditae].
Early Christians used both the Roman calendar and other local methods of counting years, and it was common to use more than one system in the same document. The BC/AD system was developed in Rome, in 525, by a monk named Dionysius Exiguus. He came up with the method while working on his calculations for the dating of Easter.
He calculated the time of the birth of Christ, and based on his belief that the arrival of Christ was the focal point of history, he counted backward from that time and forward from that time. He did NOT include a "Year Zero," as the zero had not yet reached Christian civilization. One b.c. was followed by One a.d.
Exiguus's system gradually replaced the others -- in Christian Europe, that is. It took several hundred years, but with the support of Charlemagne, the new system became dominant by the 800s. Other cultures continued using their own methods. Not long after Exiguus -- the Arabs began a calendar that revolved around the date of Mohammed's flight from Mecca to Yathrib -- 622 in our calendar.
Anno Domini -- a.d. -- was widespread by the ninth century -- but "Before Christ" -- b.c. -- took a lot longer, till about the 15th century. As Christian civilization was pretty much identified with western European civilization -- as western European civilization began to dominate the globe, so did its calendar. It only makes sense in a world of modern communications, travel, and trade to agree on the same calendar world-wide. But of course, other calendars are still in use all over the world.
It is pretty much agreed upon by all scholars today, including conservative Christian ones, that Exiguus's calculations were off by a few years. The birth of Christ had to have occurred between 8 b.c. and 4 b.c.
That's the short answer -- and I still can't figure out what it has to do with anything related to the topic of this thread. But then -- I can't figure out the relevancy, or logic, in most of your posts, anyway.