IN this high-tech age, if one were to bring up the topic of “dating system” it would conjure up thoughts of how it changed from the traditional pamamanhikan into the modern use of social-media apps, such as Facebook or Tinder. Quite literally, though, the dating system this writer is referring to is the way we write our calendars.
Dr. Robert R. Cargill, an American archaeologist and biblical scholar from the Center of Digital Humanities in University of California (UCLA), is a staunch proponent of changing the use of the Christian BC/AD calendric system into the contemporary internationally accepted scientific standard of Before Common Era/Common Era (BCE/CE).
He argued that the continued use of the labels Anno Domini (date of birth of Jesus) and Before Christ (BC) to designate calendric years portray human history as directly relative to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.
However, in this age of science and religious plurality, the battle over the standard dating system has intensified and many contemporary historians suggested that Christians should leave behind the BC/AD labels and adopt instead the BCE/CE dating system for all calendric references.
According to a 2010 religious demographic study by the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan and no-advocacy think tank, the world is composed of 2.2 billion Christians, 1.6 billion Muslims, 1 billion Hindus, nearly 500 million Buddhists and 14 million Jews.
More than 400 million other people practice various folk or traditional religion, while an estimated 58 million people belong to other non-traditional sects.
In addition, 1.1 billion people indicated no religious affiliation.
If you look at the picture, non-Christians outnumber Christians, which means adopting the BCE/CE system is just fair for everybody.
Cargill said many Christians perceive the BCE/CE system to be an affront to Christianity. He added they see the system as an attempt to eliminate “Christ” from the calendar, just like the expression “X-mas” for removing “Christ” from Christmas. Some simply appeal to arguments of tradition and familiarity with the system.
“There are, however, several excellent reasons for Christians to leave behind the BC/AD dating system. In fact, the use of BC and AD causes more problems for Christians than it solves. For one, it perpetuates the stereotype that Christians are arrogant tyrants who insist on couching all of human history [including Jewish, Islamic, Indian, Chinese, etc.] as relative to the birth of Christ. Rather than living the lives of humble servants that their Bible calls them to do, many Christians maintain that all history should be subject to their own religious claims. Even the period of history that took place before Jesus supposedly came to earth is relegated to mere anticipatory events prior to the birth of Jesus,” Cargill said.
“However,” he said, “this insistence upon subjecting all of human history to one’s own religious interpretation opens Christians up to accusations of sectarian
fundamentalism.”
“Every time Christians insist upon the BC/AD dating system, they open the door to claims by adherents to other faiths that wish to impose their own relative dating system upon society. Jews will claim that the year 2009 is actually year 5770 [based on the supposed date of the creation of the earth in the Jewish tradition], while Muslims will insist that we are in year 1430 [AH = Anno Hajiri, or the year of the pilgrimage (hajj) of the Prophet Muhammad]. By adopting a BCE/CE system, we avoid any haggling over religious origins of calendric dates,” he added.
Cargill also wrote in his UCLA piece that the present calendar is based upon the Gregorian calendar of 1582 CE, a reform of the earlier Julian calendar of 45 BCE. The labels BC and AD were added in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus who used them to compute the date of Easter. However, Dionysius miscalculated, and this error has been retained in the BC/AD system.
“While the Gregorian calendar accurately represents years of 365.25 days, Dionysius’s calculations skipped the year zero, jumping immediately from the year 1 BC to the year 1 AD. The result is a calendar that claims to be based upon the birth of Jesus, but which skips the first year of his life,” he explained.
“But besides the absence of the first year CE from our present calendar, an even greater problem exists with the BC/AD system: Jesus was not born in year zero,” Cargill said.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great. According to multiple ancient sources, Herod died in 4 BCE. If the Gospel of Matthew is historically accurate, this would mean that Jesus of Nazareth was born on or before 4 BCE—meaning Jesus was born 4 BC.
“If we add to these four years the fact that Herod the Great did not die immediately after the birth of Jesus, but, according to Matthew, ordered the death of all children two years of age and younger in an attempt to kill Jesus, we can add an additional two years to the birth of Jesus, making His birth approximately 6 BCE. If we also add the missing year zero, it is most likely that, according to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was born around 7 BCE,” he said.
“Thus, the BC/AD system is fundamentally flawed in that it misrepresents the birth of Jesus by approximately seven years. This means that Jesus’ ministry did not begin around the year 30, but instead around the year 23. Likewise, Pentecost and the origin of the Christian Church should not be dated to ‘33 AD’, but to about 26 CE,” Cargill concluded.
In case of doubt, though, the United Nations and the Universal Postal Union are using the BCE/CE system as official calendar guide.
To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@gmail.com.