AD and BC

It is commonly thought that BC stands for "before Christ" and AD stands for "after death." This is only half correct. How could 1 B.C. have been "before Christ" and 1 A.D. been "after death"? BC does stand for "before Christ." AD actually stands for the Latin phrase "anno domini" which means "in the year of our Lord." The B.C. / A.D. dating system is not taught in the Bible. It actually was not fully implemented and accepted until several centuries after Jesus' death.

It is interesting to note that the purpose of the BC / AD dating system was to make the birth of Jesus Christ the dividing point of world history. However, when the B.C. / A.D. system was being calculated, they actually made a mistake in pinpointing the year of Jesus' birth. Scholars later discovered that Jesus was actually born in around 4 BC, not 0 AD. That is not the crucial issue. The birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ are the "turning points" in world history. It is fitting, therefore, that Jesus Christ be the separation of "old" and "new." BC was "before Christ" and since His birth, we have been living "in the year of our Lord."

Here is more input:

• Any reference to the "Year 0" is also a misnomer. The first year before an occasion (such as the birth of a historical Jesus) would be the year 1 BC. The event would occupy no time (or maybe just one day, depending on your definitions) and the first year after that event would be the year 1 AD. Since the terms were unknown at the occasion itself, there was no problem. ( An archeologist once tried to claim he found a Roman coin dated 3 BC. Think about it.) The confusion over the actual date of the millenium was based on this. Since the first year of the first millenium was the year "0001", the first year of the third millenium was therefore the year "2001". The thousands digit is always one less than the number of the "millenium"; this is the same confusion about the hundreds digit being one less than the "century". 1901 was the first year of the twentieth century, 2001 the first year of the twenty-first century. TMI? Hope you find what you need.

• Many recent writers, particularly in the scientific community, have recognized the uncertainty of "B.C." and "A.D." (some evidence suggests that Jesus may have been born around 2, 4 or 6 BC, for example!), and have adopted the notations B.C.E.--Before Common Era, and C.E.--Common Era--to reflect this.

• Anno domini was invented 525 years after the alleged birth of Jesus; The Anno Domini system was developed by a monk named Dionysius Exiguus (born in Scythia Minor) in Rome in 525, as an outcome of his work on calculating the date of Easter.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_domini..