Historical Dating Methods

We are all quite familiar with the BC/AD dating system. It uses Christ’s birth year as the zero point—all other years are based upon that one. Unfortunately, it was difficult in the sixth century AD for the originator of that system, Dionysius Exiguus, to determine the exact year when Christ was born. The things he had to go on were the brief clues in the Gospels that relate Jesus’ birth or later age to events in Roman history, and the official Roman records of those events, neither of which were very precise. As a result, his determination of the birth year of Christ was apparently off by about 4 years, but the error was not realized until centuries after the system had come into general use, leading to the strange circumstance that Christ was actually born in approximately 4 BC.

The second dating system, the use of BCE/CE, is actually more a renaming of the first than a completely different one. BCE indicates the same period as BC but stands for “Before the Common Era.” Proponents of this system have given a number of reasons why this new terminology is preferable to the original, usually having some connection with greater inclusiveness for non-Christian users. Those reasons may have some validity, but they seem to obscure the underlying motive, which is simply that many people are unwilling to acknowledge that Jesus is the Messiah or Christ, even in something as generic as an abbreviation that refers to Him as “Lord.”

1. BC stands for “Before Christ.” This system counts years backward from the traditionally accepted date of the birth of Jesus Christ, which is taken as 1 AD (Anno Domini). In this system, the year before 1 AD is 1 BC. There is no year 0 in this dating system.
2. AD stands for “Anno Domini,” which is Latin for “In the Year of Our Lord.” This system refers to the years after the birth of Jesus Christ. In this system, years are counted forward from 1 AD, which is considered the first year of the Common Era (CE).
3. CE stands for “Common Era” (and its counterpart BCE stands for “Before Common Era”). This is a secular alternative to the BC and AD system. CE and BCE are used to avoid any religious connotations associated with BC and AD. The Common Era starts from the same point as the Anno Domini system, so 1 CE is equivalent to 1 AD, and 1 BCE is equivalent to 1 BC.

The year 1 AD was approximately 2,022 years ago, as we are in the year 2023. It is essential to remember that there is no year 0 in the AD/BC dating system.