Why did we base time off of Jesus's death?

First off, I did not want to put this on the religion board because I want to get an unbiased opinion.

I wonder why we base time off of Jesus's death. Did they decide to do this right away starting year 1? Also, did we count years before Jesus, if so, what year were we on and what did we base it off of?

You're mistaken. The "Date" we started counting in the gragorian calander was closer to the birth of Jesus then it was to the death.

Mankind has counted since mankind could count. Many of the rulers in the ancient kingdoms counted the years from the day they took power.

The Jews have been counting for several thousands of years now. Check out the Jewish Calander date.

The Jews did not count down to the birth of christ.

As I understand it the calander we have now was set into count some couple of hundred years after the death of jesus. But it was tageted around the birth.

Calanders never really became vogue, meaning no one really needed to know what day of the month it was, because they were farmers and such and just needed to follow the seasons, until a long time after the set up of the calander count.

Its only the christian calendar that starts at BC...the chinese calendar starts 2600 years earlier....

www.chinese.new-year.co.uk...

and the mayan calendar starts earlier...

en.wikipedia.org...

and i think the hindu calendar is earlier as well...and i bet there a few more calendars that more knowledgeable people here on ats could mention.

edited to change spelling of calendar....thought the word didnt look right...lol

[edit on 11-2-2008 by Heratix]