"JESUS was born in 4-6 B.C, and crucified in 34 A.D.???

Thanks your post did help, but I am really bad at math and not afraid to admit!!, and I am a business major which is probably not such a good idea!!!, but simple math and algebra I am alright with, but why wouldn't they start from 1 b.c. and then a 1000 or a million years later get to 1 A.d., I also wonder what system they used back then to track the death of Jesus, "he died 34 suns up an downs" I don't know, I feel there are so many inconsistencies in this subject, But I know time is man made, we would all probably much happier without a clock.

I think you still fail to understand that the whole dating system of B.C. and A.D. wasn't implemented until centuries later. It's not like hundreds of thousands of years ago, some guy went
"Alright, well jesus is coming in about 100,000 years so this should be the year 100k B.C."

Hundreds of year after Jesus they just decided that he would mark the dividing point in history, and according to that system, anything before that would go backwards. Like the cartesian plane (coordinate system), anything before origin (0,0) would start going in negative numbers.

There's no reason why 1 B.C. should be a million years ago. 1 B.C. would be like the coordinate -1 on the x-axis of a cartesian plane.

I understand that A.D/B.C wasn't implemented until centuries later, but why did this "guy" think he had the power to put a certain date on it, and what makes us think that B.C went backwards? for all we know I guess it could have gone forwards

and also, why is the Jewish calendar different?

I don't know why, I'm not good with history. The church just had that kind of power back then or something. But the whole B.C. going backwards is just basic understanding of math. If you mark a point 0 anywhere on a timeline, when counting backwards from it, the numbers would be negative. So 10 years before the birth of christ would be -10, or 10 B.C. There's no conspiracy or hidden meanign behind the dating system.

I really don't know how to explain that any better than that, so I'll let someone else try x.x

[edit on 25-10-2009 by shade454]

reply to post by brooklyn87

I already know What A.D. means, the real reason I was wondering the time line is because I had know idea that b.c. went backwards!! I might sound like a fool, but I am not a church goer and never really paid attention to it, but I am recently trying to figure out the reasoning behind going backwards... very strange to me

With BC standing for, "Before Christ", why is it strange to you that it goes backwards? There was time before Christ was born.

why wouldn't they start from 1 b.c. and then a 1000 or a million years later get to 1 A.d.

It wouldn't make sense. Here's why. Let's say that the Earth is 100 years old. In year 25, Jesus comes. So, in year 25, we could start "AD", Anno Domini, "the year of our Lord. As time goes on into the future, the numbers would ascend. AD 1, AD 2, AD 3, etc, until our present year of AD 75.

Now, what do we do about the 25 years before Jesus came? If we used the same system that we have today, where BC means "Before Christ", we would have to put 1 BC in the year before Jesus came, or else if makes no sense. You can't have "1 Before Christ" 25 years before he comes. Likewise, you can't have 25 before Christ one year before he comes.

Know what I'm trying to say? Of course, this was the logic behind the Gregorian calendar. Since they, we've adopted a new calendar, which throws things off a bit.

and also, why is the Jewish calendar different?

They base their calendar off of when Creation occured as opposed to Christ's coming.

[edit on 10/25/2009 by octotom]

[edit on 10/25/2009 by octotom]

reply to post by antithesis.

Calendars are actually Common Era (CE) and Before Common Era (BCE) now.

Not everyone uses this, especially since it's a really modern thing.

The thing that I always thought is funny about CE and BCE is that it is still based off of Christ. BC/AD just became BCE/CE. The other thing is that the abbreivations can still be interpreted in a Christian way:

BCE could be interpreted as "Before the Christian Era"
CE could be interpreted as "Christian Era".

Originally posted by brooklyn87
I am not worried what got him crucified, but if B.C goes backwards then why?

Because BC means "Before Christ". So 4 BC would be 4 years before christ....3 BC, 3 years before christ, etc. At least that is the way I look at it.

Originally posted by brooklyn87
It just seems weird to me to count time to the birth of Christ, back then did anyone know he was coming? did they think "OK when he is four years old we will start time over?"

BC and AD weren't established until 525 AD.

The Anno Domini dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus,

Before this, there were a multitude of ways of keeping time. It is just a standard of measure.

Originally posted by brooklyn87
If he didn't die until 34A.D. then why label 1 a.d. when he wasn't dead yet?

AD does NOT stand for After Death.

The AD system was not even used for 6 centuries after his alleged death.


K.

Originally posted by brooklyn87
Understandable, but again what year did B.c. begin

It NEVER began.

BC dates go backwards into the past with increasing numbers.

Like the negative numbers ona number line.


K.

Originally posted by brooklyn87
It just seems weird to me to count time to the birth of Christ, back then did anyone know he was coming? did they think "OK when he is four years old we will start time over?"

You just dont get it.

NO-ONE used "AD" and "BC" in the alleged time of Jesus.

That wasn't invented until 6 centuries later.


K.

Gday,

Originally posted by brooklyn87
I also wonder what system they used back then to track the death of Jesus,

That's the problem.
No-one did.

No-one in history ever met Jesus, no-one knows when he was born, the Gospels stories are from long afterwards and give different dates.

There are no contemporary records of Jesus at all.

Six CENTURIES after the alleged time of Jesus, little Dennis started using the "AD" system and it caught on.


K.

reply to post by brooklyn87


-5, -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

That is why. o AD marks the beginning of the age of Pisces also,
The people who created our Gregorian Calendar were Star gazers.

Gday,

Originally posted by brooklyn87
I understand that A.D/B.C wasn't implemented until centuries later, but why did this "guy" think he had the power to put a certain date on it,

He had no 'power'.
He had an idea, and people copied it.

Originally posted by brooklyn87
and what makes us think that B.C went backwards? for all we know I guess it could have gone forwards

FFS!
This is a basic simple concept.

Counting BEFORE goes backwards - haven't you ever seen a number line?


K.

reply to post by brooklyn87


o ad marks the beginning of the Age of Pisces. That is why you get confused as to how Jesus fits into it. He doesnt, He didnt order that time be restarted. The priests of the Mysteries did. To mark the beginning of the age of Pisces. Now if they could convince christians that Jesus was the reason they would be content.

reply to post by Kapyong

No-one in history ever met Jesus, no-one knows when he was born, the Gospels stories are from long afterwards and give different dates.

That's not true. You can pinpoint a general time frame using material in the Gospels to see when Jesus lived. That's how the "line" between AD and BC was placed. It wasn't random.

The latest Gospel written was John, which was written between AD 90 and 95.

I hope you aren't 21, God help us if so

It doesn't take a religious understanding to figure out how the western world measures time. If you know that after 59 minutes, it rolls over to the next hour and minutes are back at zero, this should be easy.

Like was mentioned, its like the Cartesian coordinate system. Where the Y axis intersects the X axis (0,0) is where numbers (years) are determined negative or positive. Negative being BC or BCE and positive being AD or CE.



[edit on 25-10-2009 by ghaleon12]

Every day you all are looking on a thermometer. Where is the problem ?

The new millennium did not start as of the first of January 2001, but on
first of January 2000. The celebrations were correctly timed.

We have got it mathematically correct now and for the future. 1,000 years
had passed since 31st of December, 999.

The world could not care less, if the first millenium had 1,006, 1,005, 1,004,
1,003, 1,002, 1,001, 1,000 or 999 years !

For the insecurities I would not even call the time before the second millennium
a millennium.

BTW, the 31st of December, 1 BC changes directly over into the 1st of
January, 1 AD, or more correctly stated: the last day of the year 1 BC
into the first day of 1 AD, the month names not known then either.

Originally posted by brooklyn87
I understand that A.D/B.C wasn't implemented until centuries later, but why did this "guy" think he had the power to put a certain date on it, and what makes us think that B.C went backwards? for all we know I guess it could ha♠ve gone forwards

OK, lets start with the fundamental thing that you seem to be missing: the dating system we use is completely, 100% arbitrary. There is nothing about it that is tied to anything real in the universe other than an agreement among people to 'do it that way'.

The Hebrews started counting from when they understood their history to begin, and since they believe that is the beginning of creation, the idea that there is anything before that to count is meaningless. What meaning could "1BC" ("Before Creation") possibly have when time didn't exist before Creation?

Other peoples counted years from the current Kings reign, so you might have the 3rd year of Tutankamen's reign (I don't really know if this was the case in Egypt, just showing an example). There was little need for people to know the exact year something happened in the past and relate that to some other peoples reckoning of the exact year. And if they did need to do so it would have been hellishly difficult.

So at some point the Christians did see the need for a consistent and universal year numbering system of their own. Previously they would have been using the Hebrew Calendar, but this was a time when the Christian Authorities were denying their Hebrew past and repudiating all things Jewish. For example, they moved Easter to ensure it wasn't locked to the Passover schedule because even though the Bible clearly says that the Passion occured at Passover, Christians should not be celebrating the most important day on their calendar at the same time as those non-Christian 'other guys'. So they had to change things completely.

Remember, the starting point is for a year reckoning system is completely arbitrary, but you do have to pick a starting point. Since the advent of Christ is the defining moment in Western History (according to the Christian viewpoint at least), they chose the birth of Christ to be the new year 1. So now they had their new starting point, they had to relate that to their previous calendar. They decided that Christ was born in 3761AM (annus mundi - the year of the world) on the Hebrew Calendar, so that became Year 1 AD.

Now unlike the Jewish Calendar, the Christians knew that there was history before year 1. So it makes sense to count backwards to indicate the number of years before the dominion of Christ. The Hebrew year 3760AM thus became the year 1BC in the new reckoning, and 3759Am became 2BC. (Negative numbers were unknown in mathematics at that time, but the BC and AD nomenclature are obvious analogues to the negative and positive nomenclature in arithmetic.)

Now about events that happened a million years ago. If you are talking about a specific date, then yes, it would be 997,991BC. But we seldom talk in those specific, precise terms. We say a "million years ago", as an approximation, depending on the context it could be varying up or down by a few hundred thousand years. When we speak of 200 million years ago, we are only being approximate to within a few 10's of millions of years or whatever. Using a specific year like 201,232,117BC doesn't have any real use, there is never any reason to be anywhere near that precise.

OK, so everything is fine for a thousand years or more, most of the world adopts the European (Christian) calendar for daily reckoning because the Europeans pretty much make it mandatory at the point of the colonial gun. The Jews keep counting in AM, but recognize the European calendar. The Chinese keep counting in their system, but recognize the European calendar. Then in the 1700's it is noticed that December isn't midwinter anymore, the calendar has been getting out of sync with the seasons because the day isn't exactly 24 hours long. So over the next 200 years countries adopt the corrected calendar with all its leap seconds, minutes, and days.

Biblical Scholarship advanced over this time too. Advanced research found that Christ was more likely to have been born sometime between 3765AM and 3769AM which would put his birth sometime between 4AD and 8 AD on our current calendar.

But that doesn't mean our dates need to change. Remember that the starting year is completely arbitrary. 1AD was set to equal 3761AM when the calendar was developed. That this was the best guess for the birth of Christ, while meaningful for those who developed the calendar, is still completely arbitrary and as valid a starting point as any other. It is simply too bothersome to change it now, especially since we will never know the exact year of birth. So 3761AM is 1AD, period.

As for the CE (Common Era) or BCE (Before Common Era) indicators, this was originally started in the early 20th century to make it comfortable for the non-Christians in the world to embrace it. In the same way that the Christians didn't want to use the Hebrew calendar, non-Christians found it difficult to justify using a Christian calendar. The fact that Christians can read CE as "Christian Era" just makes it a more universal, 'politically correct' way to do things.

Hope that moves towards clearing up your confusion.


Edit: corrected confused sentence in second paragraph (1AM annus mundi to 1BC Before Creation)

[edit on 25/10/2009 by rnaa]