Society & Lifestyle >
Social Values & Norms
Get a Widget for this title
RSS FeedShould ancient dates use the Christian BC/AD or Common Era BCE/CE acronymns?
Results so far:
| Christian | 65% | 197 votes | Total: 303 votes | |
| Common Era | 35% | 106 votes |
Christian
Write now
Print
Invite a writer™
Add to FavoritesUntil recently when a few scholars started using the BC/CE acronyms, relatively few people knew that BC and AD are a reference to Jesus Christ and even fewer people cared. BC and AD are not intended to be statements of faith. Rather, the use of BC or AD simply identifies a point of historical reference. There is nothing requiring Christians to use the BC/AD acronyms, and nothing prohibiting a non-Christian from using the BC/AD acronyms.
The Roman historian Josephus records the life and death of a man, Jesus Christ. The birth of Jesus is a verifiable date in history that has been used for centuries as a reference point when giving dates. Some other cultures have their own calendars that have their own reference dates, but in general, the world uses the "Western" calender based on the Julian calendar which uses the birth of Christ as a reference date. While those of us who are Christian may have warm feelings about the birth of Christ, the word, in general, ignores the life of the man who's birth is used to define the calendar. People of many religions use BC/AD without worrying about the reference to Jesus.
Why should anyone object to using the birth of Christ as a reference point for the calendar? It is not so much believers in competing religions as modern scholars who are protesting. It has become popular in scholarly circles to try to isolate scholarship from religion. As a scientist, I agree the existence of God can neither be proven nor disproven by scholarly or scientific methods, but does that mean we should try to eject God from our lives? Certainly not. One frame of reference is as good as another so long as all workers are using the same frame of reference.
If for the sake of discussion, I agree to set aside BC/AD, then why use BCE/CE? The same reference point, the birth of Christ, is used. If it is references to Jesus Christ that offends people, then why retain that reference point? I also wonder what is meant by "The Common Era". Unless one accepts the life of Jesus as a watershed in human history, why should "The Common Era" be any more common than that span of time referred to as "Before The Common Era"? Will we have to make a new designation in the future when civilization changes enough to make the future era different from "The Common Era"? What is to be gained by using BCE/CE? The only thing to be gained is a subtle attack on religions in general and Christianity in particular.
Yes, it is popular to attack Christianity these days. Fine. Let us evangelize our favorite religion. Let us debate the finer points of one religion against another or even debate that one should not believe in a god. Let us even debate the very existence of a supreme being, but let us debate and argue openly about the facts. Let us leave the calendar out of this. It is only a way of accounting for the passing of time.
Leave BC/AD alone. It is only a benchmark in time. It never was intended to be a commentary on religion and should not be used as an attack on any religion. Most people are comfortable using BC/AD. If nothing else, let us preserve BC/AD as a significant historical artifact.
Learn more about this author, Reynold Conger.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Common Era
The use of the Christian construct "BC" or "AD" to denote periods in time has two inherent problems; It is neither accurate nor politic.
Its inaccuracy stems from several factors, notably that it purports to measure time from a specific date - the year of birth of the Christian god-figure, Jesus Christ. Of course no actual date can be assigned to the birth of this figure as no one is sure when he was born, or indeed, if he was ever born at all. Even his widely celebrated birthday on December 25th is merely a date assigned to the event by a church several centuries after his (alleged) life. It was picked to replace existing popular religious festivities in various cultures eg Saturnalia in Roman Europe.
The use of this entirely invented date, assigned to a year chosen by guesswork, can hardly be defended against replacement by a phrase that more accurately defines the situation. BCE or Before Common Era indicates the acceptance that we are talking in broad strokes, of a relatively short period of common modernity set against a much longer period of antiquity.
It also reflects the reality that Christianity including its pantheon of god-figures, and mythology of heaven and hell, belongs to only one sector of this planet's population. It exists in competition with many other religions; some like Christianity are established and organized while others like Paganism are umbrella terms for a wide variety of indigenous philosophies and spiritual paths. To use a member of only one pantheon to denote something as important as the history of mankind makes no sense. One may as well arbitrarily divide the history of mankind into "pre Isis" and "post Isis" - the arrival of Christianity had a major effect only on one part of the world, and civilisations existed long before its invention. Therefore no great import should be attached to it other than that western academia has left us with a legacy of its traditional usage.
It would be hard now to arrange for that tradition - division of 2000 years of relative modernity from the rest of man's existence - to disappear completely but it is merely a tradition. To reform its usage not only gives a more accurate shorthand for discussing time periods it also redresses some of the damage done by an inherently arrogant attirude fostered in pervious centuries by Academics overly hidebound in western prejudices. The same unthinking arrogance that stole artifacts from other countries, imposed narrow western criteria to the classification of tribal societies, destroyed indigenous people's and justified it in racist polemics, also assumed that Christians had the right to view the entire history of the world in reference only to themselves and thier own beliefs.
The assumption of a humbler, more conciliatory reckoning of civilisation as expressed by the newer phraseology BCE/CE signals to those whose cultures we need to study, whose traditions we wish to understand, that we no longer harbour those attitudes. It also expresses the nuetrality of intellect in a world polarised by religious conflict and cultural warfare. The disciplines affected by the change - History, Archaeology, Anthropology - should be concerned with the commonality of man and the telling of the story of man's evolution not the protection of a divisive and pointless expression. Intellegent people can surely adopt a phrase that enables us to view mankind as a whole rather than insist on empty privilege for an outmoded tradition.
I believe, looking at trends in Universities and schools in Europe at least, the phrase BCE/CE will soon become the norm and I for one will welcome that step forward.
Learn more about this author, Geraldine Moorkens Byrne.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
