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The Common Era, also known as the Current Era, is the period of measured time beginning with the year 1 on the Gregorian calendar. Common or Current Era are alternative names for anno Domini, Latin for in the year of (Our) Lord,, also translated of the Christian Era. All of these era names are chronologically equivalent, i.e. the number of any given year is the same no matter which of these era names is used. When using the names Common Era or Current Era early years are described as before the Common or before the Current Era. When using the names anno Domini or Christian Era, early years are described as before Christ or before the Christian Era. A year zero is not included with any of these era names (however, the astronomical system and ISO 8601, both based on the system, do).

The short forms for Common Era and before the Common Era are CE and BCE. The short form for anno Domini is AD. The short forms for Christian Era are either AD or CE. The short form for before Christ is BC. These short forms are sometimes written with small capital letters, or with periods (e.g. C.E.)

The term Common Era is preferred by some as an alternative to the more overtly religious AD and BC, since Common Era does not explicitly make use of religious titles for Jesus, such as Christ and Lord, which are used in the AD/BC notation. Some criticize Common Era notation as a euphemism that does not alter the pivotal year one still centering on the life of Jesus. Others criticize the notation as an unnecessary attempt at political correctness.

The term "CE" is preferred by academics in some fields (e.g., by the American Anthropological Association).

During the 1800s, the phrase "common era," in lower case, was frequently used in a generic sense, not necessarily to refer to the Christian Era, but to any system of dates in common use throughout a civilization. Thus, "the common era of the Jews", "the common era of the Mahometans", "the common era of the foundation of Rome." When it did refer to the Christian Era, it was sometimes qualified, e.g. "the common era of the Nativity of Our Lord." or "the common era of the birth of our Saviour;"

Chronology and notation

The calendar practice prompting the coining of the term Common Era is the system of numbering years from the supposed beginning of the life of Jesus. This system was devised by the monk Dionysius Exiguus in the year 525, who named it anno Domini. Two centuries later, the Anglo-Saxon historian Bede used a Latin term (ante incarnationis dominicae tempus) that is roughly equivalent to the English term before Christ to identify years before the first year of this era.

The term "Common Era" is an alternative way of referring to this era. Using this nomenclature, human beings first walked on the moon in the year 1969 of the Common Era, and the French Revolution is considered to have begun in year 1789 of the Common Era. Popular confusion surrounding the original meaning of BCE/CE has led to its being interpreted as "Before Christian Era/Christian Era".

Both abbreviations are written following the year, thus Aristotle was born in 384 BCE (or 384 BC), and Genghis Khan died in 1227 CE (or AD 1227). As with anno Domini, the year zero is not used, except for astronomical uses. So 1 CE is immediately preceded by 1 BCE.

On (rare) occasions, one may find the abbreviation "e.v." or "EV" instead of "CE"; this stands for "Era Vulgaris", the Latin translation of "Common Era."

Gregorian versus Julian calendar

The terms Common Era, Anno Domini, Before the Common Era, and Before Christ can be applied to dates that rely either on the Julian calendar or the Gregorian calendar. Modern dates are understood to be in the Gregorian calendar, but writers should specify the calendar for older dates. Dates in the Gregorian calendar have always used the Common Era, but a wide variety of eras have been used with the Julian calendar over the millennia.

Origins

The term "Common Era" has early antecedents. A 1716 book by English Bishop John Prideaux says, "The vulgar era, by which we now compute the years from his incarnation." In 1835, in his book Living Oracles, Alexander Campbell, wrote "The vulgar Era, or Anno Domini; the fourth year of Jesus Christ, the first of which was but eight days." In its article on General Chronology, the 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia uses the sentence: "Foremost among these (dating eras) is that which is now adopted by all civilized peoples and known as the Christian, Vulgar or Common Era, in the twentieth century of which we are now living".

"Vulgar" comes from the Latin word vulgāris (from vulgus, the common people), meant "of or belonging to the common people, everyday". By the late 1800s, however, vulgar had come to mean "crudely indecent" and the Latin word was replaced by its English equivalent, "common".

Some Jewish academics had already been using the BCE abbreviation by the mid 1800's, such as in 1856, when Rabbi and historian, Morris Jacob Raphall used the abbreviation in his book Post-Biblical History of The Jews.

Usage

People of other religious beliefs may prefer the notation's neutrality, while some Christians have used the term CE to mean Christian Era. Jehovah's Witnesses exclusively use CE and BCE in their publications, generally explaining in footnotes that the terms stand for "Common Era" and "Before the Common Era". Some non-religious academics in the fields of history, theology, archaeology, sociology, and anthropology have also in recent decades begun using this system.

Many people may feel the usage of CE/BCE is an attempt to alter cultural norms in a direction some may deem more to their own liking and/or purposes. This has been particularly noticeable in that there has arguably been less pressure to eliminate the cultural impacts and carryovers into the mainstream of non-Christian contributions in modern societies. As the Christian western world influenced much the international normalcy for most of the last few centuries (see A Study of History ,1934-1961, Arnold J. Toynbee) some may believe there are efforts to minimalize any identification modern Christians, and other groups both religious and not so, have in academic and historical literature, thereby breaking a link with the past, as in laying the groundwork for negationism. As is reflected in mind control study, wiping out a peoples' recognition of the past makes them more susceptible to new and possibly conflicting ideas.

Many people may feel the usage of CE/BCE is an attempt to alter cultural norms in a direction some may deem more to their own liking and/or purposes. This has been particularly noticeable in that there has arguably been less pressure to eliminate the cultural impacts and carryovers into the mainstream of non-Christian contributions in modern societies. As the Christian western world influenced much the international normalcy for most of the last few centuries (see A Study of History ,1934-1961, Arnold J. Toynbee) some may believe there are efforts to minimalize any identification modern Christians, and other groups both religious and not so, have in academic and historical literature, thereby breaking a link with the past, as in laying the groundwork for negationism. As is reflected in mind control study, wiping out a peoples' recognition of the past makes them more susceptible to new and possibly conflicting ideas.

More visible uses of Common Era notation have recently surfaced at major museums in the English-speaking world: The current management of the Smithsonian Institution prefers Common Era usage, though individual museums are not required to use it. Furthermore, several style guides now prefer or mandate its usage. Even some style guides for Christian churches prefer its use: for example, the Episcopal Diocese Maryland Church News.

In the United States, the usage of the BCE/CE notation in textbooks is growing. The 2007 World Almanac was the first edition to switch over to the BCE/CE usage, ending a 138-year usage of the traditional BC/AD dating system. It is used by the College Board in its history tests, as well as by some National Geographic Society publications, The Norton Anthology of English Literature, and the United States Naval Observatory. The US-based History Channel uses BCE/CE notation in articles on non-Christian religious topics such as Jerusalem and Judaism and uses BC (but neither CE nor AD) in other cases.

In June of 2006, the Kentucky State School Board reversed its decision that would have included the designations BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era) in referring to dates.

Support and opposition to the use of CE/BCE over AD/BC

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A range of arguments exist both for and against the use of CE and BCE over AD and BC.

Support

Supporters of Common Era notation promote it as a religiously-neutral notation suited for cross-cultural use.

Arguments given for changing to Common Era notation include:

• The calendar used by the West has become a global standard--one built into every computer's hardware. It should be religiously and culturally neutral out of consideration for those cultures compelled to use it out of necessity.

• It has been largely used by academic and scientific communities and is not a completely unfamiliar dating system.

• It is simple to change BC/AD to BCE/CE notation, since the years are numbered exactly the same in both (e.g., 33 BC becomes 33 BCE), Documents with years that do not have AD designation do not need to be changed at all (e.g., 1066 remains 1066 in AD and in CE systems).

• The label Anno Domini is almost certainly inaccurate--the birth of Jesus of Nazareth probably occurred no later than 4 BC, the year of Herod the Great's death.

• Anno Domini (which means, literally, "in the year of the Lord") works well with specific dates, e.g., AD 655. But its use with centuries (and other time units such as decades and millennia) presents grammatical difficulties: AD 7th Century would mean, literally, "In the year of the Lord, 7th Century" — a syntactical error. The CE notation avoids this problem.

• "Forcing a Hindu, for example, to use AD and BC might be seen by some as coercing them to acknowledge the supremacy of the Christian god and of Jesus Christ." The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance further state: "We use the terms CE and BCE throughout this web site because they are less hurtful to non-Christians."

• Although some claim that AD and BC have lost nearly all their religious significance, much of the opposition, some of it intense, to switching to usage of CE and BCE has been on religious grounds.

Opposition

Efforts to replace AD/BC notation with CE/BCE notation have given rise to opposition. Arguments against the Common Era designation include:

• BC and AD have been used for such a length of time as to have become somewhat removed from their religious connotations.
• The newer BCE/CE system has not been used widely enough to have become commonly recognized.
• The Christocentricity of the AD epoch is not addressed by simply exchanging the labels with BCE/CE, since the epoch remains the same, based on a 6th century estimate of the birth of Jesus. People concerned with the epoch's Christocentricity would need to switch to a different epoch altogether.
• BCE/CE fails to fix one of the problems with the Christian calendar, the lack of a year zero, which makes calculations involving years that span both sides of the central year one year too large, unless one remembers to subtract one.
• The BCE/CE promotion distracts from the adoption of the system already used by astronomers, i.e. 0 for 1 BC, -1 for 2 BC, etc., which does resolve this problem and does not use any of the contentious acronyms (ref History Today, June 1999, p. 60, Darian Hiles, letter: "Of Dates and Decimals")
• As there is no equally forceful trend to remove other terms with origins in non-Christian religions (such as those days of the week which in English are named after Norse gods), many argue that movement to replace BC and AD is specifically anti-Christian. This specific argument is countered by the argument that "while the Roman and Norse Gods represent virtually extinct religions, Christianity is still massively influential and potentially culturally divisive."

Other calendar eras

It has been suggested that this article be merged into Calendar era. (Discuss) Proposed since January 2007.

Several systems of calculating the year have existed:

• The Hindu calendar constitutes four eras and the epoch of the present (fourth) era, the Kali Yuga, is January 23 3102 BCE on the proleptic (i.e., back dated) Gregorian calendar, making the current year (2007) 5109.

• The Hebrew calendar dates from the traditional Jewish date of Creation (according to which the year beginning in the northern autumn of 2000 was 5761 AM);

• Most Chinese do not assign numbers to the years of the Chinese calendar, but the few who do (expatriate Chinese and Westerners) date from the Yellow Emperor (three different systems are in use, which caused the Chinese years 4637, 4697, or 4698 to begin in early 2000).

• The Taiwanese calendar dates from the founding of the Republic of China in 1912.

• The Buddhist calendar dates from the passing away of the Buddha (making 2000, 2543 under this calendar, currently used in Thailand).

• The Indian national calendar (also the Saka calendar) is the official civil calendar in use in India. Years are counted in the Saka Era, which starts its year 0 in 78. 2007 is therefore 1929 in India.

• The Islamic calendar dates from the Hijra in 622 using a lunar year of about 354 days (so the Western year 2000 contains parts of 1420 AH and 1421 AH);

• The Jalaali calendar, a form of the Zoroastrian calendar, which is used in Iran, uses Zoroastrian months, but also starts from the Hijra in 622--thus the year 1386 begins in March 2007. The spring equinox marks the beginning of the year for this calendar.

• The Bahá'í calendar dates from the year of the declaration of the Báb. Years are counted in the Bahá'í Era (BE), which starts its year 1 from March 21, 1844.

• The Japanese calendar dates from the succession of the current Emperor of Japan. The current emperor took the throne in 1989, which became Heisei 1, but which was until then Shōwa 64.

• The French Revolutionary Calendar was used in Revolutionary France from October 24, 1793 (on the Gregorian calendar) to January 1, 1806. Years were counted using the Republican era from September 22 1792 starting with year 1.

• The Roman Calendar, which is virtually extinct, dated years from the mythological founding of Rome, 21 April 753 BC. The first year was thus 1 AUC (ab urbe condita or anno urbis conditae; "from the city being founded", or "in the year of the foundation of the city"). Reckoning days by this calendar is complex and no longer in use, but the calendar continues today as 2760 AUC in 2007.

• The Discordian calendar follows the CE numbering plus 1166, presumably because of the Curse of Greyface that occurred in 1166 BCE. As a reference, 2025 is 3191 YOLD (Year of Our Lady of Discord) in the Discordian calendar.

• The Julian day number can be considered a very simple calendar, where its calendar date is just an integer. This is useful for reference, computations, and conversions. The Julian day system was introduced by astronomers to provide a single system of dates that could be used when working with different calendars and to unify different historical chronologies. Apart from the choice of the zero point and name, this Julian day and Julian date are not related to the Julian calendar. The Julian day or Julian day number (JDN) is the (integer) number of days that have elapsed since noon Greenwich Mean Time (UT or TT) Monday, January 1, 4713 BCE in the proleptic Julian calendar. This equals November 24, 4714 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar. That noon-to-noon day is counted as Julian day zero. Thus the multiples of 7 are Mondays. Negative values can also be used. It does not count years, so, strictly speaking, it has no era, but it does have an epoch. Today (noon-to-noon UTC) the value is 2460699.

See also

• Calendar reform
• Within the context of archeology, one also encounters the term Before present (also known as before physics) with the abbreviation BP to indicate dates in years before 1950.

References

1. Blackburn, Bonnie; Leofranc Holford-Strevens (2003). The Oxford companion to the Year: An exploration of calendar customs and time reckoning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-214231-3. (reprinted & corrected, originally published 1999) p. 782
2. Oxford Pocket Dictionary and Thesaurus, (American ed.) (1997), New York: Oxford University Press, s.v. "A.D.".
3. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary s.v. "CE", accessed March 4, 2007.
4. American Anthropological Society (2003). "AAA Style Guide" (PDF). {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
5. (1884) The Popular Encyclopedia, volume V, p. 307: "the common era of the Jews places the creation in BC 3760"
6. Rev. Bourchier Wrey Savile, MA (1858). The first and second Advent: or, The past and the future with reference to the Jew, the Gentile, and the Church of God. London: Wertheim, Macintosh and Hunt., p. 176: "Hence the present year, 1858, in the common era of the Jews, is AM 5618-5619, a difference of more than 200 years from our commonly-received chronology."
7. Johannes von Gumpach (1856). Practical tables for the reduction of Mahometan dates to the Christian calendar. p. 2: "The common era of the Mahometans, as has already been stated, is that of the flight of Mahomet."
8. Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee (1854). Universal History: From the Creation of the World to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century. Boston: Fetridge and Company., p. 284
9. James Henthorn Todd (1864). St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, A Memoir of his Life and Mission. Dublin: Hodges, Smith & Co, Publishers to the University., p. 497: "It should be observed, however, that these years correspond to 492 and 493, a portion of the annals of Ulster being counted from the Incarnation, and being, therefore, one year before the common era of the Nativity of our Lord."
10. William Smith (1870). A smaller Scripture history. London: John Albemarle., p. 216, ""
11. "The Thelemic Calendar". Thelema Home Page. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
12. "General Chronology". Catholic Encyclopedia. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
13. "In this publication, instead of the traditional "AD" and "BC," the more accurate "CE" (Common Era) and "BCE" (before the Common Era) are used." — The Bible — God’s Word or Man’s?, p. 16 footnote, published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc.
14. Smithsonian Institute. "World History Standards". Smithsonian Education. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
15. Egyptian Study Society. "Submission Guidelines for The Ostracon". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help);"http://chass.colostate-pueblo.edu/natrel/pom/pomstyle.html". {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help);"Manuscript Submission Guidelines". American Journal of Philology.;"Manuscript Submission Guidelines". Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha.;"Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies Style Guide" (DOC). Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. 2004-08-14. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
16. "Maryland Church News Submission Guide & Style Manual" (PDF). Maryland Church News. 2005-04-01. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
17. Michael Gormley. (25 April 2005). "PC scholars take Christ out of BC" Washington Times. Accessed at http://washingtontimes.com/national/20050425-122707-1314r.htm
18. "AP: World History". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
19. "National Geographic Search: BCE". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
20. "Introduction to Calendars". U. S. Naval Observatory Astronomical Applications Department. 2004-10-15. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
21. "Jerusalem Timeline". History Channel. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help);"Jerusalem: Biographies". History Channel. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
22. "History Channel Timeline". History Channel. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
23. "State School Board reverses itself on B.C./A.D. controversy". Family Foundation of Kentucky. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
24. ^ "The 'Common Era' - a Secular Term for Year Definition". BBC. 2004-11-19. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
25. ^ "Controversy over use of "CE" and "BCE" to identify dates in history". ReligiousTolerance.com. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
26. Southern Baptist Convention 2000, Resolution 9

External links

• The use of "CE" and "BCE" to identify dates (Religious Tolerance.org)
• Whatever happened to B.C. and A.D., and why? (United Church of Christ)
• NASA: Year dating conventions
• Associated Press: P.C. scholars take Christ out of B.C.
• The Columbia Guide to Standard American English (1993): A.D., B.C., (A.)C.E., B.C.E.

• Articles to be merged from January 2007
• Calendars
• Chronology