Back in 2017, I made a video called “What’s the oldest country in the world?”. The video
obviously contained a lot of different dates - both as far back as 5,000 years ago, right
up to and including the modern era. During my research for that video, I noticed absolutely
no consistency with regards to dating notation. Some sources used BC and AD, while others
used BCE and CE, despite referring to the exact same dates. I wasn’t sure which one
to use for my video, so I did some very quick reading on the issue, and ultimately went
with BCE and CE, because apparently it was more academic and modern, although I didn’t
really think much of it.
When the video was released however, I began to notice a LOT of negative comments about
my use of this particular dating notation. I was surprised to see people calling me out
for being “overly PC” and that I should “just use BC/AD like a normal human being”
to quote one comment. So I decided to take an even deeper look into the topic, and found
that it’s actually a surprisingly controversial issue.
Most people are probably already aware what BC stands for: “before Christ”. AD is
definitely less well known, it does not stand for “after death” as I used to think growing
up…. it stands for the Latin “anno Domini”, taken from the full original phrase, which
translates to "in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ".
On the other hand, BCE stands for “before the common era” while CE stands for “the
common era”. BCE and CE use the same numbers as BC and AD, with simply a change to the
nomenclature.
This dating system was actually devised some 500 years after Jesus by a monk known as Dionysius
Exiguus, using the supposed year of his birth as the transition point between the two eras.
It isn’t actually known how Dionysius established this year though. More modern predictions
put the year of his birth somewhere around 6 to 4 BC… as ironic as it sounds. Regardless,
the year Dionysius thought to be the birth of Jesus is the one that stuck.
Anno Domini was popularised by an Anglo-Saxon monk known as Venerable Bede in his work the
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in the year 731. In this same work,
he also used the phrase “before the time of the Lord's incarnation” to refer to the
time before anno Domini. This would later develop into the “before Christ” that
we use today, but was not adopted until several hundred years later.
The anno Domini system was endorsed by the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, and would
later be officially used by the Roman Catholic Church. By the 15th century, the system was
used all across Europe, and beyond.
Now, the BCE/CE abbreviations are, of course, much more recent. Though, perhaps still older
than you might expect. The term “common era” can be traced back all the way to 1615,
and 1635 in English, as the “Vulgar Era”. The meaning of the word ‘vulgar’ has changed
considerably in the last 400 years. At the time it just meant “normal”, “ordinary”,
or, of course, “common”.
“Common Era” can first be found in English in 1708, but it wasn’t until the mid-19th
century that its usage began to become more widespread as it was popularised by Jewish
religious scholars. This was in order to avoid explicitly referencing Jesus as "our Lord"
by using the anno Domini abbreviation “AD”. In the later 20th century, the terms BCE and
CE were further popularised in academic and scientific publications, as well as by those
who wanted to emphasize sensitivity to non-Christians.
The usage of the BCE/CE notations has been growing in recent history, especially within
the last 2 or 3 decades. It has become the standard for academic papers, although it
is by no means universal. Many countries (or regions within countries) have chosen to switch
from teaching BC and AD to BCE and CE in their primary school curriculum. Of course, these
switches were never without their controversies.
So… which one should you use? Well, first and foremost, I should emphasise that neither
system is wrong. Both methods are perfectly acceptable. It’s impossible to please everyone,
and there will always be people who have objections to the use of one or the other. At the end
of the day, it all comes down to opinion and personal preference.
The main argument for the use of the newer, more ‘politically correct’ BCE/CE abbreviations
is that in the modern, multicultural society that we live in today, the exclusion of “Christ”
from the terminology is a more neutral, inclusive way of notating the years. The motivation
here is that the word “Christ” isn’t technically a proper name - it’s actually
a title that directly relates to the traditional Judeo-Christian concept of messiah. In that
sense, there are plenty of people that would be uncomfortable referring to Jesus as “Christ”,
even if they can accept using him as a historical reference point by convention.
However, there are many counter arguments that are frequently raised. Some view the
gradual change away from the traditional BC/AD system as completely unnecessary, nonsensical
even, and at the extreme end, an attack on Christianity. So while the new notations are
an attempt to be inclusive, neutral, and sensitive to non-Christians, there will obviously be
those that are unhappy with the change. It’s not just Christians that don’t like the
change, of course. Many are of the opinion - if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It
is seen by many as ‘solving a problem that doesn’t exist’.
Today, in the 21st century, we live in a more secular society, so it’s easy to forget
just how much of everything around us is named after religion. It’s ingrained into the
fabric of our society. Just look at the days of the week, or the planets of our solar system…
mostly named after Roman or Greek deities.
Of course, the influence of Christianity is a lot more significant and immediate than
that of the Ancient Romans and Greeks, so it makes sense that people would have a bigger
problem with explicitly Christian motifs in a secular society. That being said, the actual
name of the calendar, the Gregorian calendar, is named after a Pope… Pope Gregory XIII.
Therefore, it could be argued that it is a Christian calendar, and trying to use it without
any mention of Christianity is an effort in futility. Afterall, curious school children
being taught the BCE/CE method are inevitably going to ask, “So when does the common era
start? Why on that year?”, which leads right back to the very thing that was trying to
be avoided in the first place.
So, changing the letters doesn’t really change much… the numbers are still exactly
the same, they’re still based on the birth of Jesus, albeit a slightly incorrect approximation
of the birth. There are, of course, other calendars that exist today, the Jewish community
have the Hebrew calendar, the Chinese have the Chinese calendar, and Muslims have the
Islamic calendar, for example… but due to how widespread the Gregorian calendar has
become, these calendars are generally used alongside the Gregorian calendar, which is
generally used as the civil calendar, as a matter of convenience.
Another objection to the change is to do with language and how it changes and evolves over
time, and especially from Latin. Much of Latin that has found its way into English (and plenty
of other languages) has lost a lot of its original meaning. Take the months of the year,
for example: September, October, November, and December. These should be, according to
the original Latin meanings, the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th months. But they’re not. We
just know that September is the 9th month, because that’s what it is. The same argument
could be made for the AD abbreviation. The original Latin meaning is so far removed from
its everyday usage. How many people even know what it means? And how many of those people
know what the English translation is?
There is one example of another initialism, one that has NOT been changed, despite changing
times: the NAACP. The NAACP stands for the “National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People”. It’s an organisation that was founded by African Americans, for
African Americans, founded in the United States in 1909. Now, today, the term “colored people”
is far from an acceptable term to use, and would generally be met with a very negative
reaction if used in conversation. That being said, the organisation has kept the same name,
despite the now-out-of-date terminology. The same argument could be applied to the BC/AD
controversy. The letters are just still used out of tradition, and lack of a real reason
to change them. Even though what the letters actually stand for may not be all that modern.
From what I can tell, one of the biggest objections to the newer dating notation is not so much
that people are using it, but rather, those who try to force it upon others, or want to
make it an official universal standard. For example, Wikipedia’s Manual of Style states
that both BC/AD and BCE/CE are acceptable. However, there have been proposals to make
BCE and CE the Wikipedia standard for all articles expect for those that are directly
related to Christianity.
There are some other objections that could be made about the specific proposal of BCE
and CE itself, some of which are on a more practical level, rather than a religious or
emotional one.
Firsty, and perhaps most crucially, BCE and CE are much easier to misinterpret than its
traditional BC/AD counterpart. BC and AD have no letters in common, also, BC comes after
the year, while AD should technically be placed before it. On the other hand, BCE and CE are
much more similar, with obviously the former containing both of the letters of the latter,
with just the first letter ‘B’ as the differentiating factor. BCE and CE also both
come after the year. Let’s look at a practical example to demonstrate how confusion might
arise...
Take the two following years:
Two thousand three, CE... Two thousand, BCE...
Again, that’s 2003 CE and 2000 BCE
Phonetically, the only difference between these two dates is the one between the “thr”
and “B” sounds. Literally one part of one syllable could mean being off by more
than 4000 years.
Also, BCE/CE is a combined 5 letters, whereas BC/AD is only 4. This may sound incredibly
minor, but if you’re saying multiple dates over and over again, those extra syllables
can really add up.
There is also another potential cause for confusion… the abbreviation “CE” used
to have an unfortunate alternative meaning… the “Christian era”. In fact, the two
terms, common era and Christian era were initially used interchangeably.
Now, one potential solution to the disagreement that I thought was quite interesting, by a
YouTuber named Lindybeige, was to simply change what the letters mean for those who want to
remove the reference to Jesus. He suggested that BC could stand for “backwards chronology”,
and that AD could stand for “ascending dates”. Of course, I realise this probably wouldn’t
be satisfactory to those who have objections for religious reasons.
It’s almost certainly too late for something different anyway. BCE and CE are extensively
used throughout acidaemia, and far beyond. Unfortunately, it seems like one of those
issues that people will just fundamentally disagree on, and I really don’t see a general
consensus being reached, at least not any time soon.
I’m going to end this video off with my own personal take. To be honest, I was a little
bit surprised by how strongly held some of the opinions are with regards to this issue
when I started researching it. I grew up learning BC and AD, and even though I did switch over
to BCE and CE for my video about the oldest country in the world, in hindsight, I think
I’m just going to stick with what I originally learned.
It should go without saying that I don’t think anyone should be judged by which set
of abbreviations they use. At the end of the day, they are both correct, and there’s
no reason to get worked up about other peoples’ preference in this regard.
BCE and CE are used to be sensitive towards non-Christians. As a non-Christian myself,
I don’t really feel the need for the change, even though I can appreciate that others might.
In my opinion, the alternative dating nomenclature set up to do one thing (remove reference to
Christianity), but it doesn’t even do that very well. The numbers are still the same,
so they’re still based off of Jesus, and the calendar itself is named after a Pope.
Trying to make a change, given how minor the issue seems to me, just feels unnecessary.
Of course, I don’t speak for all non-Christians, and I know that the use of this terminology
might make some people uncomfortable. I would have no problem using BCE and CE in certain
circumstances in the future, if I’m talking about the history of Judaism or Islam, for
example. In pretty much any other circumstances though, I think I’ll continue to use BC
and AD, as that’s what comes most naturally to me.
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