Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

>>(And it is normally accepted to use "CE" -- Common Era -- and "BCE",
rather
>>than the Christian biased "AD" (which you used in your initial post on the
>>matter) and "BC" in scholarly circles. This is the imposition religious
>>beliefs through indirect cultural means.)
>
>Of course, one could always ask -- "Common" to whom? Dressing up a
>Christian dating system with "neutral" language doesn't change its
>Christian nature, so why do the CE/BCE thing at all? If someone is
>going to be offended by the date 2001 A.D., then they should be equally
>offended by 2001 anything.

Bill, the simple dating system is used around the world, by Christians,
Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Sikhs, Jains and most other people you can think of.
Most don't talk about dates before this era -- one says, for example, "in
the year 1905" and nothing more. You don't expect them to kowtow to beliefs
that don't regard them. (Do you still use terms such as spokesman or
chairman -- when dealing with women?) You will find in international and
cross-cultural scholarly circles that CE/BCE is in fact used.

Given that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4
BCE, you should see that to call it BC and AD would be inaccurate. We should
move the system back at least four years for it to be accurate. That is an
impossibility, given the user base of the current system. What do you have
against using CE and BCE? They neither contain the inaccuracy of BC/AD, nor
are they inappropriate for believers of other religions.


Ian