Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <cctr114 AT it.canterbury.ac.nz>]

Samuel quoted:-

>I think the great Catholic modernist and historian, Alfred Loisy is right -
>
> L'idée de Dieu auteur de livre est plus contradictoire, plus absurde en
>elle-même, que celle de l'homme-crapaud ou de la femme-serpent. C'est un
>mythe enfantin, aussi enfantin que la fabrication du premier homme avec de l
>'argile, et celle de la première femme avec une côte d'Adam. - Loisy,
>Mémoires, vol. 1 page 306

All right, I'll bite. What's this in English?

Ian wrote:-

>(Do you still use terms such as spokesman or
>chairman -- when dealing with women?) 

Rather off topic, but the answer is yes. These are the correct
terms to use, and I use them. I can remember Barbara Stewart introducing
herself in this manner -- ``Good evening ladies and gentleman, I'm Barbara
Stewart, Chairman of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra...'' all through
the period when she was chairman.

>You will find in international and
>cross-cultural scholarly circles that CE/BCE is in fact used.

and askes

>What do you have against using CE and BCE?

I'm well aware that's it's used. But I don't see the point. If I am
offended by pigs calling them sheep doesn't actually change anything.
Our dating system is pivoted around a particular calculation of the year
of Jesus' birth. AD/BC, CE/BCE, +/-, whatever. None of these alter the
fact that its a Christian dating system, developed by Christians for
Christian use.  So they got the dates wrong. It doesn't in any way
change the *intention* of the system. 

On rare occasions I have used the Jewish dating system and the Muslim
one, but I did not feel I had to strip away or hide the origin of
those dating systems. Quite the contrary.


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