why was 1 A.D. picked for that year other than for the birth of christ?

Question

i heard that people predicted that something big was going to happen at around that time like hundreds of years before that. is that true?

anno domino, year of our lord, 1st year. bc, before christ. how did christ live and die in 1 year. AND I DONT WANT ANSWERS ABOUT CHRIST.

Answer 1

Doesnt A.D. mean After Death?? If so, your question is way off.

Answer 2

According to a sermon I heard in the Roman Catholic Church (the original Christian Church) the monk Dionysius Exiguus in the year 525 set up the calendar was off by 3 years and Jesus was born in 3 B.C. The biblical evidence for this are scarce and contradictory. It is generally assumed that Jesus died at the age of 33.

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.D.
"Although scholars generally believe that Christ was born some years before A.D. 1, the historical evidence is too sketchy to allow a definitive dating" (Doggett 1992, 579). According to the Gospel of Matthew (2:1,16) Herod the Great was alive when Jesus was born, and ordered the Massacre of the Innocents in response to his birth. Blackburn & Holford-Strevens fix Herod's death shortly before Passover in 4 BC (2003, 770), and say that those who accept the story of the Massacre of the Innocents sometimes associate the star that led the Biblical Magi with the planetary conjunction of 15 September 7 BC or Halley's comet of 12 BC; even historians who do not accept the Massacre accept birth under Herod as a tradition older than the written gospels (p. 776)."

However, in the Western World the year determined by that Exiguus as being year one is the convention that is used. Because of this inaccuracy and to avoid getting religion involved it is not called C.E. for Common Era (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era)

Until this point there was no standard calendar. Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar both added their own names as new months in the calendar so the Roman calendar can't be relied on. Before that there were a lot of different calendars with no standard. A.D. may not be the best solution, but it is the one that is accepted by most of the world and by anyone who wants to deal with that world.

AD is Latin and it simply means After Christ's Birth
According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.D.
"Anno Domini (Latin: "In the Year of the Lord"), abbreviated as AD, defines an epoch based on the traditionally-reckoned year of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth."

BC is also Latin and it simply means Before Christ's Birth.
According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.D.
"Before Christ (from the Ancient Greek "Christos" or "Anointed One", referring to Jesus), abbreviated as BC, is used in the English language to denote years before the start of this epoch."

The official language of the Church was Latin for most of its history, so that was why the Latin initials were used.

No special events happened 100 years before year 1 C.E. and the end of the world has been expected every 1000 years.

Answer 3

AD -Anno Domini - Year of our lord - the year that sixth century monks 'worked out' to be the year of Jesuses Birth. His death being 34 years later.
This was adopted in the reign of Pope Julian, and was known as the Julian calendar, and is still used in Orthodox Catholic countries like the Ukraine.
In the Middle Ages, Pope Gregory 8th re-evaluated the calendar, and caused mass rioting by moving the date 11 days forward. People naively believed he had stolen 11 days from their lives.
Now due to Roman Historians we know that no census was carried out in that year, and Jesus was probably born in 4 AD, during September.

Answer 4

Although A.D. does not stand for "after death" (but for anno domini, as you have already ascertained) it is not at all foolish-- but actually helpful-- to remember the abbreviation that way, as the year of Christ's crucifixion WAS the mark by which the beginning of the Gregorian calendar years were charted.
You are right about A.D. standing for both Christ's birth AND death. The discrepancy is simply due to MANY different monks and historians coming up with their own systems over time-- and no internet to keep everybody on the same page at the same time. : ) This made for MEGA confusion; take a look at a just a *couple* of examples from wiki:

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The Anno Domini system was developed by a monk named Dionysius Exiguus (born in Scythia Minor) in Rome in 525, as an outcome of his work on calculating the date of Easter. Dionysius, in his Easter table, equates the year AD 532 with the regnal year 248 of Emperor Diocletian; in his cover letter he equates the year AD 525 with the consulate of Probus Junior." However, nowhere in his exposition of his table does Dionysius relate his epoch to any other dating system, whether consulate, Olympiad, year of the world, or regnal year of Augustus; much less does he explain or justify the underlying date" [emphasis added] (Blackburn & Holford-Strevens 2003, 778). Blackburn & Holford-Strevens briefly present arguments for 2 BC, 1 BC, or AD 1 as the year Dionysius intended for the Nativity or Incarnation.

Among the sources of confusion mentioned by Blackburn & Holford-Strevens (2003, 778–779) are:

In modern times Incarnation is synonymous with conception, but some ancient writers, such as Bede, considered Incarnation to be synonymous with the Nativity
The civil, or consular year began on 1 January but the Diocletian year began on 29 August
There were inaccuracies in the list of consuls
There were confused summations of emperors' regnal years
Another calculation had been developed by the Alexandrian monk Annianus around the year AD 400, placing the Annunciation on March 25, AD 9 (Julian) — eight to ten years after the date that Dionysius later calculated. This Era of Incarnation was dominant in the East during the early centuries of the Byzantine Empire, and is still used today in Ethiopia, accounting for the 8 or 7-year discrepancy between the Gregorian and the Ethiopian calendar.

Byzantine chroniclers like Theophanes continued to date each year in their world chronicles on a different Judaeo-Christian basis — from the notional creation of the World as calculated by Christian scholars in the first five centuries of the Christian era. These eras, sometimes called Anno Mundi, "year of the world" (abbreviated AM), by modern scholars, had their own disagreements.
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I happen to believe that the Jewish calendar, not dinked around by every emperor and pope that wanted recognition, is most accurate. It is based on historical, documented person-by-person genealogy from the first man created to the present.

A.D. actually was originally intended to be a mark of time from His actual conception (9 months before His birth).

And of course-- all the exact circumstances of Christ's birth and death was prophesied for 2000 years before His coming. Even pagan astrologers were able to chart (and follow) very specific signs of the great King that was about to be born.

Can't get around the "answers about Christ." It is what it is, and it's ultimately all about Him, anyway.

Answer 5

The 1 is and AD stands for After the Death of Christ

Answer 6

"A.D." stands for "Anno Domini", which means "In the year of our lord".

At the time, various calendars were used throughout the world. At the time, you would have referred to the year of the reign of your king or emperor, or you would have used one of the various calendars.

The Anno Domini system was developed by monk Dionysius Exiguus in 525, and it was officially adopted in the 8th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_domini

Answer 7

It was the beginning of the1'st year [day 1-day 365]
Just like the new millennium started 1/1/2001 'because the year 2000, or, 1/1/2000, was the "BEGINNING" of the 2000th year.

Answer 8

1 ad was not picked for the birth it was picked for after death.