The Calender.?

Question

I have forever been confused about this.

There is BC and AD. Meaning before chirst and after chirst.

I get that part. I also get the, sort of the part where they 'started the calender over when chirst was born. When they did this still confuses me. If was not like right when chirst was born they sat down and said, ok lets start over.. It had to been many many many years later.. Right..? Or ever after he died, they didn't do this. When then.?

I also wonder what year would it be if they had not started the calender over.. They talk about the end of the world and some might go by the calander.. Like the 2012 date. Would that date have changed had the calender not been started over. ?

Answer 1

Exactly when the current calendar was adopted is a matter of some debate. About the only thing that is universally agreed upon is that it was first widely used during the medieval period, and seems to have originated and been spread by the various monastic orders common at that time. The main confusion stems from the way the monks "borrowed" the old roman calendar. That's why we have "July", named after Julius Ceaser, among other references.

Prior to the current calendar, there wasn't an agreed upon standard for marking the years. Each region had it's own calendar. Some where ongoing, counting indefinitely like ours, but most were based on local events and reset when somethign major happened. The reign of the current king was a popular choice to count years around.

As far as the end of the world, every calendar system has their own predictions, and none of them match up. I recomend not worrying about it.

Answer 2

At the time of Christ's alleged existance, the part of the world he was born into used the AVC, also called AUC calendar, which dated from the mythological founding of the city of Rome (ab urbe condita). The Romans kept excellent records, including the number of years since the founding of Rome it was. You can see the AVC date on thousands of monuments that still stand now. It's sometimes called the "monument system." It is V, not U, because the U was not used on monuments, you can still see this on some "CHVRCH"es today.

Archaeological evidence, including denochronology, show that the AVC system was probably accurate to within 5 years of the founding of Rome. Christ is alleged to have been born in 753AVC.

The 2012 date is the date when ONE of the three Mayan calendars turns over, just like our calendar turns over after every December 31st. People who think that's the end of the world are pretty silly, as the Maya certainly did not think that, as they thought time was circular, thus not having an ending.

The Gregorian Calendar you are familiar with dates back, at BEST, to 1582 years AFTER the alleged birth of Christ....

They used the AVC date to come up with that year, thus making the AD calendar little more than AVC+753.

Answer 3

Ask a Jewish friend, or look it up on a Jewish web site. They keep track of the original year count from the old days. And you are right, BC and AD were not applied until much later.

However, very few people ever had a year number anyway. It was "in the reign of King So-and-So" or perhaps "in the third year of the reign . . ." But more likely it was not even counted enough for most people to be able to answer the question "How old are you?" If your mother managed to keep track, it would probably be kept as "you were born the year we had all that snow," or "I was so old when you were born, and I'm such old now, so . . ."

Using things like numbers for date years means regular and systematic record-keeping, which was only done by a tiny minority of the population (priests and the clerks who worked for the aristocracy) at any time until recently. Maybe few hundred years at most.

Answer 4

the current calendar, after some modifications (Gregorian, etc) basically replaced the old Roman calendar, based from the alleged year of founding of Rome.

What we would today call 500 AD (or 500CE) was Roman year 1251... so if we kept the Roman calendar, it would now be 2758.

There have ltierally been thousands of 'end of the world' predictions based on calendar assumptions; all have been wrong, and there is not one reason to expect that overwhelming trend to change. Some will say there are "signs." Well, people looking for "signs" have always found equally compelling "signs" as any pointed out today (if not moreso in the past than today).

Answer 5

First, BC means "before Christ" and AD means "Anno Domini", which is latter for "in the year of the Lord" (if it meant "after death", which is a common misconception, what would the years in between be?).

The original change in the calendar came about when a monk (I forget his name) was working on figuring out dates for Easter or something similar. He decided to start a new way of reckoning years based on the birth of Christ, which is off by about four years. We know this latter because an eclipse is mentioned in regards to King Herod, and this actually occurred in 3-4 BC. The calendar in use was the Julian calendar, conceived by Julius Caesar and the numeration was based on the founding of the city of Rome. It was called "anno urbis conditae", and 1 AD corresponds to 753 AUC. I'm glossing over the fact that AUC wasn't really used all that much, but that's what was used, and 2012 will be 2764 AUC.

Answer 6

Actually the so call calendar was in effect in the OT, but it was then used not as January, February, March & so on, but it was used as for instance in the 5th month of the 7th day in the year of So So( this so so is just my demostration) & also back then there was only 360 days in a year, our calendar today has been updated by man thousands of years ago, & most recently by the Romans, That is why our calender is also known as the Roman calender. & That is why we have 365 days a year

Answer 7

The Dark Knight

Answer 8

Jewish Calendar says what year it would be... but all calendars are based on astronomy and observations of the movements of heavenly bodies (no, not Brad Pitt!), so when someone talks about 2012, they are talking about the conversion from the Mayan calendar. But don't worry... nothings going to happen!

Answer 9

The link below explains the timeline and developments of various calendar systems. As for the latter part of your question I wouldn't take any of that stuff too seriously. As you can see by this whole thing people are constantly making stuff up and revising it. The more you investigate the less any of that religious stuff makes sense.

Answer 10

The Gregorian calendar took over when the Catholics became a world power. Yes, they backtracked. Get it now?