If the year B.C. stands for before christ.....??

Question

and Jewish people don't believe Jesus came to earth do they still say B.C.??

Answer 1

Most people use BCE - Before the Common Era... and ACE.

Answer 2

Jewish people, and historians too, use BCE and CE for 'Before Common Era' and 'Common Era'. This sounds more neutral. But they are still counting from the birth of Jesus. 8^)

But there are many other ways Jewish people speak like Christians because the culture of the Western World is more based on Christianity than Judaism. For instance, Jewish people often will talk of 'The Old Testament' even though they don't believe it is the 'Old' Testament because they don't believe there is a New Testament. The correct term for Jewish people is 'The Tenakh', but Christians don't know what they're talking about, so they say 'The Old Testament'.

The Jewish term for the Ten Commandments is 'The Decalogue', meaning 'The Ten Words' or 'The Ten Utterances', because there are actually more than ten commandments in the Ten Commandments. For instance, the commandment to keep the sabbath says (1) you will work for six days and (2) you will stop working on the seventh day--and Jewish people believe -both- of these are commandments of equal weight. But again, nobody understands 'The Decalogue' so they say 'The Ten Commandments'.

Answer 3

Odd that you bring this up now...I'm wondering if this is a current theme in churches recently.

I've had two Christian friends upset because
1) one of them attends a Baptist church that taught them that the use of BCE and CE was an atheist agenda to take " Christ' out of everything and is a very recent development.
2) the other one attends a non-denominational Protestant church whose minister taught that it is something that Jews and atheists came up with in the past 20 years for the same purpose.

Both of these sermons by two different Christian ministers within two months.

Both of those claims are nonsensical.

When I told them that I grew up ( I'm nearly 50 ) learning BCE and CE and never used AD and BC neither of them wanted to believe me at first. They appeared incredulous when I declared that neither my Jewish parents or grandparents, going back into the 1800s had ever used BC or AD except on documents that were preprinted with that term. I said that BCE and CE were terms that had been used by Jews for a couple of hundred years at LEAST. I actually had to show them books that were older than I was before they believed my word over their ministers word that it was something that just started in the past 20 years.

I have in my possession a book published as long ago as 1910 that uses BCE and CE. I have several from the 20's and 30's going on up to today. I think that those who want to claim it is a RECENT development need to rethink what they want to call RECENT.

Jews have used that designation since the 1700's as far as I can determine.

It was coined so that we would NOT have to refer to designations that are not only insignificant to our faith but actually would be sinful to Judaism to refer to anyone other than God as "Lord".

I believe I once looked it up on a search engine and I think that the term Common Era was used before the designation I refer to from the late 1700s and it was first used by NON JEWS. I'm too lazy to go look that up again right at the moment.

At any rate..most major universities and science centers also use or accept the designation BCE and CE to be more universally acceptable. After all there are 1.5 billion Muslims and a few billion other non-Christians who don't consider Jesus as a "Lord".

EDIT a comment to the one who mentioned about the "Old Testament"..I admit that ONLY when speaking on a superficial level with some Christians have I used that term ..and it was ONLY at a few rare times that I didn't want to take the time or didn't have the time to explain to them that the term " Old Testament " was given to the Christian ADAPTATION of the Hebrew Bible called Tanakh by Tertullian and then go on to explain the differences..Jews do not call our Bible the " Old Testament" otherwise.

Hope this hellped. Shalom :)

Answer 4

The correct term in BCE and CE
Before Common Era
Common Era

Why? Because Christianity is only 1/3 of the world population and there has to be a universal archeological term. It's not against Christ or whatever other bs Christians are cooking up. It's facing that we are global.

Answer 5

"BC/AD" is a generally-accepted convention. Scholars prefer "BCE/CE" for "Before the Common Era" and "Common Era" - but they're still measuring from the supposed life of "Christ." But again, just a convention, exactly as the fact that we still call the seventh day of the week "Saturday" in no way implies that we worship Saturn.

By the way, most Jewish people believe that Jesus "came to earth" in the sense that he existed historically. They just don't accept him as the "messiah," let alone the pagan demigod of Christianity.

Answer 6

Many people, myself included use "CE" and "BCE".

CE stands for "Common Era." It is a relatively new term that is experiencing increased usage and is expected to eventually replace AD. The latter is an abbreviation for "Anno Domini" in Latin or "the year of the Lord" in English. The latter refers to the approximate birth year of Yeshua of Nazareth (a.k.a. Jesus Christ). CE and AD have the same and value. 2004 CE = 2004 AD. The word "common" simply means that it is based on the most frequently used calendar system: the Gregorian Calendar. .

BCE stands for "Before the common era." It is expected to eventually replace BC, which means "Before Christ," or "Before the Messiah." BC and BCE are also identical in value. Most theologians and religious historians believe that the approximate birth date of Yeshua of Nazareth (Jesus) was in the fall, sometime between 7 and 4 BCE, although we have seen estimates as late as 4 CE and as early as the second century BCE.

Good point Elmjunbu...: Sun Day, Moon Day, Tiu's Day, Woden's Day, Thor's Day, Freya's Day, Saturn's Day.
Most people are not aware. ;)

Answer 7

The Jewish people accept that Jesus was a real historical figure, they just don't accept that he was the Messiah from the Old Testament prophesies.

A lot of people are now using B.C.E (before common era) and C.E. (common era).

Personally I still use B.C and A.D.

Answer 8

Jewish people I know have no problem with B.C. There were Jewish people on earth long before the Birth of Christ.

Answer 9

Wasn't Jesus jewish???

Answer 10

They use B C E , Before the Common Era