Chronologically speaking, time went backwards for BC.......?

Question

So did that mean Jesus was born in the year of 0000?

Or did time stop at, say 320 BC, and then it started at 0000 because of his birth?
And for the people around the world that never knew of Jesus' exsistence, like the Myan Indians, did they too start recording time at 0000?
( I have no idea on this so that's why I'm asking.)

Answer 1

lol. Yes! The numbers went backwards in BC. So the year 2BC was before 1BC.

The BC/AD split was a division imposed on history by the Church. I'm sure the Mayans and Aztecs couldn't have cared less.

An Italian doctor/astronomer in the 16th century tried to figure out the exact year of Jesus's birth, and declared that the year 1AD. What made the snafu was that it should've been 0AD, but I guess his ordinal numbers skills weren't so hot. :)

Now that they have more information, even though it's all speculation, they figure Jesus was really born more around 30AD. So that monk was off by about 3 decades.

Of course our Jewish brothers don't follow it at all. To them, this isn't the year 2007 -- it's something like the year 5768.

So short answer: it's an arbitrary number imposed on the world by the Church. It only stuck because in the 16th century, they were more or less the keepers of information, culture and historical records.

Answer 2

Yes, time went "backwards" in BC - so 50BC is more recent that 2000BC.

Other cultures had their own measurements of time - and many still do. However, the years commonly used (this being 2007, almost 2008) are used because the christian church in Rome exercised so much power over western cultures (ie Europe) in the past and then European nations went out and colonized other cultures they deemed to be less civilized. The Roman calendar was then imposed on the colonies and thus came to be used over most of the world.

Answer 3

LoL,

I remeber when I wondered about that...

No, they didn't really count down :) Everyone started at some arvitraty year and counted forward, usually major chages reset the calendar, an new king might in some cases declare his first year as year 1. Even we didn't start at year 0, when that year was chosen as 0 point we were already hundreds of years past it.

The BC times are just calculated at how long before our particular 0 year did they happen. Some cultures are at the moment living years that are a few thousand bigger than ours. It's just easier if everyone uses the same calendar when speaking of dates.

Answer 4

There is (unfortunately) no year zero. This is a real source of confusion in accurate dating of astronomical events. "Julian Day Numbers" are usually used when accurate timing is needed for ancient events.

Ancient people used other calendars that went forward in time. The usual formulation is "year X in the reign of King Y".

Answer 5

This whole "BC" "CE" started long after Jesus' time. In fact there was some error, because now we know Jesus was not born in 1C.E. (By the way, there was no Year 0)

Time went back infinity BCE.

Answer 6

We don't know for certain if Christ was born in AD 0; we can't determine the exact date.

The most common dating system in use at the time of Christ's birth was probably the Roman system (Year of the City). I don't know enough about the dating systems used at that time to be able to tell you much.

Edit: Please see the Wikipedia article on 'Anno Domini:' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_Domini

Answer 7

Hebrew 7:3 KJV Without father,without mother, without
descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life;
but made like unto the son of God; abideth a priest
continually.

Answer 8

It started at 1, albeit a dubious 1, as no-one is sure when Jesus was born. AD refers to the 'year of our lord', therefore you'd start at 1AD, the 1st year.

Answer 9

There was no year Zero. The next year after 1BC was 1AD. That's why you should celebrate the end of the decade / century / millennium at the end of the '0' year, not the end of the '9' year.