BC to BCE

LCarlson

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I would tend to agree with you on this one myself, and will make sure that we forward this to the Editorial staff for consideration. I think that style guides are slowly changing over to these terms... now, if all world cultures could agree on what year it is, we'd be set! ;P
 
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Since the old "B.C." stands for "Before Christ" and the old A.D. stands for "Anno Donimi" ("In the year of Our Lord" in Latin) I made the switch pretty much soon after the new B,C.E. ("Before the Common Era") and C.E. ("Common Era") were introduced. Mr. PC and all that. I honestly think they're kind of dumb abbreviations though. ("Common" to whom? Plus they're still based like the old A.D. and B.C. on the -- originally -- supposed birth year of Jesus, actually considered to be 4 B.C.E. nowadays.) One other problem is that C.E. and B.C.E are too similar with one having two letters and the other three. But I use 'em anyway. I do still see some people using the old style dates, even a few academics. But that's their problem.
 
hi. i just want to suggest using BCE and CE instead of BC and AD to years. it's more sciencey. and it's unfair for non-christian sects 😊

Good idea and I don't even believe the Bible Jesus existed. And why are we even using church dogma such as Before Christ and After Christ? The dude probably didn't even exist so we are basing our time on an illusion.
 
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Good idea and I don't even believe the Bible Jesus existed. And why are we even using church dogma such as Before Christ and After Christ? The dude probably didn't even exist so we are basing our time on an illusion.

I'm not a Christian but I would contend that Jesus definitely did exist. Have you ever actually read the Gospels? True they do recount some seemingly improbably miracles but they're also filled with realistic historical and personal details, not at all like typical myths and legends. Nobody could really have made this stuff up out of whole cloth, believe me. I keep running across this belief that Jesus never really existed and, frankly, it continues to seem absurd to me though I think I know where it's coming from. BTW, you can be an atheist and still believe in the reality of the "historical Jesus" (if you want to refer to him that way)....
 
I'm not a Christian but I would contend that Jesus definitely did exist. Have you ever actually read the Gospels? True they do recount some seemingly improbably miracles but they're also filled with realistic historical and personal details, not at all like typical myths and legends. Nobody could really have made this stuff up out of whole cloth, believe me. I keep running across this belief that Jesus never really existed and, frankly, it continues to seem absurd to me though I think I know where it's coming from. BTW, you can be an atheist and still believe in the reality of the "historical Jesus" (if you want to refer to him that way)....

Yes I was a Christian at one time and read the Bible through a few times. I was pretty much brought up with the Christian religion. If he was a real person why didn't he ever write anything himself? Not a line in the NT is his own writing.The cloth was found to be a forgery from around the 1400s. I suggest do a little more research on it. You have to remember it was just a story written by an elite force to control people. Have you ever heard of the Piso family?

It is like in the future people believing an actual Superman existed in the past. Jesus was pretty much a superhero or they call it the hero complex. I suggest checking out some Acharya S books. Check out the "Greatest Story Ever Sold" written by her. Do we now think a literal Zeus existed? Sure the Bible Jesus could be loosely based on some actual entitles that lived but it is pretty much obvious the Bible Jesus didn't exist. If you would like to debate this more go ahead and send me a message. I always found a good start to coming to find this is the "Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine written in the 1700s. A little excerpt from Age of Reason, Sure Thomas Paine I think thought he existed but in his book he connects very good dots.

How much or what parts of the books called the New Testament, were written by the persons whose names they bear, is what we can know nothing of; neither are we certain in what language they were originally written. The matters they now contain may be classed under two beads — anecdote and epistolary correspondence.

The four books already mentioned, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are altogether anecdotal. They relate events after they had taken place. They tell what Jesus Christ did and said, and what others did and said to him; and in several instances they relate the same event differently. Revelation is necessarily out of the question with respect to those books; not only because of the disagreement of the writers, but because revelation cannot be applied to the relating of facts by the person who saw them done, nor to the relating or recording of any discourse or conversation by those who heard it. The book called the Acts of the Apostles (an anonymous work) belongs also to the anecdotal part.
https://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/reason6.htm
 
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Yes I was a Christian at one time and read the Bible through a few times. I was pretty much brought up with the Christian religion. If he was a real person why didn't he ever write anything himself? Not a line in the NT is his own writing.The cloth was found to be a forgery from around the 1400s. I suggest do a little more research on it. You have to remember it was just a story written by an elite force to control people. Have you ever heard of the Piso family?

It is like in the future people believing an actual Superman existed in the past. Jesus was pretty much a superhero or they call it the hero complex. I suggest checking out some Acharya S books. Check out the "Greatest Story Ever Sold" written by her. Do we now think a literal Zeus existed? Sure the Bible Jesus could be loosely based on some actual entitles that lived but it is pretty much obvious the Bible Jesus didn't exist. If you would like to debate this more go ahead and send me a message. I always found a good start to coming to find this is the "Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine written in the 1700s. A little excerpt from Age of Reason, Sure Thomas Paine I think thought he existed but in his book he connects very good dots.

How much or what parts of the books called the New Testament, were written by the persons whose names they bear, is what we can know nothing of; neither are we certain in what language they were originally written. The matters they now contain may be classed under two beads — anecdote and epistolary correspondence.

The four books already mentioned, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are altogether anecdotal. They relate events after they had taken place. They tell what Jesus Christ did and said, and what others did and said to him; and in several instances they relate the same event differently. Revelation is necessarily out of the question with respect to those books; not only because of the disagreement of the writers, but because revelation cannot be applied to the relating of facts by the person who saw them done, nor to the relating or recording of any discourse or conversation by those who heard it. The book called the Acts of the Apostles (an anonymous work) belongs also to the anecdotal part.
https://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/reason6.htm

The fact that works like the so-called "synoptic Gospels" and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles were written down on the basis of several decades of what was clearly an "oral tradition" in apostolic circles does not make them any less "believable" to my mind. We also have all those letters by St. Paul who recounts his own personal experiences with the other apostles which would certainly included the stories about Jesus. Paul was a shrewd guy, learned in Judaism (despite his profession as tentmaker). I seriously doubt he would have bought into a completely fictional religion. Additionally, if the story was "made up" who made it up? A bunch of guys (the Apostles) sitting around with one of them saying, "Hey, I've got a great a idea! Let's start a new religion! And um. let's pretend there was this character Jesus who went around preaching and performing miracles....." Things just don't happen that way....
 

SHaines

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hi. i just want to suggest using BCE and CE instead of BC and AD to years. it's more sciencey. and it's unfair for non-christian sects 😊

Hey there,

The use of B.C. and A.D. in Editorial articles stems from our use of the AP Style of writing. Also, most readers understand the terms B.C. and A.D., but the terms Common Era and Before Common Era are not as ubiquitous.

As it turns out, we have an article on the terms from a few years ago that may be interesting for folks following this thread.

This may be something revisited down the road, but there are no immediate plans to change that specific item in the near-term.
 
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The fact that works like the so-called "synoptic Gospels" and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles were written down on the basis of several decades of what was clearly an "oral tradition" in apostolic circles does not make them any less "believable" to my mind. We also have all those letters by St. Paul who recounts his own personal experiences with the other apostles which would certainly included the stories about Jesus. Paul was a shrewd guy, learned in Judaism (despite his profession as tentmaker). I seriously doubt he would have bought into a completely fictional religion. Additionally, if the story was "made up" who made it up? A bunch of guys (the Apostles) sitting around with one of them saying, "Hey, I've got a great a idea! Let's start a new religion! And um. let's pretend there was this character Jesus who went around preaching and performing miracles....." Things just don't happen that way....

I just suggest doing a little more research on it. But either way it don't matter. Just through my own research I have found The New Testament is assembled in patterns related to stories taken from earlier sources such as Zoroastrian,Mithrain,Krishna,Buddhism and Egyptian and some others. Going through all this you can see that the Bible Jesus is a composite of different entities. One for example would be Apollinius of Tyna. You are free to believe what you want but I am just saying what I found and I know this is going from the topic so that is the last I will say about it.

To answer your question Constantine ordered the various religious sects to come together and create a single religion for Rome, a Universal religion that incorporated all of the aspects of the various religions, so that all could accept and subscribe to it. As far as I know an Elite family called the Piso family put the NT together.
 
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Don't know about the New Testament but archaeologists keep on finding places mentioned in the Old Testament as well as similar stories from Heredotus and other old Greek historians
 
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As long as you know what all four stand for, you shouldn’t have any problem comprehending. I read A LOT and see all four acronyms used all the time. I also read one magazine that prints their articles as written. Some people use the old style and some use the new. So it’s good to know what all four mean regardless of one’s beliefs.
 
If we go with BCE, then BC becomes the victim. If we go BC, then BCE becomes the victim. To solve this inequality, we simply use the conjunction “and” then they both become equal in their own right. BCE and BC simple no one's the victim.
 
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As long as you understand the time frame they’re talking about, it seems you could use either one and it would be understood. Same with AD and CE. I read one science magazine, among several , that uses whichever form the writer uses, instead of changing it to one or the other.