A request on dates - please use AD/BC as unit suffixes

[MonsGraupius]

When I wrote: The context of the famine was after Boudica’s final battle (probably in early AD62) so this is the first theory that fits the writings in the previous post I meant that the famine occurred in early AD62, NOT Boudica's last battle which as I have written in my book was around the end of summer AD61.

Just a request on dates

This mainly relates to how to write AD/BC ... but first let me outline why no sensible person should be using CE/8CE/BCE dates.

A few decades ago, as a "trendy" non-Christian I was all in favour of the BCE/CE dating .... that is until I tried some serious research reading texts relating to events around first century. Then I realised that on badly reproduced copies it was all too easy to confuse 138CE with 13BCE. ... I then realised that it was a daft idea invented without any thought for its use. "Common Era" is meaningless nonsense and in short it is daft idea, very poorly implemented so that it is confusing and it should be dumped in the dustbin of history.

But why CE? In every other sphere of life we recognise the original inventors of ideas, and whether or not you like it, it was the Christians who gave us our calendar. So just as we have "1 Watt", we ought to have some respect for the Christians, whose marvellous work gave us out calendar which is one of the greatest inventions in history!

Come on! If it happened more recently we'd have had some units like "2016 Christos...".

And furthermore, when I looked at the reason behind moving to CE, I found the idea that "it's a religious insult" is seeing offence where there is none. Christ (Christos) was a GREEK name which like many many names is made of up of a religious element. Take my own name "Michael". Like many similar names (Emmanuel) the -el relates to the HEBREW god. I don't see Christians considering using references to a Hebrew god as an insult to them!

Why BC? ... because it's now the defacto standard and ... and we ought to be grown up enough to know it's just letters. But if someone insists it must "mean something", it's easy to think of a meaning that is "PC". That's because the modern calendar of leap years effectively starting at around 1AD. If anyone did seriously object to the religious acronym, they could thing of BC as "Before Calendar" and "AD" as "after dates" (Because the modern version of regular leap years starts around 1AD, any date before 1AD needs to be converted to our modern calendar - so "1st March" 10BC is not the 1st of March in our modern calendar).

So, if you don't like 13 "before Christ" think of it as "13 Before Calendar"  ... and because no one knows when Christos was born, its even technically more correct.


Indeed, to be really really honest, what drove me to despair and common sense was trying to search for dates on google. So, e.g. searching for all texts with 62AD, requires searching for "AD62", "AD 62", "62AD", "62 AD" "A.D.62" "62 A.D". "62 A.D"., "Anno Domini 62", "62CE" "62 c.E". etc.

To show the complexity, here is a (partial) regex for dates:

(\d+)\s*([aAcC]\s*\.?\s*[dDeE]\s*\.?)|([aAcC]\s*\.?\s*[dDeE]\s*\.?)(\d+)|(\d+)\s*([bB]\s*\.?\s*[cC]\s*\.?)(?:\s*[eE]\s*\.?)?|((?:Anno\s+Domini)|(?:ANNO\s+DOMINI))\s+(\d+).*

It isn't ideal (it will accept 12A.E as a date - but you can test it out here: https://regex101.com/)

Serious writers seem to use AD/BC
In my experience searching for dates, I found that few serious (i.e.useful) writers use the "CE" dates ... I think the reason must be that serious researchers go back to the older classic which were written before the PC nonsense on dates and so they are comfortable with the BC/AD dating system.

And because we cannot go back and erase the dating system that has been used for centuries, the BC/AD dating system will always be with us, whereas the CE/8CE dating system is I think going into the dustbin of history.

However, there still remains the problem that those agreeing on AD/BC use them inconsistently with a variety of "dots" and spaces and placings which makes searching on google highly problematic. And it would be better to try to use the BC/AD dates in a consistent way.

After thinking about it a lot, I decided the best way forward would be to use AD/BC, but to "modernise" they system a bit so that we use them in the same way we use any other units in science. That is, without dots and as suffixes (but capitalised).

The reason I'm against prefixing AD, is because dates like AD62 will be read in a religious way as being short for "Anno Dominni... Then we get into the argument about whether it needs the dots ... that then triggers the debate about whether it is "the year of my lord" ... for non Christians and the kneejerk (silly) response of  CE/BCE debate which will not stop the confusion between dates like 128CE and 12BCE

So, please when writing dates around the first century, can we use AD, and BC as unit suffixes in the same way as we have km, ma, etc. i.e. NOT ACRONYMS and particularly not with dots and ideally not as prefixes.

[Fabricius Carbo]

I always use BCE so I can't comply.

[Nathan Ross]

serious researchers go back to the older classic which were written before the PC nonsense

Depends on your definition of 'serious' I guess: Edward Luttwak was using BCE/CE back in the 70s in The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire.

(so maybe it depends on how many years BPC ('Before PC') you want to go?)

It does seem to be on the wane a little nowadays, at least in English; most recent works using BCE/CE appear to be in the fields of Middle Eastern or particularly Jewish studies. For obvious reasons, perhaps...

Here's quite a lengthy debate on the subject from a few years ago:

Dating Systems

[MonsGraupius]

serious researchers go back to the older classic which were written before the PC nonsense

Depends on your definition of 'serious' I guess: Edward Luttwak was using BCE/CE back in the 70s in The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire.

(so maybe it depends on how many years BPC ('Before PC') you want to go?)

It does seem to be on the wane a little nowadays, at least in English; most recent works using BCE/CE appear to be in the fields of Middle Eastern or particularly Jewish studies. For obvious reasons, perhaps...

Here's quite a lengthy debate on the subject from a few years ago:

Dating Systems

It's just an observation, that when I've searched for dates, I've seldom found the information I need using CE or BCE. I think it may be that when I search this way, I'm looking for raw data - and people who use AD/BC tend to be those who are keen to give the "raw data" ... "warts and all" and without personal interpretation ... whereas those who use BCE/CE tend to be "PC" ... are the type of people who often change or edit the information for no particular reason except to suit what is currently PC.

Personally, I can't see the point of wasting time putting the "E" onto the end of BC ... because the E is redundant (and a waste of time) and all that adding the 'E' to BC does, is to make it potentially ambiguous between 12BCE and 128CE.

[Dan Howard]

Why change from one arbitrary system to another that is even more meaningless?

[Robert Vermaat]

I've never used the BCE/CE system because a) its use is purely pc and b) because it's not an improvement. But it's preferable over the BP system which changes every few decades.

[Dan D'Silva]

I remain baffled that people consider this a serious issue.

And to be honest, we're all peers here. (Ahem... mods and admins excepted.) I'm not feeling any compulsion to follow requests of such a trivial nature.

[Nathan Ross]

people who use AD/BC tend to be those who are keen to give the "raw data" ... without personal interpretation

Although, of course, BC/AD didn't come into common use until the 9th century or so, so the 'raw data' wouldn't be using either system!

All historical writing involves personal interpretation to some extent. Many people use BC/AD as it accords with older scholarship, which is reasonable but doesn't automatically make it more reputable! I use it myself just because I like the 'feel' of it...

people who often change or edit the information for no particular reason except to suit what is currently PC.

Any historical study will frame or interpret information in some way; that doesn't mean changing or distorting it to suit an overt political aim (although this sometimes happens, sadly - and not necessarily because of 'PC'...)

It's a generalisation, but I sometimes find writers who use BCE/CE can be a bit more critical in their thinking, maybe more inclined towards 'postmodern' methods, perhaps. This isn't a bad thing, and can be preferable to writers who rely too much on older studies and use BC/AD as a nod to 'common sense' or tradition. But it's good to maintain a balance!

[MonsGraupius]

Why change from one arbitrary system to another that is even more meaningless?

It's not a change ... but instead I'm finding more and more that its the status quo.

So rather than trying to change the status quo, I was trying to outline reasons or to give a rational reason for anyone of any religious view (or PC outlook) to use the status quo.

That way, we'll all benefit, because we'll be able to find text with specific dates - something which is currently difficult.

[Alanus]

Perhaps the writer should use whatever system suits his personality, academic audience, and peers. I like BC and AD, because the first girl I dated was Betty Cartwright and the best girl I dated was Annie Devlin.

[ValentinianVictrix]

I did question this very point when putting dates into my book, I believe it was agreed that I would use AD but put it before the date in question i.e. AD378.

I think the CE/BCE is a fairly modern convention which was not in use when I went to school in the 60's to the mid-70's.

[MonsGraupius]

Perhaps the writer should use whatever system suits his personality, academic audience, and peers. I like BC and AD, because the first girl I dated was Betty Cartwright and the best girl I dated was Annie Devlin.

I wonder why the religiously neutral PC people who insist on BCE don't also object to:-

Tīwesdæg, Woden'sday, Thor'sday, Feyer'sday, Sætern(es)dæg

Janus-ary
Februa is the Roman festival of purification
Mars-ch
Aphro(dites)
Maia (meaning "the great one") is the Italic goddess of spring,
Juno is the principle goddess of the Roman Pantheon
Julius & Augustus - those men made into god (like Christ)

Strange how the Christians lived for several millennia using Roman, Greek and Norse gods, but the PC crowd can't suffer one Judaeo-Christian one!

[panairjdde]

Strange how the Christians lived for several millennia using Roman, Greek and Norse gods, but the PC crowd can't suffer one Judaeo-Christian one!

Do you think the answer might lie in the fact that the Pagan religion has been dead for centuries while Christianity is alive and kicking?

[Robert Vermaat]

Strange how the Christians lived for several millennia using Roman, Greek and Norse gods, but the PC crowd can't suffer one Judaeo-Christian one!

Do you think the answer might lie in the fact that the Pagan religion has been dead for centuries while Christianity is alive and kicking?

No I wouldn't think so. Because at the time it was common practise to root out many signs of non-Christian religions. So one could expect that the names of days and months would also be altered. Yet they weren't.

[MonsGraupius]

Strange how the Christians lived for several millennia using Roman, Greek and Norse gods, but the PC crowd can't suffer one Judaeo-Christian one!

Do you think the answer might lie in the fact that the Pagan religion has been dead for centuries while Christianity is alive and kicking?

Christianity as we know it is just a combination of a lot of other religions from Greek, to Roman, to Hebrew, to Norse and e.g. Mithraism. E.g. when is the "sabbath"? It's not on Saturday - but on Sunday, the day of rest in Rome. When in Xmas day? On the 25th December - the day that was the solstice in Rome before they altered the calendar. Much of what we call "Christianity" is "pagan".

But the same is true of  Judaism - had you ever wondered why they worship in a Synagogue - from the Greek word meaning "assembly" - the answer is that by the time of the 1st Century, most people in Palestine spoke Greek and did so in their religious meetings. Palestine was very Greek, so much so that they incorporated a lot of Greek ideas into what is now called judaism.

So, the modern idea of a pure, authentic original "jewish religion" is like so many religions, very much a reinvention ... if you then look at this original "jewish" religion there were multiple gods, sacrifices ... it clearly took ideas from places like Canaan & as I said Greece... and it was basically what we would call "pagan" ... but even the modernisation of the religion with a single god was Egyptian in origin ... although Alexander also popularised it!!