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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Question about timeline | Bible general Archive 2 | mrhearing | 114125 | ||
If Christ was born around year 6 or 5 BC, why is the calendar we currently use not be started at Christ Birth, ie now should be around 1999AD- Can any one help me |
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2 | Question about timeline | Bible general Archive 2 | Suede67 | 114126 | ||
MrHearing, Good question, here's a very brief answer, hope it helps. The adoption of the birth of Christ as the initial epoch of the Christian calendar. This epoch was established by the sixth century scholar Dionysius Exiguus, who was compiling a table of dates of Easter. An existing table covered the nineteen-year period denoted 228-247, where years were counted from the beginning of the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian. Dionysius continued the table for a nineteen-year period, which he designated Anni Domini Nostri Jesu Christi 532-550. Thus, Dionysius' Anno Domini 532 is equivalent to Anno Diocletian 248. In this way a correspondence was established between the new Christian Era and an existing system associated with historical records. What Dionysius did not do is establish an accurate date for the birth of Christ. Although scholars generally believe that Christ was born some years before A.D. 1, the historical evidence is too sketchy to allow a definitive dating. Given an initial epoch, one must consider how to record preceding dates. Bede, the eighth-century English historian, began the practice of counting years backward from A.D. 1. In this system, the year A.D. 1 is preceded by the year 1 B.C., without an intervening year 0. Because of the numerical discontinuity, this "historical" system is cumbersome for comparing ancient and modern dates. Today, astronomers use plus 1 to designate A.D. 1. Then plus 1 is naturally preceded by year 0, which is preceded by year minus 1. Since the use of negative numbers developed slowly in Europe, this "astronomical" system of dating was delayed until the eighteenth century, when it was introduced by the astronomer Jacques Cassini, 1740. Even as use of Dionysius' Christian Era became common in ecclesiastical writings of the Middle Ages, traditional dating from regnal years continued in civil use. In the sixteenth century, Joseph Justus Scaliger tried to resolve the patchwork of historical eras by placing everything on a single system ,Scaliger, 1583. Instead of introducing negative year counts, he sought an initial epoch in advance of any historical record. His numerological approach utilized three calendrical cycles: the 28-year solar cycle, the nineteen-year cycle of Golden Numbers, and the fifteen-year indiction cycle. The solar cycle is the period after which weekdays and calendar dates repeat in the Julian calendar. The cycle of Golden Numbers is the period after which moon phases repeat approximately on the same calendar dates. The indiction cycle was a Roman tax cycle. Scaliger could therefore characterize a year by the combination of numbers S,G,I, where S runs from 1 through 28, G from 1 through 19, and I from 1 through 15. Scaliger noted that a given combination would recur after 7980 (equals 28 X 19 X 15) years. He called this a Julian Period, because it was based on the Julian calendar year. For his initial epoch Scaliger chose the year in which S, G, and I were all equal to 1. He knew that the year 1 B.C. was characterized by the number 9 of the solar cycle, by the Golden Number 1, and by the number 3 of the indiction cycle, i.e., (9,1,3). He found that the combination (1,1,1) occurred in 4713 B.C. or, as astronomers now say, -4712. This serves as year 1 of Scaliger's Julian Period. It was later adopted as the initial epoch for the Julian day numbers. |
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Questions and/or Subjects for Bible general Archive 2 | Author | ||
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cryst9m | ||
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babyblue | ||
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angst33 | ||
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Turnip | ||
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IllaNindo | ||
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sandstorm | ||
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SonSpired | ||
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mrhearing | ||
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mrhearing | ||
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mrhearing | ||
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Suede67 |