On 01/14/2014 06:36 PM, Joseph M Gwinn wrote:
The problem was religious - nobody was going to have Christ born in the
year zero.
Sorta. This is another example of a system that grew, not designed.
Dionysius Exiguus came up with the AD system when he replaced a lunar
table that ended with a year termed Diocletian 247 with a new table
that started with a year AD 532. So you can claim with some
justification there was no year 531. :)
The term BC came about from Bede, in the 730's or so, I forget
the exact date, my copy of Bede is at the office.
Complicating matters is that AD 1 isn't thought to be
the year that Christ was born (neglecting the fact that no one
knows exactly when he was born, and there can be about a four
year error), but AD 1 is year AFTER Christ was born. So that
gets even more complicated, does it make sense to say
that Christ was born in 1 BC? Or on Dec 25, year 0?
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