So I’ve tried googling this before and I am still so stupid and confused like my brain cannot wrap around how to read these different abbreviations for time and what they actually mean.
The easiest is B.P. (Before present/1950) because I can just do the calculation to turn that into C.E. (Current Era – so like saying 2023 CE is right now, right?), but how do these ways of expressing time translate to one another?
Like for example, A.D. (“in the year of the lord”, but does this translate to C.E.? Are these the same?) 500 vs 500 B.C. (Before Christ? I’m not religious so idk what this really means irl). How are these different and how do they translate into B.P. And C.E. terms? How can I remember which one to use? Explain it to me like I’m 5 and like it’s my first day on the fucking planet. Thank you!
In: 54
Historically, our calendar system was based on an event that happened 2023 years ago [1], the birth of Jesus Christ. So we called positive years “after Jesus” and negative years “before Jesus.” [2]
Except…we abbreviated “after Jesus” as “AD” [3] and “before Jesus” as “BC” [4].
Some people are uncomfortable with the religious aspect of “AD” and “BC.” So they proposed instead the name “Common Era” for the beginning of the calendar system everyone uses. So basically:
– “CE” (non-religious) = “AD” (religious)
– “BCE” (non-religious) = “BC” (religious)
So for example:
– The current year is 2023 CE, or 2023 AD.
– Julius Caesar was killed in 44 BCE, or 44 BC.
[According to Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era) the CE / BCE abbreviations have been around since the 1700’s. But the CE / BCE abbreviations only started to become popular around 2000-2005 or so. Before then, most textbooks and papers would use AD / BC.
[1] The people who first decided to number years this way tried their best to figure out when the historical event occurred, but they were off by a couple years. But by the time people realized the mistake, too many people were using the calendar system and the mistake couldn’t be fixed.
[2] In response to /u/amazingmikeyc comment, it would be more accurate to say “After Jesus’ birth” and “Before Jesus’ birth”, but I want to keep the main text of my answer short and simple. So this goes in a footnote.
[3] “AD” stands for “anno domini”, that means “after Jesus” in Latin.
[4] “BC” stands for “before Christ.”
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