Eli5 why is 0 AD onwards called “The year of our lord” when Jesus was born in 6BC – 4BC?
In: 0
Because the year system wasn’t made until 525 and not in common use for centuries after that. It’s the reckoning that Dionysius Exiguus thought was most accurate.
The world didn’t just stop using their existing dating systems because some guy was born.
First, there’s no year 0AD. The year goes from 1BC to 1AD.
Secondly, it’s not like they started counting right when Jesus was born. The Anno Domini system was developed only 500 years later by a monk named Dionysius Exiguus, and it didn’t even catch on until about 300 years later. Sure, hundreds of years later historians figured out he might have been off by a few years, but by now it’s too late to fix anything.
>why is 0 AD onwards called “The year of our lord”
That is not the case, 0 AD does not exist, and neither does 0 BC. Our calendar goes from 1 BC directly to 1 AD
The system of naming years was created by the monk Dionysius Exiguus in what is today 525 AD. He tried to calculate back when Jesus was born and the result is the year we use in our calendar. The 0 as a number did not exist in Europe at the time, it was a Roman number that was used that do not have a 0 so there is a year 0.
Modern scholars do not agree with the year he determined to be when Jesus was born. It would just be confusing to change our yeas system so it is not done.
He used the phrase “anno Domini nostri Jesu Christi” which is Latin for “in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ”. It has been shortened to just “anno Domini” AD and is often expressed as “in the year of our lord” leaving out Jesus Christ.
BC stands for before Christ and is a practice in English, the Latin forms are Ante Christum natum (ACN) or Ante Christum (AC).
Jesus was both born in the reign of Herod and during the census of Quirinius, which isn’t possible.
They had to count backwards to a year where the Passover full moon fell on a Friday, then subtract 33.5 years to estimate his birthday. 30 years old when he started his ministry, and dying 3.5 years later.
Of course, this introduces a few problems. It indicates Jesus was born 6 months from March, which is around September.
Not to mention that Passover can fall on any day of the week; so, it’s possible to have two Sabbaths in one week, which casts doubt on the idea he died on Friday. The Mary’s prepared funeral spices between Sabbaths (Luke 23:56; Mark 16:1). The first Sabbath was called a high day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (John 19:31; Leviticus 23:6-7). That would suggest they needed to count backwards to a year where the Passover full moon fell on a Wednesday then subtract 33.5 years.
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