Eli5 why is 0 AD onwards called “The year of our lord” when Jesus was born in 6BC – 4BC?
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>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).
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