When did we start counting years in our current calendar? Did Jesus die and people just said “ok we are now in 33AD and there will be 12 sections every year, each with around 30 days”.

Question

When did we start counting years in our current calendar? Did Jesus die and people just said “ok we are now in 33AD and there will be 12 sections every year, each with around 30 days”.

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Answer 1

People have been counting years in calendars long before Jesus. It was typically measured by whomever the reigning leader was – i.e. the 7th year of the reign of King Bob.

The modern calendar was created by the Catholic Church in the 5th century to better predict when Easter would be (as Easter is based on the lunar calendar rather than a fixed day of the year). Naturally, they used the birth of Christ as the starting point of this new calendar, and as the Catholic Church was very powerful, their calendar became the dominant one.

The individual months are based on the Roman calendar, tweaked over many centuries.