Common Era Totally Explained

Common Era, also known as Current Era or Christian Era, abbreviated CE,
    is a designation for the period of time beginning with year 1 of the Gregorian calendar. An earlier date is then designated BCE, described as "Before the Common, Current, or Christian Era".
   The numbering of years is identical to the numbering in the Anno Domini system, neither system using a year zero.
   The only difference between "BC/AD" and "BCE/CE" is that the term Common Era doesn't use the religious titles for Jesus ("Lord" and "Christ") that are explicit in "anno Domini" and "before Christ". Originating among Christians as early as 1716 (at first in Latin), Common Era notation has been adopted by many non-Christians, and also by some Christians wanting to be sensitive to non-Christians. The use of BCE and CE has been criticized by some who favor the AD/BC system as being "the result of secularization" and "political correctness". The abbreviation BCE, just as with BC, always follows the year number. Unlike AD, which traditionally precedes the year number, CE always follows the year number (if context requires that it be written at all). Thus, the current year is written as in both systems (or, if further clarity is needed, as CE, or as AD ), and the year Socrates died is represented as 399 BCE (the same year that's represented by 399 BC in the AD/BC system). The abbreviations are sometimes written with small capital letters, or with periods (for example, "BCE" or "C.E.").

Origins

The practice of dating years based on either Jesus' birth or the Annunciation, when Archangel Gabriel foretold Jesus' birth to his mother, Mary, was devised in the year 525 by the monk Dionysius Exiguus, who named it "anno Domini" ("in the year of the Lord"). Two centuries later, the Anglo-Saxon historian Bede used another Latin term ("ante incarnationis dominicae tempus" — "the time before the Lord's incarnation"), equivalent to the English "before Christ", to identify years before the first year of this era. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, even popes continued to date documents according to regnal years, and usage of AD only gradually became more common in Europe from the eleventh to the fourteenth century.
   The term "Common Era" originally appeared in Latin as Era vulgaris (from vulgus, the common people). (The abbreviations "EV" has even been adopted by some groups.). A 1716 book by Dean Humphrey Prideaux says, "The vulgar era, by which we now compute the years from his incarnation." In 1835, in his book Living Oracles, Alexander Campbell, wrote: "The vulgar Era, or Anno Domini; the fourth year of Jesus Christ, the first of which was but eight days" and also refers to the common era as a synonym for vulgar era. In its article on General Chronology, the 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia uses the sentence: "Foremost among these (dating eras) is that which is now adopted by all civilized peoples and known as the Christian, Vulgar or Common Era, in the twentieth century of which we're now living."
   The phrase "common era" was used with its modern meaning at least as early as 1770. Sometime in the 1800s, "vulgar" came to mean "crudely indecent" and the Latin word was replaced by its English equivalent, "common". During the 1800s, the phrase "common era", in lower case, was frequently used in a generic sense, not necessarily to refer to the Christian Era, but to any system of dates in common use throughout a civilization. Thus, "the common era of the Jews," "the common era of the Mahometans," "the common era of the foundation of Rome." When it did refer to the Christian Era, it was sometimes qualified, for example, "the common era of the Nativity of Our Lord" or "the common era of the birth of our Saviour."
   Some Jewish academics were already using the BCE abbreviation by the mid-1800's, such as in 1856, when Rabbi and historian, Morris Jacob Raphall used the abbreviation in his book, Post-Biblical History of The Jews

Other associations

Usage of the original Latin term Era Vulgaris and the idea that it originally signified a decadent age that rejects morality persists in some circles. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the phrase became incorporated into Satanism and some forms of neo-paganism because of its alleged designation of an amoral age and its alleged rejection of "Christ". For example, some followers of Aleister Crowley use abbreviations of Era vulgaris as replacements for BC and AD. The third essay in the Satanic Bible presents the idea of the New Satanic Age that borrows from the idea of the Era vulgaris.

Usage

The terms "Common Era", "Anno Domini", "Before the Common Era" and "Before Christ" can be applied to dates that rely on either the Julian calendar or the Gregorian calendar. Modern dates are understood to be in the Gregorian calendar, but for older dates writers should specify the calendar used. Dates in the Gregorian calendar have always used the Common Era, but over the millennia a wide variety of eras have been used with the Julian calendar.
Although Jews have their own Jewish Calendar, they often find it convenient to use the Gregorian Calendar as well. The reasons for some using Common Era notation are described below:

Jews don't generally use the words "A.D." and "B.C." to refer to the years on the Gregorian calendar. "A.D." means "the year of our L-rd," and we don't believe Jesus is the L-rd. Instead, we use the abbreviations C.E. (Common or Christian Era) and B.C.E. (Before the Common Era).

Indeed, Common Era notation has also been in use for Hebrew lessons for "more than a century".
   Some American academics in the fields of education and history have adopted CE and BCE notation although there's some disagreement. The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, which is the leading publishing body of the Jehovah's Witnesses, uses CE and BCE exclusively in its publications. More visible uses of Common Era notation have recently surfaced at major museums in the English-speaking world: The Smithsonian Institution prefers Common Era usage, though individual museums are not required to use it. Furthermore, several style guides now prefer or mandate its usage. Even some style guides for Christian churches prefer its use: for example, the Episcopal Diocese Maryland Church News.
   In the United States, the usage of the BCE/CE notation in textbooks is growing. by the Norton Anthology of English Literature, and by the United States Naval Observatory. Others have taken a different approach. The US-based History Channel uses BCE/CE notation in articles on non-Christian religious topics such as Jerusalem and Judaism and uses BC (but neither CE nor AD) in other cases. Whereas, in June 2006, the Kentucky State School Board reversed its decision that would have included the designations BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era) in referring to dates.
   In some formerly Communist, predominantly Christian societies, the designation New Era (or Our Era) was encouraged by Communist authorities to replace BC and AD. In Bulgaria, for example, пр.н.е. (преди новата ера, before the new era, or преди нашата ера, before our era) and н.е. (от новата ера, of the new era, or от нашата ера, of our era) are still widely used by atheists/agnostics instead of traditional пр.Хр. (преди Христа, BC) and сл.Хр. (след Христа, after Christ), which were unofficially reinstituted after the Communist period. The Chinese use the term "Common Era (公元)."

Arguments for and against usage of BCE notation

A range of arguments exist both for and against the use of CE and BCE in place of AD and BC.

Support

Supporters of Common Era notation promote it as a religiously-neutral notation suited for cross-cultural use.
Arguments given for changing to the Common Era designation include:

The label Anno Domini is almost certainly inaccurate; "scholars generally believe that Christ was born some years before A.D. 1, the historical evidence is too sketchy to allow a definitive dating."

It is simple to change from BC/AD to BCE/CE notation, since the years are numbered identically in both (for example, 33 BC becomes 33 BCE), Documents with years that don't have AD designation don't need to be changed at all (for example, 1066 remains 1066 in AD and in CE systems).

Both BCE and CE are used as suffixes, unlike BC/AD where BC is used as a suffix and AD as a prefix. This can be beneficial for computer usage.

Evidence that AD and BC have not lost their religious significance is the fact that much of the opposition, some of it intense, to switching to usage of CE and BCE has been on religious grounds.

Opposition

Efforts to replace AD/BC notation with CE/BCE notation have given rise to opposition. Arguments against the Common Era designation include:

While a person using BC/AD may not hold Christian beliefs, the calendar itself has Christian roots. The substitution of BCE/CE for BC/AD can be perceived as offensive.

Since the calendar in use has Christian roots, the alteration of BC/AD to BCE/CE partially effaces an important contribution of Christianity to world culture.

The use of BCE/CE may be seen as a type of intolerance in its own right, as non-Christians seek to remove reference to the religious figure upon whom the calendar's years are based.

The BCE/CE promotion distracts from the adoption of the system already used by astronomers, for example 0 for 1 BC, -1 for 2 BC, etc., which does resolve this problem and doesn't use any of the contentious acronyms.

"If we do end by casting aside the A.D./B.C. convention, almost certainly some will argue that we ought to cast aside as well the conventional numbering system itself, given its Christian basis."

It is inconsistent to remove this "religious" reference from our nomenclature and not remove other religiously derived words such as the days of the week and months of the year which are named after various pagan deities: January = Janus' month, Wednesday = Wotan's day, Thursday = Thor's day, Friday = Freya's day, et cetera.

The use of identifiers which have common spellings is more ambiguous than the use of identifiers with divergent spellings. Both C.E. and B.C.E. have in common the letters "C.E.", which is more likely to cause confusion than identifiers with clearly different spelling.

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