[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] BC vs BCE era names

[Andrew Gray]

On 05/09/06, Neil Harris <neil at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> > On 9/5/06, Guettarda <guettarda at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Actually one of the major issues in the dispute is whether BC/AD violates
> >> NPOV because it requires Wikipedia to make an assertion the Jesus is the
> >> Messiah/God.  BCE/CE merely describes the condition, and thus does what
> >> the
> >> NPOV policy asks.
> >>
> >
> >
> > No, it merely requires our readers to assume Jesus was born in the year 0.
> > The dating method doesn't state anything about his supposed
> > God/Messiah-ness.
> >
> > Mgm
> >
>
> Except, of course, that...
>
> ...no-one should believe that Jesus was born in year zero, since there
> was no year zero in the Anno Domini scheme, that no-one used the Anno
> Domini scheme until the middle of the sixth century CE, that the best
> known estimates for Jesus' birth put it round about 4 BCE, and that CE
> and BCE mean "Common Era" and "before the Common Era" respectively.
>
> Perhaps we should just use  TAI or JD(UT1), and eliminate all ambiguity.

There was someone who, in all seriousness, wanted us to get around the
AD/CE thing by converting to the Holocene Era system:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_calendar

(Carnildo's comment was that we should just go with AUC, so as not to
"piss off the bible literalists"...)

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk