MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
On 9/5/06, Guettarda <guettarda(a)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:
(Carnildo's comment was that we should just go with AUC, so as not to
"piss off the bible literalists"...)
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk