Birth And Death Date Confusion

[Tarser]

There's something that is baffling me about birth and death dates. I am most likely being very stupid, but here's what I'm not understanding:

Someone born in 1960 and lives for thirty years has the dates 1960 - 1990

No problem with that!

But in reading about philosophers, it seems to me that they are dying before they are born! E.g,

Socrates 470 - 399 BCE
Plato 427 - 349
Aristotle 384 - 322

What is happening here? Why is 399 BCE later than 470 BCE etc?

[BlueScorpion]

The reason is that bce dates go backwards - for example 470bce is 470 years before christian era while 399 bce is only 399 years before christian era

[ukbod2015]

if you are taking the birth of Christ as zero year anything before that (BC) is technically a minus so the further you go back the bigger the minus gets.

[teacher1]

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=bc+and+ad+timeline&FORM=HDRSC2#!?q=bc+and+ad+timeline&view=detailv2&&id=97A1270B04527EA23D81586A5E69C7029B3025DF&;selectedIndex=3&ccid=IZCVlJ%2fu&simid=608032911536423052&thid=OIP.M219095949feeab813e6c6b54582dcfd4H0&mode=overlay

[Jackdaw33]

BCE and CE, denoting Before Common Era and Common Era are neologisms, coined by Jehovah's Witnesses and used by many non-christian communities. B.C. and A.D. are good enough for me.

[Peter Pedant]

agree with above

xc it goes from BC 1 to AD 1

Christ who was responsible for all this was born in the first year of our Lord AD 1 that is ! - at least that is what we were told at school

[Mosaic]

Ah Peter P - you cannot blame the Jewish magician for this. Blame the Venereal Bede, as he was the first wot dunnit.

[JackDunwoody]

These dates are Before Christ or Common era, so thet work backwads, not forwards

[Jackdaw33]

"Ah Peter P - you cannot blame the Jewish magician for this. Blame the Venereal Bede, as he was the first wot dunnit."

No, he wasn't. The system was invented by Dionysius Exiguus in AD 525.

[Tarser]

Thank you! I now fully understand it. How fascinating!

[Old_Geezer]

BCE (Before the Common Era) is the politically correct way to refer to what is commonly known here as BC. Because not everyone believes in Christ and his importance. And someone may get offended.

I have always maintained they missed a trick: they could have inserted a year 0 to correct the present system and thus have the numbers for BC and BCE 1 different. But they didn't have the "common" sense to do that.

[Marshwarble]

Are you telling me you've not heard of BC before now? Never read Asterix? Or heard about Julius Caesar?

[fiction-factory]

Has anyone ever found a coin with a BC date on it?

[fiction-factory]

I think a lot of these BC dates are educated guesses anyway. I read somewhere that even dates from around 1000 a years ago are disputed by some historians who say some commonly quoted dates from history may be 50 years or so out

[jourdain2]

f-f In the absence of brilliant fortune-tellers, I don't think that anyone knew that Christ was due to be born in the year 0!!! :)

[jourdain2]

^^^ Sorry, Yr. 1.

[Jackdaw33]

Apparently Dionysius didn't get it quite right. Other written evidence suggests Jesus was born sometime between 6 and 4 B.C.

[fiction-factory]

Sorry jourdain2- maybe I should have signposted my weak attempt at humour with an emoticon of some sorts

[Peter Pedant]

and .... Dionysius Exiguus counted wrong
wh is why I shied away from the dates of the Ministry and entry in Jerusalem let alone the crucifixion as they are not agreed

Best guess for the Star of Bethlehem is a conjunction of two stars whose annniversary was noted in the Times a few days ago

so how did they date ( if they wanted ) things before that ?

Oxyrhynch Papyri - etous ab' kaisaros

( in the ( twelve) of the Emperor ) but then you have to work out which one it was as they all shared Augustus for a start

[Peter Pedant]

// I read somewhere that even dates from around 1000 a years ago are disputed //

yup - in 2000 a tree-hugging Beeb researcher earnestly asked a historian what Anglo-Saxons ( or whatevr they were in England then ) how they celebrated the first millenium, and he answered:
Nothing - No one really knew it was.

At that time it was possible that there was only one contemporary record being compiled in England ( = only one original of the Anglo Saxon chronicle and the rest of them were copied afterwards )

865 - the entry is 'nothing' and 864 was "poor harvests"

The Dark ages - they were Dark, they were

[Hypognosis]

@Peter_Pedant

//( in the ( twelve) of the Emperor ) but then you have to work out which one it was as they all shared Augustus for a start//

By analogy, I gather there is controversy regarding whether upper, middle and lower ancient Egypt each had their own pharoah, running concurrently, overlapping unenvenly and occasionally transitioning to a unified Egypt, under a single Pharoah, later splitting again and generally pickling any attempt by an outsider, in Bishop Usher's time period to piece it all together again from fragmented written records, bearing only regnal date symptoms.

I cannot remember whether this threatens to telescope the notorious 6000 years of earth's existence to an even shorter period or if it lengthens it, after all the errors are sorted out.