BC or BCE, AD or CE

As we approach a new year I notice a trend that has begun to become more evident since I first recognized it a decade or so ago. That trend involves a redefining of the identification of years – from the traditional BC/AD to the more recent BCE/CE. It is a trend that has expanded from 'scholarly' works to textbooks to Wikipedia. I have begun to wonder about ‘why the changeover’, and what the long-range impact could be.

Traditionally BC has referred to the phrase ‘Before Christ’, while AD referred to Anno Domini (In the Year of our Lord). The AD phraseology was first consistently used by Victor, bishop of Tonnenna, a North African Chronicler of the 7th century who was the author of celebrated chronicle from the creation of the world to the end of the year 566.

From what I can find, the phrase common era was first extensively used in the late 19th century.

What ar:e some of the arguments for and against the change in the use of terminology?

From what I could gather in my brief review, the basic reason for change is not:

• Increased accuracy – they are using the same year connotations


• Elimination of Christian references – actually many times CE is referred to as Christian Era. In addition, I can't help but wonder how many times BC/AD is thought of today with religious connotations? Oddly, I did find a lot of anti-Christian bias involved with the various defenses of the changeover.

Actually, many of the reasons listed for a change that I could find weren’t really reasons or rationale.

From what I could ascertain from reviewing a number of resources, the attempted changeover is basically one of political correctness – the Gregorian calendar dates are used world-wide on a commercial/industrial basis. Because of that, the people advocating change do not want to offend anyone with the religious background that is tied in with BC/AD.

However, one or two observations: The current system has been in use for over 1400 years, starting a small local region and eventually – especially during the last two centuries – spreading world-wide with the advent of European colonization and exploration. I don’t really see too many references to BC/AD in normal usage, and in textbooks I tend to see many more BC references. While the Gregorian calendar is used world-wide, don’t localities and nations still use their local calendars for other than international commerce? The year 2009 on the Gregorian calendar is reflected differently in our cultural groups around the world. (Muslim: 1430; Chinese: 4707 – year of the ox; Hebrew: 5769 to give a few example). Local cultures celebrate with local calendars.

My last thought on this topic: If it ain’t broke, why fix it? I’m not sure political correctness is a good long-term reason for change, as political correctness changes its definition with the breeze. This might only cause more confusion in the future as historians try to come to terms with dating events in an ‘acceptable’ manner.

By the way, the grammatically correct sequence for BC, CE, and BCE is after the date, while AD should appear before the date (AD 2009).

Essential question: Is a changeover of dating systems significant in our field?