question on dates b.c to ad

[Zim]

Its common era. You can call it 'Christian' era but until 33 CE, Christianity didn't exist. It was just a bunch of Jews that thought Jesus was the Messiah. It wasn't until 33 CE when (If you belive in Christianity) that the Jewish law was nulled by the covenant between Jesus and his disciples for the Kingdom that the old testament always talks about.

I don't call it anything. I've never used CE or BCE in any paper I've written, nor in any conversation. I think if anything it's arrogant to call the time since the birth of a religious figure the "common" era (making the time before that the....uncommon era? ). At least the AD/BC dating system has an overtly religious basis, rather than a sneakily implied one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era Wikipedia used to claim that CE and BCE have stood for Christian/Before Christian Era. They seem to have since changed to stating that's just a result of a popular misconception about the meanings of the acronym.

I always thought that AD meant after death ....

I used to think that when I was younger. Never even thought about what that would mean for the 30 odd years between his death and birth.