It was my understanding that the Birth of Jesus had to be earlier so it was politicially incorrect to date the time of His birth to when they had it, because then Herod would have been dead when Jesus was born and couldn’t have had the innocents under 2 years old killed. So the date was changed to make that be possible.
If this is correct or not I do not know.
This is what I was wondering. What makes the Jewish people so freaking special in this regard?
I’m a historian and I use BC/AD exclusively.
The way I see it, we (as society) had to pick a starting point for our calendar, and the (alleged) birthdate of the principal religious prophet of Western Civilisation is as good as any.
Being a bunch of touchy-feely tree-huggers about it 2,000 years later is, well, fucked up. I’m not a religious person, but even I just see the BC/AD thing as a convenient measuring stick with zero religious baggage whatsoever.
Then again, I’m not a huge fan of arbitrary, un-necessary change- which makes the conversations I have involving major Indian cities interesting, to say the least…
I can’t believe anyone can get offended by something so freakin’ trivial. I’m Jewish (though non practicing) and I’ve got some pretty devout folks in my family and I’ve never heard anyone mention this issue. I mean, people actually *internalize *these designations to the point that they resent using a term that refers to Christ / Christianity? Really? Because simply using the word “Christ” is somehow professing one’s devotion / belief? No offense intended but I can’t help but find that petty.
Because renaming BC/AD to BCE/CE reeks of sea kittens ?
I don’t care one way or the other, my issue is that the terms CE and BCE, as I was taught them (Common Era and Before Common Era) made no sense in reference to that particular date other than the birth of Christ, which was not something that made the world “one”.
If you’re going to set a demarcation date of what is “ancient” and what is not, and you further decide to call that date the division before and after something called the Common Era, then, imho, it should be something that actually brought some sort of commonality to the human experience. Like 1492 or somewhen…
I believe it was mention upthread that Jewish scholars in the 1700’s were the first to use this naming convention. And we always used BCE/CE in Hebrew school and to me it seems rather natural. I use them interchangeably but whenever there is a mainly Jewish audience I use BCE/CE.
No one is offended by anyone else’s use of BC/AD. The only people getting offended are those who can’t stand for other people NOT to say “BC/AD.”
I have no opinion on the matter (although I’m enjoying the vitriol that date-naming conventions is inspiring), but I always chuckle a little when the (Christian) church I sing at uses BCE and CE.
I suppose there’s a small chance that they do it to avoid the problem of the inaccurate dating of Jesus’ birth, but it’s more likely a legacy of the same orgy of political correctness that compelled them to remove every reference to Jesus’ gender in all the Christmas carols.
(That they still use the “Our Father” is a level of weirdness I’m not entirely prepared to consider.)
Those who use the “CE” convention didn’t set the demarcation date, they inherited it. It is not practical or realistic to try to set a whole new demarcation date.
If we are going sci-fi, a better date would be 1961, when Gagarin reached orbit. That strikes me as more fundamentally important than a particular piece of technology. A thousand years from now our antimatter/fusion/whatever using descendents might find it silly to orient their dating system according to an ancient technology that no one has used in centuries. But reaching the threshold of space is a fundamental step like life leaving the ocean.
I’m not sure what the significance of that first sentence is. Clearly some are offended enough that they don’t want to use the term themselves. They don’t want to use a descriptor that refers to Christ, seemingly for fear that it somehow validates a belief that they don’t share. Or at least that’s how I’m understanding it. Apologies if I’ve misinterpreted.
Also, I don’t think I’ve heard anyone in this thread express offense at others NOT using B.C/A.D. I know I certainly haven’t. It seems more so that some folks don’t see the necessity for the change, your excellent explanation not withstanding 
No disrespect to Jewish people, but outside the US and Israel (and, to a lesser extent, France and Canada) there aren’t any significant Jewish populations that I’m aware of.
There are vastly more Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Shinto practitioners in the universe than there are Jews and yet I don’t see them historically getting upset at the idea that the “BC” and “AD” dating conventions are in reference to a religious personage they either don’t believe in or assign a reduced capacity role to. (Yes, I know these religions also have their own dating systems as well)
Not all change is good or necessary. The whole “BCE/CE” thing fits into the “Bad and/or Un-necessary” category, IMHO. There’s nothing wrong with the BC/AD system, and suddenly deciding to change the name for no reason achieves nothing except starting fights and dividing people who should be working towards a common goal; ie understanding and preserving history.
You’re misunderstanding. Preferring not to personally use religion-specific devotional language is not the same as being offended by it, or “afraid” of it. They are certainly not offended by anyone else’s use of the convention, calling them “stupid” for using it or asking anyone not to use it.
Except for those who keep calling those who don’t use it “stupid.”
Why?
Look, there has been a lot of ink spilled on this issue in this thread, but it is all irrelevant and I’ll tell you why.
The opponents of BCE/CE argue two points: (1) changing calendar notations is trivial, genuinely offends no one, and is an avocation of professional malcontents, and (2) BCE/CE has perniciously infiltrated the world of academics, museums, pop history, journalism, &c. &c.
Focus carefully on the implication of these two premises–taken together, each and every opponent of BCE/CE in this thread has been making the other side’s case. Of course it is dumb to waste time arguing over this notation, so why can you hold your nose and use the BCE/CE notation now in vogue? Is it not rather because it is you who are the churlish members of the quote-unquote offenderati? If this change has taken hold (and if it is has not, why bring out the howitzer to swat at flies?), what else could be the motivation for the reactionary forces on display here?
What difference do their numbers make?
No one is trying to change anything.
Nobody is trying to stop you from saying “BC/AD.” No one is offended if you do. No one is trying to change the system. Some people just prefer not to personally use Christian devotional language. Why do you care if they don’t? How does it hurt you?
People in the US still won’t even accept the metric system after 300 years. You really think they’re going to go along with a whole new date numbering system?
Go ahead and try. See how far you get. It wouldn’t bother me personally, I just think it would be a waste of time to try to get everybody to accept and adapt to some whole new numbering system – especially the Christian offenderati. They can’t even stand for Jews to say “BCE” instead of “BC.”
I never heard of CE/BCE, I’ve only ever seen AD/BC used.
I’ve only come across it a few times since a few years ago. Until this thread I had no idea it was anything but a very recent development.
I see what you did there. 
For the purposes of this discussion, I don’t think it matters what most people think, since the BC/BCE designations are generally meaningless in everday life. However, I don’t think it would be impossible to get academics to accept AS and PS*, or whatever.
*Ante Sputnik and Post Sputnik
ETA: I learned about BC and BCE in a comparative religion class in… 1993 or so.