I’ve never heard of years being numbered according to the destruction of the Temple. We don’t need it. The Jewish system has its own year numbering. In that numbering, we are today in Tashas (using the old Gimatria - counting using letters, where Aleph is 1, Beit - 2… Yod is 10, Kaf, the next letter is 20, Lamed (the next) 30… Kof is 100, Resh is 200, Shin 300 and Tav, the 22nd and last letter is 400.). This translates into 770. But wait! There is a (usually omitted) thousands “digit”, making it HaTashas - 5770.
Problem is - this system counts from the “creation of the world”, so there isn’t any form of “Before the Count” (which is what I always though BC meant, actually. That’s how we call the Xtian years - Before the Count and After the Count. Religious Jews often call it Before/After THEIR Count).
So most of us just stick to the normal christain count…
(this comment relates to the column at http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a940930.html)
(edited to fix link: please remember to include a space both before and after the text of the URL)
[Edited by Arnold Winkelried on 07-26-2000 at 09:05 AM]