As people have tracked history, they created their own ways of keeping dates. Only a few hundred years after the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, faith in Him had spread into northern Africa, across the Roman empire, and the Middle East. For those who had experienced hundreds of years of persecution, they did not enjoy tracking time by the calendar of their oppressors, and saw the coming of Christ as the most important moment in history.
Anno Domini
Different civilizations have marked the passage of time throughout its existence; it did not start with the Roman Empire. Usually, particularly in the ancient times, a people group tracked history based on their own culture. It would be based on their own understanding of the origin of their people, of key events in their civilization’s history, and their perspective on what the most important world events were.
Anno Domini
While Christians are always looking for the return of Christ, there have been periods of time where people believed His return was imminent. Some track the appearances of special moons, some look at wars in certain regions of the world, and others dissect the Book of Revelation over and over again.
Matthew 24:36 - “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.”
Matthew 25:13 - “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.”
Revelation 22:7 - “Behold, I am coming quickly! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”
One of the earliest documented uses of an alternative to AD was in 1615. Mathematician and scientist Johannes Kepler wrote in a book, "annus aerae nostrae vulgaris” which translated to “year of our common era.” Vulgar use to be a term which referred to things that were common, rather than lewd or inappropriate. Kepler was a Protestant, so He was not intending to use this term as an alternative to the AD and BC systems of dating.
Over time, particularly in the 20th century, the term Common Era arose as a way to track time without acknowledging the reality of the life of Jesus Christ. Instead of tracking the time before the Common Era as the time Before Christ (BC), it became Before Common Era (BCE). The general justifications for this system include that the Roman Empire united the western world into a common way of thinking, that imposing a Christian calendar on non-Christians is imperialistic or theocratic, and that it is more inclusive to use this terminology. However, this system of describing the calendar is no different than AD and BC. They are just substitutions for the same way of dating.
Sources
Declercq, Georges. Anno Domini The Origins of the Christian Era. Ann Arbor: the University of Michigain Press, 2008.
The Roman World 44BC- AD 180
The Easter Computes and the Origins of the Christian Era
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