Biblical Dating: Deciphering the BC and AD Timeline

Greetings listeners. Do you have any issues with dating? No, not the Match. com kind of dating. I mean the identification of a point in time kind of dating. In discussing time in the Bible we say things like the kingdom of Israel was divided in 931 BC, or Paul's first missionary journey began around AD 47. Have you ever wondered what the BC and the AD mean when dating events in the Bible? Stay tuned to this episode of the Bible Basics Podcast where we'll take a quick dive into this common, though sometimes misunderstood, aspect of biblical history and chronology. Well, welcome everyone. I'm your host, Jacqui Adewole, and this is the Bible Basics Podcast, where weekly, we break down the Bible into understandable bite-sized chunks.

What are BC and AD? Well, BC and AD are labels used to count the number of years. BC stands for before Christ and represents 500 years before Christ's birth. AD comes from the Latin term Anno Domini, which is Latin for "in the year of the Lord. Ad applies to years following the birth of Jesus. It doesn't mean after death, like some think. So AD 200 translates to 200 years after Christ's birth. Now how does this dating system work? Well, think of time as a number line All the years that come before Christ, or BC, are counting down to his birth, similar to negative numbers on the number line in math. So you'll notice that the years with larger numbers in BC happened before years with smaller numbers before years with smaller numbers. All the years in AD or after the birth of Jesus go up or get higher. These are like positive numbers on a number line, so numbers get larger as we move forward in time.

The history of BC/AD the use of Anno Domini or AD, dates back to the 6th century, introduced by a monk in Rome named Dionysus Exiguus. He came up with the idea of dividing the timeline based on the birth of Chris t. He developed this system while constructing a table to determine what date Easter fell on for a series of future years. The question of when exactly the resurrection should be commemorated was one of the chief concerns of theologians at this time during the Middle Ages. But in all of his exploring of dates and calendars, he became increasingly dissatisfied with the common designation for years as being AD, meaning after Diocletian. Diocletian was a Roman emperor who had instigated a major persecution of Christians during his rule. So having Christians use a calendar honoring a man who tried to eradicate Christianity. No way, not on Dionysus' watch. So he decided to keep the AD abbreviation, but instead of having it mean the years after the start of Diocletian's rule, he had them signify the years following Christ's birth instead, the birth of Christ being the most important event in history. He designated AD to stand for the Latin phrase Anno Domini, meaning in the year of our Lord.

One interesting side note there are various perspectives among theologians and historians over Jesus's birth year. Some scholars stick with Dionysus' AD 1, while others believe he was born between 6 BC and 4 BC. The term BC comes from Saint Bede, an English monk In AD 731,. He used the term BC in some of his writings to identify years before AD. Bede simply went with the English language designation of BC to mean before Christ. Because of his high ranking as a scholar, he's known as the father of English history. This designation stuck.

Now here are three important points about BC and AD to keep in mind. First, when writing the year, BC should appear after the numerical year, while AD should appear before it, such as 1100 BC and AD 1066. Second, you'll often see recent years written without an abbreviation. That means it's most likely to be AD. And thirdly, there is no year zero in this counting system. The year before Jesus was born is labeled as 1 BC and is immediately followed by AD 1, the first year of his birth. So now we know this AD/BC dating convention was first suggested in the 6th century AD. However, it was many centuries later before it was adopted as a global standard and used by governments, historians and Bible scholars alike.

Now let's apply this understanding of dating conventions to biblical timelines. By familiarizing ourselves with these abbreviations, we can better interpret the chronology of the Bible and appreciate the historical context in which its events unfolded. When we encounter dates associated with Old Testament events such as 386 BC, we know it signifies a date before the birth of Jesus Christ. In this case, it was the date of Israel's return from Babylonian exile. As we progress through biblical history and enter the New Testament period, dates like AD 70 indicate 70 years after the birth of Jesus Christ. This was the date of the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem. As a quick test, let's consider the captivity of the southern kingdom Judah in 586 BC and the captivity of the northern kingdom, israel in 722 BC. Which kingdom fell first, if you said the Northern Kingdom went into captivity first. You would be right. The Northern Kingdom, israel, was captured by the Assyrians before Judah went into Babylonian captivity, 136 years later.

Now, besides BC and AD, you might come across the terms BCE, which means before a common era, and CE, for a common era. These correspond to the same dates as BC and AD, but it's a secular way of saying it. The 20th century change is simply one of semantics. That is, AD 100 is the same as 100 CE. The number remains the same. All that changes is the label of this change from BC / AD to BCE and CE, The advocates of this change from BC/AD to BCE/CE say the new designations avoid religious connotations. The irony is that what separates BCE from CE is still the birth of Jesus Christ.

As we bring this episode to a close, I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to you listeners for accompanying me on this exploration of dating with BC and AD. I hope that what you've learned today will deepen your appreciation for historical context as we study the Bible and biblical chronology. If you found this episode helpful, informative or inspirational in any way, would you please share with someone you know who needs to hear it. You can do that by sharing the podcast website bible-basics. org, or you can click on the share button right where you're listening now. For those of you listening on YouTube, go ahead and like, subscribe and leave us a comment. In closing, may the grace and peace of God be with you now and always.