[OneWingedShark]

While the Crucifixion is certainly a pivotal moment (Jesus paying the price of Sin), I have come to believe that the Resurrection* is the central point of Christianity — the Resurrection is proof that Jesus is who He claimed to be [God], and that He has life in Himself and it can therefore be reasoned that, as the God of Life, He can [and will] raise us from the dead at the appropriate time, and that He can forgive sin — in short, the Resurrection means that Our God Lives.

* Note that the Resurrection makes zero sense if Jesus did not die at His crucifixion.

[null and void]

Which brings me to one of my hobby horses:

We already agree that our calendar is wrong, off by anywhere from 2 to 16 years, depending on who’s doing the reckoning, and further in error because of the absence of a year zero.

The more fundamental point is that God did not intend us to mark His years by the birth of Jesus.

If He had intended this we would have a Biblical fixing of the date.

Further, the day of Jesus’ birth is unremarkable as all men are born.

However, very few return from the dead, that event is remarkable, and it is the defining moment of Christianity, the very moment of proof that his sacrifice was not in vain. And the Bible gives a precise reference for when this happened!

Clearly this was the date the calendar was supposed to start!

For extra points, this makes our calendar off by anywhere from 17 to 30 years. That makes this something like Holy Year 1997 to Holy Year 1984, giving us anywhere from 3 to 16 years to get our affairs in order before the real end of the millennium...

[HiTech RedNeck]

It has double meaning (at least). Not just raising from physical death as we know it, but from spiritual death, our default fallen condition that we were all born in. The first one will be some time in the future. The second one can be seen happening NOW.