Which, of course, is why they all use the Christ as 0-year marker in their calendaring system as opposed to the Jewish calendar, the Mayan calander, the Japanese calender, the Muslim calendar, etc.
Try again. They just didn't like being stared in the face with a constant reminder of Christ every time they wrote down a date, so they took the same calender, the same 0-year mark, and removed the offensive wording.
Which is actually silly when you think about it. Since Christ was an historical and archaeological figure why be annoyed because he's used as the 0 mark for a calendar. Unless, of course you don't like Christianity as a religion.
It's sort of like renaming the periodic table of elements into something less chemical because it might offend electrical engineers.
>>>Which is actually silly when you think about it. Since Christ was an historical and archaeological figure why be annoyed because he's used as the 0 mark for a calendar. Unless, of course you don't like Christianity as a religion.
Jesus was an historical and archaeological figure. He is not accepted as the Christ by Jews, so BC is a problem. Anno Domini, Year of our Lord, is a problem for 2/3 of the world for whom Jesus is not Lord.
The Western numbering of years is generally accepted. There are other systems out there, but most people on the planet are familiar with this system, certainly more familiar than with any other system.
However, archeology is an international profession. Many of the important archeological sites are in Muslim, Jewish, Hindu etc. countries. For the sake of professional collegiality, it would seem to make sense to eliminate controversial things like references to Jesus in dates.