Watching a television program the other night they mentioned the following facts about our current calendar that got me wondering about the timing of
the supposed "end of time"
In 523 AD, Dionysius Exiguus was given an assignment of making calculations for Easter.� At that time, the years were counted from the reign of
emperor Diocletian. � Dionysius decided he would start the calendar from the birth of Jesus, instead of the reign of Diocletian. � Dionysius tried to
fix Jesus' birth at December 25, 753 AUC (since the founding of Rome) I think they said that he counted back thru the emperors and subtracted the
years of their reigns and decided that the current era started on January 1, 754 AUC and made that 1AD.�
The time before 754 AUC was considered to be Before Christ (BC), with no year 0.
So when Was Jesus Born?
Everyone says that Jesus Christ, the son of God in the Christian faith, was born on December 25, 0000.� This isn't true for two reasons.�
1 There is no year 0
Romans numerals have no number zero..� Dionysius had our present year start on January 1, AD 1, which was one week after what he believed was Jesus'
birthday. � Since there was no 0 AD, and since 1 AD immediately followed 1 BC, a person who was born in 20 BC and died in 20 AD would have been 39,
not 40, when he died.�
2 There is also evidence that Jesus was born before 4 BC -
Dionysius' calculation of Jesus' birth was wrong.� The Bible tells us that Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod the Great, who died around
4 BC.�So it is more likely that Jesus was born around 7 BC, although the date of his birth is unknown.� Even whether or not he was born on December 25
is an old mystery, as there is speculation that he was born in August based on the computer simulations of when the star the 3 Kings would have
followed happened.�
So when people refer to 2010 or 2012 as the end of times are they going strictly by the calendar we use - or are they going by what it should be?
Should this January 1 be 2005 or should it be 2011 or even 2012 if you add the year 0. Do we have 5 years to go to the end of times or 7 years to
2012 or are we already safely past the 2010 deadline and only have to worry about the 2012 deadline.
Or is it all a bunch of hooey and maybe the Mayans calendar ended in 2012 because they didn't feel like going any further or their civilization ended
before they went any further. And alternately was 2010 a number picked from a hat as a nice round number?
Ok, I have previewed this post about 10 times and changed it to try to make it make sense - hopefully I succeeded -- if not blame lack of sleep and
needing more coffee. Not to mention I have a headache from trying to figure AU, BC, AD dates.
jm