Path: news1.teleport.com!nntp.teleport.com!korova.insync.net!enews.sgi.com!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!cyclone.swbell.net!nnrp3.rcsntx.swbell.net.POSTED!hnsngr From: hnsngr@sirius.com (Ron Hunsinger) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The starting langwage of the century Message-ID: References: <386BBA5D.DFD55912@acronet.net> <946721536.7519.1.nnrp-09.9e98250c@news.demon.co.uk> Organization: ErsteSoft Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: Yet Another NewsWatcher 2.3.1 Lines: 40 Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2000 16:47:55 -0800 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.103.86.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@swbell.net X-Trace: nnrp3.rcsntx.swbell.net 946946792 216.103.86.8 (Mon, 03 Jan 2000 18:46:32 CST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2000 18:46:32 CST Xref: news1.teleport.com alt.folklore.computers:233605 In article <946721536.7519.1.nnrp-09.9e98250c@news.demon.co.uk>, "Snave" wrote: > (1) According to the Christian religious historians, Jesus was born in > 4 BC, so we're late. It was never meant that years should be based on the birthday of Jesus. It was common practice to number years from the beginning of the reign of the king. That would be when the king/emperor/dictator assumed the throne/crown/scepter. The king's birthdate was not relevant nor even always known. Since Jesus was never actually coronated, that wouldn't apply. The date was meant only to be sometime in his lifetime. The actual reference year was what we call the year 532 AD. Dionysius Exiguus, in working out the calendar for that year, noticed that it began a new 4-year leap-year cycle, a new 7-year day-of-week cycle, and a new 19-year metonic (phases of the moon) year. Consequently, any two dates that differ by 532 years will be on the same day of the week AND under the same phase of the moon. Dionysius thought that was rather remarkable, and must be significant. He called this 532-year period a Great Cycle (it's now called a Dionysian Cycle). When he noticed that one Great Cycle ago would have been during the time of Jesus, he suggested that, instead of calling the current year the 248th year of the reign of Diocletian, it should instead be called the 532nd year of the "reign" of Jesus, or Anni Domini Nostri Jesu Christi 532. It took a while for his idea to be accepted, but eventually it was. The point is, nobody at the time (or even now) had a clue what day or what year Jesus was born on, and the calendar was never based on that. But on the other hand, given that the calendar is based on the 532-year Dionysian Cycle, we shouldn't be looking for any special significance to 2000 or 2001. The next Cycle begins in the year 2128, at around Jan 1. (Around, because the Cycle is based on 532 years of the Julian calendar.) A quick mental calculation says the Gregorian calendar will be some 14 days off from the Julian Calendar by then, so tell people not to get excited until Jan 15, 2128. -Ron Hunsinger