Friday 18 April 2014

Christian Era and Before the Christian Era


What do you think of this C.E. and B.C.E. in scholarly usage? My title refers to what one Indian on a list thought it meant and that is a fair indication that you can't get away from the general truth that the associated number has its roots in a claim. That does not mean that we have to accept that claim or that using it is an implicit acceptance. I can understand that the Anno Hejirae or the Anno Mundi of the Orthodox Jew could be dear to their people and incorporate a sense of a new departure but as a purely secular form of annotation whatever its roots, A.D.and B.C.have won out. Why retrofit our sensitivities. Let us do tonglen on our prior Eurocentrism, forgive it in ourselves and like time move on.

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