What is the calendar year between Christ's birth and his first birthday?
Asked by
flo (
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January 5th, 2010
What would the calendar show? Using the calendar that says this is 2010.
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18 Answers
Well, if we’re going by the tradition of our calendar, that would be from 25 Dec year 0 to 25 Dec year 1.
But that isn’t when scholars of biblical history really think he was born.
Year 1 if you go with our calendar’s BC/AD. There was no year zero.
But based on the historical events in the bible, it is generally thought he was born before that, perhaps 6 to 4 years BC.
Our only sources of information on Jesus’ birth are the gospels of Matthew and Luke of the Bible, which provide two different accounts of the nativity.
Matthew describes King Herod as the ruler during the time of the Nativity, and Herod died in 4BC. Furthermore, in order to kill Jesus and eliminate him as a rival king, Herod orders the “Massacre of the Innocents” — the killing of all male children in Bethlehem aged two years and under. This implies that Jesus may have been up to two years old already by that time, and this sets the Nativity at around 6BC.
Luke on the other hand places the Nativity during the Census of Quirinius which took place in 6 AD, although Luke also implies that the conception took place during the reign of King Herod – about 10 years earlier.
Because both Gospel accounts seem to assume that the birth took place some time before the death of Herod, most historians assume that Jesus was born around 4 BC or slightly before.
@jaytkay would you like to show the logic as to why you say there was no year zero?
@njnyjobs thank you but it is not what I was asking.
Additional note: Jesus wasn’t born on 25th December apparently.
@flo I got it? You mean this is a riddle or something? I don’t get it. The others are right, there is no year 0 in our calendar. Logic has nothing to do with it. It goes 4 BCE, 3 BCE, 2 BCE, 1 BCE, 1 CE, 2 CE, 3 CE…
@Ame_Evil thank you. But whenever he was born, the year is year what?
Everyone, year 1 year 0? I don’t mean what we have, or we haven’t seen it being refered to in the past, I mean when you think about it, what do you think makes sense?
@nicobanks , logic has nothing to do with it? Okay… Thanks for your answer.
@nicobanks your answer is “dec 25 year zero…”, and the other people who said there is no year zero, is the opposite, so where are you?
It’s not a maths problem. Using the same method of reckoning time which is used to get the calendar year 2010, there is no year 0. As inaccurately chosen as it was, Jesus’ birth was used as a starting point for the Common Era, and counting continued forthwith by use of cardinal numbers (1,2,3…)
There are a few contexts where treating time as a continuous variable is more common. i.e what is measured is the amount of time since the ‘birth of Christ’. This method would give you your year 0, as that amount of time would not yet be a full year.
(paraphrased from Wikipedia: Year zero)
@iphigeneia thank you , but do you know what the last sentence ”....year 0 as that amount of time would not yet be a full year” means I’m not sure.
All I am asking is if someone asked you to fill out a form, (during the first 12 months of Christ’s birth), put the date down and sign it what would you have put?
via
Year zero is not used in the widely used Gregorian calendar, nor in its predecessor, the Julian calendar. Under those systems, the year 1 BC is followed by AD 1. However, there is a year zero in astronomical year numbering (where it coincides with the Julian year 1 BC) and in ISO 8601:2004 (where it coincides with the Gregorian year 1 BC) as well as in all Buddhist and Hindu calendars.
For all intents and purposes, it’s like one school of thought is: “This is the first year, therefore it is Year 1”; and the other goes: “We haven’t reached the 1 year point yet, therefore we are in Year 0”
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