Other Histories

We've been looking at the origins of the terms Anno Domini and Before Christ to mark the passing of years. Those were Christian-centric choices that did not mean a thing to the other cultures that existed adjacent to Christianity.

The Coptic Calendar (we had recently talked about Coptic Christianity) used a different system. Based on the ancient Egyptian calendar, its start date was 29 August 284 CE. The Ethiopian and Eritrean churches used it, but started its epoch on 29 August, 8 CE. It is currently year 1742. The point of the year 284 was that it was the start of the "Era of Martyrs" that started because Emperor Diocletian started the worst era of persecution of Christians. Dionysius Exiguus specifically created Anno Domini in order to separate the calendar from memories of such a terrible enemy to Christianity.

With the rise of Islam, there was another date used for the "start" of reckoning: 622 CE became AH 1 (Anno Hegirae, "In the year of the Hijrah") when Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina and established a community. It is currently year 1447.

Although today is 10 October 2025 in the Gregorian calendar, had we retained the Julian calendar with its flaws regarding Leap Years, the date would be 27 September 2025.

The Hebrew calendar was based on the number of days since the creation of the world, calculated by looking at the genealogy presented in the Torah/Old Testament. This date was (in modern reckoning) 3761 BCE. It is currently year 5786.

The Hebrew calendar is a lunar calendar and one of the oldest continuously used. Let's look at it a little more tomorrow.