OT: Calendaring

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, James Landau
<Neurotico@A...> wrote:
> In a message dated 1/19/2003 7:40:30 PM Pacific
Standard Time,
> peter-clark@B... writes:
>
> > On Sunday 19 January 2003 07:14 pm, James Landau
wrote:
> > >  I've usually seen it given as "4 B.C.". (If you
can think of
any other
> > way
> > > to express the would-be year 0 that marked the
transition from
B.C. to
> > > A.D., tell me). Of course there had to be some
significance to
"0" too,
> > or
> > > else why would anyone have started there if they
knew he wasn't

There was no year zero for the same reason that there
is no "base
zero" when one talks about RNA transcription.  In
molecular biology,
DNA bases in a gene can be given a position number
based either on
start of transcription.  In both cases, "-1" is
immediately followed
by "+1".  This is perfectly meaningful and logical.  A
base is either
before a transcribed region begins or after it begins.
 There are no
"zero bases" that are neither transcribed nor not
transcribed.

Messes up computer jocks who try to program for
molecular biologists,
but why ruin a true-to-the-state model merely for the
sake of some
kind of rigor?  Indeed, a mathematically rigorous
numbering method
would actually be quite false.

>  I never asked about the year 0 A.D. or the year 0
B.C., only the
would-be
> point between 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 1 B.C. and
12:00 midnight
on January
> 1, A.D. 1 on at which you'd logically think Jesus
was traditionally
believed
> to have been born (of course, many put it at
December 25, 1 B.C.,
before the
> "4 B.C." estimate won out, but even that would still
mean he was
born a full
> six days before "the birth of Jesus").
>
> >         We have to thank a monk by the name of
Dionysius Exiguus
(aka Dennis
> > the
> > Little), who had the task of figuring out the
Easter cycles. In
525 AD,
> > unhappy that the current system of numbering years
counted from
the reign
> > of
> > Diocletian, who had persecuted Christians during
his reign,
decided that
> > the
> > Church needed a new system, and so (naturally)
based it on his
calculation
> > of
> > Christ's birth. Unfortunately, we're a little
foggy on why he chose
25
> > December 753 AUC[**] (ab urbe condita, i.e. since
the founding of
Rome);
> > there are a couple of theories, but I'm not aware
of any that have
been
> > decisively proven.
>
>  What I always heard was that Christmas had actually
been celebrated
in March
> earlier and was moved to the twenty-fifth of
December to coincide
with the
> winter solstice festivals of Norse and Celtic pagan
religions to try
to win
> them over to Christianity. They could make Christmas
much more fun
and could
> convince the pagans who couldn't be convinced by
mere missionary
work.

Here is the actual situation.

1:  The Romans had a calendar that had certain months.
 The months
continued to be used because it was considered too
disruptive to
change everything.  The Roman calendar originally
began in the month
of Mars (March) but this was moved to the month of
Janus (January)
before Julius Caesar took power.  He hired experts to
regularize the
calendar, thus producing the "Julian" calendar of
exactly 365.25 days
per year.

2:  For at least the first century of Christianity,
the birth of
Christ was not considered an extremely important
holiday.  It was the
Resurrection that was the big deal (and is still the
big deal in my
own Church--Orthodoxy).  However, over time, local
commemorations of
the birth were observed, the earliest known being
around AD200 in
Alexandria, and it was in the spring..

3:  The Western Empire was very Latin in culture, and
this Latin part
of the Empire had a pre-extant winter solstice
festival.  Church
leaders in the West decided that it would be a good
idea to at least
put some brake on the pure selfishness of this revelry
by having a
major Church holiday (holy-day) during this festival.
Thus, December
25th was chosen.  It also made for a good symbol--the
new light of the
sun as a symbol for the New Light of Christ.  This was
not done as a
way to "convert more pagans".  At the time, the Church
was still
worried about surviving.
Missionizing of "German and Celtic pagans" would not
start for a
couple of centuries.  Even then, the East did not
accept the new date
until a century after the West fixed it.
Unfortunately, the general
mass of the laity eventually erroneously concluded
that the
celebration of the date meant that it was "Jesus's
birthday".  Later
on, in the 19th century, Protestant scholars jumped to
the conclusion
that it was some sort of intentional conversion
policy.  Those
policies came later.  Then we have the 20th century
when a bizarre
coalition of neopagans and fundamentalists came along
with an agenda
to "prove" that all the old Church festivals were
"really" just pagan
festivals, and we have fodder for the Today Show.

4:  When Dionysus ("Dennis" is just the English form
of the name) set
the calendar, January 1 was not chosen as the new
year.  Instead, he
counted back from December 25th, setting the new year
at March 25th.
England celebrated new years day on March 25th as late
as the reign of
Henry VIII.

>  At least that explains why the A.D. system begins
in A.D. 1 and
good old
> Tradition says Jesus was born when we made the
transition from B.C.
to A.D.,
> a birth that was only dated then in retrospect and
then magically
lost four
> years when no one was around to double-check on
Dennis the Little.

Nothing was "magically lost".  He just didn't add up
the tax records
properly.


>  So why would they be all that keen to celebrate>
> > Christmas? Unless they converted to Christianity
(Missionaries in

Actually, the Japanese are keen on Christmas but
aren't Christian.



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