[Allen Tice]

Jesus was born [7] years earlier than thought, claims Pope. Linked article (below) quote:

"The 'mistake' was made by a sixth century monk known as Dionysius Exiguus or in English Dennis the Small, the 85-year-old pontiff claims in the book 'Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives', published on Wednesday."The calculation of the beginning of our calendar – based on the birth of Jesus – was made by Dionysius Exiguus, who made a mistake in his calculations by several years," the Pope writes in the book, which went on sale around the world with an initial print run of a million copies.
"The actual date of Jesus's birth was several years before."

The assertion that the Christian calendar is based on a false premise is not new – many historians believe that Christ was born sometime between 7BC and 2BC.
But the fact that doubts over one of the keystones of Christian tradition have been raised by the leader of the world's one billion Catholics is striking."

My main assertion had nihil to do with omitting Diocletian. It was that the arranger of the current calendar could NOT multiply or divide using Roman numerals.

That calendar arranger, Dionysius Exiguus, added up a lot of seven year intervals and goofed because the available records were rather sketchy.

Multiplication and division are almost impossible using Roman numerals : calculations like that were done on the abacus and then written out using M C X V I L D. What he thought was the year 525 was in reality the year 532 (or possibly 531).

This date fits with eclipse records, coins, and the widespread stone census records of the second (2nd) of Augustus's three (3) pedestrian speed "censuses of all the world" that began in 8 BC (There is confusion in one of the accounts with a local census.)

The accounts were written down using recollections of very old people roughly at the time Vesuvius exploded and buried Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Up staged by the current Pope! Oh well, there goes the neighborhood.

Allen

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/reli...aims-Pope.html

[Gail White]

Discouraging, isn't it? Popes are like that, always hogging the spotlight.

[John Whitworth]

What an odd idea, that the date of Christ's birth is a keystone of the Christian religion. I would accept that the fact that he was born at all is certainly a KotCr but that is generally admitted nowadays, though I gather the fact that the Prophet, peace be upon him, ever actually lived is disputed - though not too loudly. And I, of course, would not dream of disputing it.

There is a way of multiplying using Roman numerals, but I have forgotten what it is.

[Allen Tice]

The term KotCr would seem to be generally undefined, which means that your second sentence is more of an artistic protrusion than a statement with application. As many wise Oxbridge dons and more human others have said, any keystone of a religion is "important if true."

I was preparing an article for publication on this precise calendar question that the current Pope has gotten around to addressing (and which I have oversimplified above with the remark on the multiple adding of seven -- the epacts are not quite that).

So I was both pleased that I might not have to complete the essay since the Pope has blown into town on this, and relieved that I might not have to argue the paleo-Christian side of things just to clarify what it was all about for interested readers, assuming that there might be some. Whatever made all the fuss that was so persuasive long ago is only relevant if it has modern application. You must be the judge of that. I will not charge the barricades demanding that all industrialized calendars be rebuilt to make this year (2012) into 2019 (or 2018).

I am a harmless drudge who goes around looking for curiosities. I have seen with my own optics in Istanbul the carefully preserved shrunken brown letter written to emperor Heraclius by Mohammed, and which is mentioned in ancient chronicles.

If it is a forgery like the diaries of Hitler, then so what? I don't think I would like the letter writer much in any case, any more than I would like Oliver Cromwell or his opponents. Kahlil Gibran: did he exist, or was he invented in Scotland by a divinity student gone south?

You must brush up on your elementary Roman math, or you will get garum on your Woodbine by surprise.