Is it BCE and CE, or BC and AD?

Published Feb 28, 2023, 6:10 PM

In this episode, Prof. Kathryn Schifferdecker and Katie Langston gather to answer the listener submitted questions.

Guest, Shively Smith, is the Assistant Professor of New Testament at Boston University School of Theology and Affiliate faculty for the PhD Concentration in Homiletics. She is also Resident Scholar and an itinerant elder at the historic Metropolitan AME Church of Washington DC.

Watch the video version on Youtube.

This episode was recorded on January 4, 2023 over Zoom.

Welcome to the Enter the Bible podcast where you can get answers or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible. But we're afraid to ask. I'm Kathryn.

And I'm Katie Langston. And today on the podcast, we are joined by a very, very special guest, Reverend Dr. Shively Smith. She is assistant professor of New Testament at Boston University School of Theology and itinerant elder in the American Methodist Episcopal No. African American Methodist Episcopal Church, pardon me, and resident scholar at Metropolitan Church in Washington, DC. So thank you for being with us. It's such a delight to have you.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah. So, Shively, we are answering a question that we received on the website. And just a reminder to our gentle listeners and viewers that if you would like to submit a question, you may do so at Enter the Bible.org. Click on "Got Questions" and there's a form there that you can fill in. And this person was curious as to why on the Enter the Bible website we used dating conventions of BCE, and CE as opposed to BC and AD. Um, and and wondered, you know, why we would do such a thing as that. So maybe we could start with sort of what is the difference between those two things. Yeah. And then maybe do a springboard about talking about time in general in the Bible and yeah, in our faith walks.

Yeah. So let's, let's do a little bit of defining terms just for anybody that's not sure. So when we talk about BCE and CE, BCE is an abbreviation for the meaning of Before the Common Era, and CE is an abbreviation for the meaning for Common Era, meaning Common Era, which sort of is analogous to the earlier older dating system of BC, which came which means before Christ and AD which would be "in the year of our Lord". So Anno Domine.

So and I just want..

Yeah.

I've had this argument with my husband, so I just need you both to affirm me in this. He told me that he thought AD meant after death

Yes.

And I said no. Otherwise there's like 33 years in there that are just not right. I said, It means Anno Domini, which is Latin for in the year of our Lord. And I was right and he was wrong. Correct, Biblical scholars here on this podcast?

That is correct.

Lanny take that.

You were wrong.

Okay. I'll stay quiet on that, Kathryn. I'll let you do that.

We may be called upon to do some marriage counseling. Yes. In this I usually try to soft pedal, but yes, it is not after death. It is Domini.

Thank you.

Thank you so and that for a long time has been the way of designating the the centuries before Christ and after Christ or in the year of our Lord. That's right. And the BCE, C.E., is a more recent development that started, I think, in academic circles and has spread somewhat, though you still see BC and AD, and I think the reason being really that that we just wanted to be a little more inclusive or I don't know what other word to use but to, to, to say yeah. To include other major faiths like Islam and Judaism and so forth. And it's it is it is, I think, important to note, though, that it still means the same thing, right? That's right. Even though we're saying before the common era in that construction, the common era starts with the birth of Christ, with the birth of Jesus. So, yeah, we're just trying to be not quite so obvious, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's important to recognize that the BC/AD timing really does represent a sort of a dominant sort of European framework that really took off in the 14th in the 14th century. So, so and really was a part of the sort of larger spreading of sort of western western timing like as it moved into other spaces. So I think some of this I know some of this for us in terms of BCE and CE is recognizing the way the other faiths, other people, our date have have different dates. Right. They use different points for dating. And so there's a very specific, specific dating schema that's being used to rehearse history in this way, history that divides time as the birth of Jesus. And for that is a schema. That's not the schema for for all people, all faiths. We're not just talking about faiths, we're talking about even cultural peoples. That's a schema that is dominated for a long time and scholars want it to be more, I would say, honest about what we're doing and as we're doing some historical reconstruction and work.

Yeah. And it's worth noting too, since since we are talking about Bible and and the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, that it's actually that Jews, just as one example, have a different way of counting years. So it's something like I should look this up, but it's something like the year 5783 or something like that. I'm not getting it exactly right. You're right in the Jewish way of counting. And I should know this off the top of my head. But I think it dates back to the call of Abraham. Or is it the creation? It's the creation.

It's the creation.

It's the creation. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So. So there are different ways of counting years. There are different ways of talking about a particular year. So that's just that Jewish way of counting is just one example of probably many that we could cite.

And and what I love about what you said, Kathryn, even bringing that up is recognizing the ways in which event faith events, so events in the faith tradition and faith traditions and communities are so foundational to thinking, to thinking about how we're talking about history, how we're dating, dating pieces like that Christianity doesn't have a patent on this, that the other religious faiths are thinking about these sacred moments, these divine creative moments as markers of history and time. And so scholars recognizing that we use the BCE and C.E. to recognize this this notion these these these sort of different different ways of marking time.

Yeah. And in fact, I'm looking it up right now. The Jewish calendar. The years are designated AM , which is Latin for Anno mundi, not Anno Domini, but Anno Mundi, the Year of the World.

That's right.

So the starting point as for that calendar is as you as you said, the creation of the world is described in the Hebrew Bible. So yeah, but let's open that conversation up a little larger and talk about how does how does time work? Yeah. In Scripture, like I, I think about verses like, you know, a thousand years in God's sight as, as one day.

Yeah.

Or, you know, then there's the debate about the seven days of creation or there's just seems to be a different understanding of time. Think in Scripture than our kind of very regulated, at least in the Western world, very kind of tied to the tied to the watch, tied to the calendar and tied to the days of the week.

So so I mean, one of the one of the so one of the obvious ways this time is being counted, I think, in the Bible that we have to talk about, especially when we're dealing with this ancient world, is by seasons that aren't necessarily marked by, you know, winters from December until when does winter end like April, something like that?

I think it depends on where you live.

Where you live like Boston,it keeps going there? For me, December is too late. It's already cold in Boston, but so, so, so there's the seasonal there's there's a seasonal marking of time. There's very much built around agricultural sort of agricultural realities that doesn't get lost actually even when you move into the city. So like when you think of something like Paul's letters and we see it primarily in the cities, I mean, the cities are governed as much by the agri cultural calendar as the larger agrarian areas, because this is where the food for the regions are coming from. So one way of marking is, is it has to do with seasons and quite frankly, food provision, right? So the notion of, of, of of matters, of food, another way that I absolutely love of how history and time is being marked in the biblical text is this constant repeating of the, I would say the repeating of the ancestors, right? Son of Abraham, son of David, son of. And so the marking of time based upon the matriarchs and the patriarchs, the ancestors of not just the individual, but the community as a way of thinking about where we are in time, what's our role and legacy and connection to the generations of faith before us? What are we to do in our time? Is continuing that and moving forward. I love the beauty of that that you experience in places like Matthew chapter one or you experience it in places like Hebrews 11 that I think I don't I don't want to miss as we talk about this timing situation in the Bible.

Yeah, I think that's beautiful. Shively. I think a similar thing happens in, like, the story of the Passover in Exodus 12 to 14. And yeah, and in Deuteronomy five, when the the Israelites are about to enter the Promised Land and Moses launches into a really long sermon that is Deuteronomy.

That's right.

But and Moses kind of rehearses or retells the story of the Exodus. Yeah, but it's important to note that it's not to those that were in Egypt and were and were liberated. This is the children. This is the second generation because all of that first generation has died out in the wilderness. And now the second generation is about to enter the promised land. And and Moses says to them, The Lord, our God made - this is Deuteronomy five two - the Lord, our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. That's just another word for name for Sinai, not with our ancestors did the Lord make this covenant, but with us? Who are all of us here alive today, which is, on the face of it, just is wrong. Right. Because these people were not there at Sinai right back in Exodus 19 and 20. And yet they were right, as you were saying. Right. Those those children of the matriarchs and patriarchs who came out of Egypt and now they themselves are called into this covenant, called to renew this covenant in their own lives. And it's a it's not just a remembrance, Right? It's not just remembering that, but it's a participation in that covenant ceremony and in that in in the reception of the law. So I think about, you know, a Holy Communion or the Eucharist and that sense where where we don't just remember Jesus' Last Supper with his disciples, but we participate in it in a very real way. And at the same time, we're anticipating the the marriage feast of the lamb at the end of time. And it's all and time is just kind of interwoven together like that and such a beautiful and profound way where we're communing not just with those in our particular congregation, but with believers of every time and every place in in in this celebration of of the the feast, the marriage feast of the lamb.

I love that, Kathryn. I mean, I think you're right. And I think I think you're so right in that sometimes we can get so caught up in the B, C and CE schema. Like how you said that we missed that the biblical text is actually inviting us to think about time in a different kind of way. The interweaving of time. Right. The and I love the participation. I think about it as a sort of bringing forward, right? So that these are not just the the faith and the people of the past, but that they are here with us and we are here with them. So it's a sort of bringing forward and making present among us a faith that our faith so that it's not a faith of antiquity. It is the faith and the beliefs of of us. Now that think is so that you see the biblical text constantly doing, whether you're in the Old Testament, Hebrew Bible or you're in the New Testament, is this constant remembering, participating and bringing forward. This is now this is not just yesterday and this is what tomorrow like that anticipation that looking forward.

Yeah because there's there is also that future element that's coming into the present as well this sort of you know you hear the phrase now and not yet

that's right

that in Jesus you know Jesus has the kingdom is coming and it's here but it's not fully here yet. And so there's both the there's both the reaching back and as well as like the reaching forward kind of consolidating. And in this present, in this present moment in our lives, in the sacraments, in our service and love and care for one another and in in our in our faith. Yeah.

I should I should have mentioned too, right, in communion, just as you said, Katie, we're not we're remembering and we're looking forward and we're remembering not just Jesus Last Supper with his disciples, but the Passover meal itself. Right? Because in three out of the four gospels, that is the Passover meal, that's that Jesus is eating with his disciples. So we're in a sense like back here at Deuteronomy, right? Not with not with your ancestors did God make this covenant, but with you who are here alive today. Right. We every generation that hears those words, every generation of believers, both Jewish and Christian, participate in that, in that, salvation in that story of salvation.

Yeah.

And think I love I love thinking about time this way and pushing it to say the bifurcation that BC and CE can make sometimes if we get we can miss what we brought close in here and in the biblical text. So these stories are being brought close even this Jewish and Christian. Um, what I'm hearing, Kathryn, is even this sort of Jewish versus Christian gets brought close. We're all having the Passover meal Lord's Supper meal mean like this is, this is a faith that is shared among us, a holy space that is shared among us that I think is so important to retrieve and embrace as well as we think about this notion of time and history and what scholars may or may not be doing.

Yeah.

Well, I'll just add one small caveat. Just, um, I have been part of churches that celebrate Seder meals, and I have mixed feelings about that because there is, there's something really rich about understanding the deep history underneath the the Last Supper as a Passover meal. And yet at the same time, we don't want to be super sessionist, right? We don't want to say the Lord's Supper replaces that Passover meal, which continues to be a huge part of of Jewish life and liturgy and worship today. Yeah, I can't help but mention if we're talking about time, the concept of Sabbath, of course, or the theme of Sabbath, which which is just such a beautiful concept. And it's it's the rabbis talk about it as a sanctuary in time, right? So not a physical sanctuary, not not a, you know, temple or a church or a cathedral, as beautiful as those are. But but a sanctuary in time. So it's a time set apart to participate in the life that God intends for all of us. And and the rabbis even talk about that Sabbath observance as a kind of as a kind of foretaste of the eschatological, you know, the messianic age when the lion will lie down with the lamb and, you know, and and peace and justice will will will be present well, you know, be spread over the earth, the kingdom of God come near. So that that idea of a sanctuary in time, I think is just a beautiful concept that too often we we Christians may not well reap the rewards of that. Yeah.

To hear you talk about that, it makes me think of someone like Howard Thurman who starts talking about these spaces of rest and stillness. So it's not how the Sa- So for me, I always think about Sabbath and talk about it as a it's this is a time of stillness, especially now in a world that is constantly going, everything's always going off. All of all of our devices. You're probably, you know, people are listening to this. You probably have a device going off right now and. You know, and all of this, right? So Sabbath. Sabbath becomes a part of our faith and traditions that invites us into a stilling moment of being deeply present in creation and in a in a way like and so it's not just rest and not doing anything. No, we're talking about about a deepening a deepening of our awareness of our connectivity to each other, to the earth, to God who is greater, and the gift, the gift of that, that I think we can we can miss all the rest of the day. So just hearing you say that made that come up for me of thinking about Thurman invites us into not not just getting quiet. I'm not talking about get quiet enough, but can you get still enough as a Sabbath invitation? That is, I think, very important to the care of our faith and our being, our personhood in this faith.

That's beautiful. I didn't know that Howard Thurman talked about that. That's. Thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah.

And just because I'm a nerd, I do want to mention that recently, we'll, we will leave a link in the show notes. Everyone's like, oh, is she going to say recently they did figure out how to make a virtual wormhole, which is a connection in the space time continuum they did with a quantum computer. Just goes to show. I think it's important, though, like it's nerdy, but I do think it's important. Like we're so regimented, especially in our Western capitalistic, you know, democracies and like in in our culture, we're so regimented, down to the millisecond. Yeah. But the reality is that is that time is a construct, right in, in many ways. And, and I think God probably isn't bound by the same construct that we are as far as time is concerned. And so there are ways in which I think the Scripture and our spiritual practices invite us into kind of resisting that as the defining as like a core, defining character is characterization of our lives, right? God invites us into moments of stillness, into moments of bringing the past and the present and the future together into one into moments of of healing and transition and all different types of times and moments that aren't just like the linear clock going on and on. And.

That's right.

Maybe one day we can go through a wormhole to another time and or place.

I'll go with you, Katie. I have a list of places right now.

Where are we going? Let's pack our bags.

Well, I'm not going to hold my breath for a functional form, but it's probably.

It's probably a speaking of time, it's probably a few, you know, a thousand years away. But, you know, some someday, someday.

All of those science fiction movies that talk about. Yeah, exactly. But it sounds like I really appreciate this conversation. I know that the listener just wanted to talk about BCE and C.E. and maybe didn't like that change from BCE to AD, but I hope that this conversation has explained that and also just made our listeners made you listeners think about how do you think about time, How do you experience time?

That's right.

And are there ways in which you can resist the kind of 24/7 world that we live in to say, no, there's God has made us in such a way that that there is need for rest and there's need for renewal and there is need for that kind of sanctuary in time where we can be present with our loved ones without, you know, screens and we can be present with those who have have gone before us, which is what you started with, right? The son, son of Adam, son of David, you know, daughter of Eve. Yeah. We we are not just ourselves. We are part of a long story. Yeah.

Love Hebrews 11. Here we are a part of, we have a great cloud of witnesses and we ourselves get to join and be a part of. And may we please participate in that. Witnessing work which transcends time, transcends time.

Amen. Beautiful.

Amen. Well, thank you so much, Shively, for being with us. This has been a wide ranging and wonderful conversation. And for those of you who are joining us, either on your favorite podcast app or maybe watching on YouTube, thank you for being with us. Please like and subscribe, rate and review. Share the podcast with a friend and of course, check out the website. Enter the bible.org for more great conversations, commentaries, courses, reflections, and all a timeline even is there of the biblical of the biblical world. So. But thank you so much for being with us and we'll see you. We'll see you again next time.