Pope Says Christian Calendar Based on Miscalculation

[No Elephants]

Nov 23, 2012 10:12am
Pope Says Christian Calendar Based on Miscalculation

<snip>

The book, “Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives,” is on sale now around the world with an initial printing of 1 million copies. In it, the head of the Catholic Church asserts that the Christian calendar is based on a miscalculation because Jesus was born sometime between 7 B.C. and 2 B.C., the Telegraph reported.

“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,” Pope Benedict XVI writes. “The actual date of Jesus’ birth was several years before.”

The Christian calendar was created by an Eastern European monk named Dionysius Exiguus. He invented the now commonly used Anno Domini (A.D.) era, which counts years based on the birth of Jesus. He came up with this concept in the year 525, or, 525 years after the birth of Jesus.

<snip>

The assertion that Jesus was born earlier than Dionysius Exiguus believed means the Christian calendar, based on his birth year, is off by several years. The Bible does not specify when Jesus was born, and it seems Dionysius based his calculations on vague references to Jesus’ age.

This is one of several new arguments the pope, 85, makes in the book. He also says that, despite what most people think of as a typical nativity scene, there were no animals present at Jesus’ birth.

The book is the final installment of Benedict’s trilogy. The first book dealt with Jesus’ public ministry, and the second with his death. Both previous books topped bestseller lists in Italy. All three books are published under the pope’s real name, Joseph Ratzinger, who was born in Germany.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/11/pope-says-christian-calendar-based-on-miscalculation/


Obviously, Bennie does not believe in the "buck stops here {at the top}" principle. Popes were in charge of the calendar, not monks and certainly not one monk. And, boy did they make a mess of it, too.

How did Popes come to be in charge of the calendar? Well, one of Julius Caesar's first jobs in government was taking care of the calendar. Not a piece of paper, mind you, but figuring out when the year ends and begins, etc.

When Julius became Emperor, he did not, for reasons best known to him, give up the calendar job and subsequent Emperors kept it as well. (Hence, July is named for Julius, along with the Julian calendar) and August is named for Augustus, who also fiddled with the calendar.)


The Roman calendar was so bad that harvest festivals eventually fell in spring and so on. For Roman pagan priests, you might say that the Roman calendar was a holy horror.

However, as we all know from the moving pictures, Julius went to Egypt. The Egyptian calendar was based on the position of a certain star and perfectly marked the annual flooding of the Nile.

The accuracy of the Egyptian calendar impressed Julius almost as much as Cleopatra did, maybe more, but Julius made the mistake of relying on a Greek astronomer living in Egypt to teach him (Julius) about the Egyptian calendar. (Why would Egyptians know best about the calendar they had followed centuries before Alexander the Great invaded Egypt? When in doubt, ask another Westerner.)

Anyhoo, Caesar's confidence in the Greek guy was the beginning of the calendar messes that lead to the Julian calendar creeping over time into a mess almost as bad as the one Julius encountered when he first took office.

Yadda, yadda, yadda, after Constantine either converted to Christianity or pretended to convert (depending on which stories you believe), Roman emperors gradually gave up many of their powers to the Pope. And that is why the calendar that we follow today (more or less) is called the Gregorian calendar, after Pope Gregory XIII.

The most accurate calendar known to man today is the Iranian calendar. So, both of mankind's most accurate calendars (that we still know of came from the Middle East, not from Popes or monks or Roman emperors. And maybe Middle Easterners got stuff from Hindus, but we don't care about that.

[No Elephants]

1. P.S. How do you suppose Bennie knows no animals were present when Jesus was born?

[formercia]

11. Makes you wonder.....

At a time like this, one can only say: C'maaaaaahn....bullshit.

[rpannier]

2. It's a shame this came from Benedict and not Pat Robertson

Because then I could have quipped of course there were. There were T-Rex's and Velociraptors present

[No Elephants]

3. You never want a velociraptor around when God incarnate is being born, only T-Rexs.

Which makes me wonder if there is any word from the Pope on how old the earth is?

In a couple of places, the Bible quotes God as saying something like "My time is not your time," to mean that God does not measure time as we do. Seems to me that is an easy way to reconcile science's dating with the Bible's creation story. But, noooooooo.

[rpannier]

5. Benedict's Position is the same as Pope John Paul II's

They both regard Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution as being the most likely answer to man's origins and beginnings.

[Leopolds Ghost]

6. No, that's at the Apocalypse

I want my Messiah to ride in style.

[Enthusiast]

4. The Iranian calendar can't be the most accurate.

You must be a Muslim lover! :hide:




















:sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[No Elephants]

8. For a while, I was fascinated by the entire subject. The calendar of the Western world

went through one mess after another. The original Egyptian calendar (before the Greeks "fixed" it) and the Iranian calendar were impeccably correct because they were based on astronomy, while the West arbitrarily divided the year up into months and days. The solar year does not divide neatly.

The people who came up with the Gregorian calendar tried to solve that problem with leap years. By that time, though, the vernal equinox had regressed back to March 11. So, the Western world simply dropped ten days in October 1582 and it was done by papal bull, which seems so bizarre to us today.

And the early colonists of this country considered starting the year on January 1 "popish," which would have been anathema to them. They started their year on March 25. Then at some point, they just switched, which apparently causes geneaologists a lot of grief for some reason.

I found it all very interesting. Then, after I had jumped from link to link to link learning all this stuff, probably hundreds of links, a book came out, putting all the info in one place.

[formercia]

7. Some Day, the Sun will become a Red Giant

and incinerate this Planet to a cinder. Nothing of what we say, do or believe will matter one iota in the grand scheme of things. So, in the meantime I will do my best to make this little rock we live on a little bit better than when I arrived.

Peace, out.

[No Elephants]

9. That's beautiful.

[formercia]

10. :)

:hi: