My Thoughts as the new Millennium Approaches d

What do you expect will happen at the end of this year? A party? UFO's landing in Trafalgar Square? World peace? Armageddon? Many people are putting great significance in December 31 1999, but what is so special about that date that sets it apart from any other?

• We don't really know when Jesus was born. It might well have been 4 or 5BC. This was due to a miscalculation in 525AD by Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Little), a Scythian monk, who came up with the whole counting scheme based on Jesus' birth. Further more Jesus almost certainly wasn't born in December - more likely September.
• Prior to Dionysius the term AD was used, but meant anno Diocletiani after the Christian persecuting Emperor Diocletiani, not, as it does now, anno Domini - the year of our Lord. So the year 247AD (anno Diocletiani) was to later become known as 531AD (anno Domini)
• Even if he was born at the very start of 1AD 11 days were taken out of our calendar in September 1752. Further more the first day of the year was also then moved from March 25 to January 1.
• As an aside if you consider just the 11 day removal and counted forward 365 days then the first day of the year would have become March 25+11, which is April 5 - the first day of the financial calendar.
• As a further aside is why was March 25 chosen as the first day of the year - well it is nine months before December 25! It was also (by tradition) the vernal equinox.
• March 25 is still known as Lady Day, the Feast of the Annunciation (the announcement made by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she was to be the mother of Jesus)
• Surely 1000AD should have been an even more significant date, and yet looking back it obviously wasn't.
• Even if it is exactly 2000 years since Jesus birth, so what? What sets the number 2000 apart from any other? Only that it ends in three zeros. Some people consider 4000BC as the creation of the world and/or when the first people come to live in Jerusalem; 1000BC David (of Goliath and Bathsheba fame) captures Jerusalem; 0BC/AD the birth of Jesus; 2000AD ???
• 1999 isn't even the end of the Millennium, nor is it even the end of the century. There wasn't a year 0 as Dionysius didn't have a concept of 0 so the counting goes 3BC, 2BC, 1BC, 1AD, 2AD. (0 was first used in the west in 882AD and the term BC wasn't used until 1627AD) Therefore the first year is 1AD the first year of the next millennium is 1001, the first year of the second millennium is 2001. So many claim, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology, that the millennium doesn't end until 31 December 2000.
• We may be near the end of 'a' millennium, but really we're near the end of the bi-millennium - the year is, after-all, 2000.

So let's celebrate - it's not often the world agrees on something: the focal point of all dates in history has remained as the birth of Jesus despite all the changes that have happened in the world these last 1475 years. A world celebration of Jesus birth is certainly worth getting excited about. But let's not forget the big party in heaven starts when Jesus comes back and that could be as soon as this very minute.

Andy Carter

PS

Andy Carter