A. Time
B.C.E. refers to dates Before the Common Era, what used to be called B.C. (Before Christ). C.E. refers to dates of the Common Era, what used to be called A.D. (anno domini, in the year of our Lord). This change in terminology has been developed to divest the dating scheme of sectarian religious associations.Remember that year dates and century dates run in reverse in B.C.E. For example, the ninth century B.C.E. is the 800s, and 850 B.C.E. is earlier than 800 B.C.E. A millennium is a thousand year period. When talking about large blocks of time, this term is sometimes used. There are many competing systems of dates for Old Testament events and the reigns of kings. We follow the widely used chronology of Bright (1981).
Judaism has a tradition of counting years from the day of creation as determined by biblical chronology. In this tradition creation happened on October 7, 3761 B.C.E. of the Gregorian calendar. Years are designated A.M. for anno mundi, year of the world. Islam dates years beginning with the hijrah (which is the year 622 of the Western calendar).
Table 2 Archaeological Periods. The science of archaeology has developed a set of designations for the major spans of time.
