The A-Z of Believing: Y is for Year

Ed Kessler, head of the Woolf Institute, presents the 25th part in a series about belief and scepticism

Just because you’re reading this in year 5779 doesn’t mean you’re in the future (Shutterstock)

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice – TS Eliot

Some of you may be reading this series in the year 1440; others in 5779; for the majority I’d imagine it is 2019 although for Hindus living in India, the year could be 2075 (according to the Vikramaera cycle) or 1941 (according to the Shaka era). There are other options for Hindus as well. Confused? So was I when began to write the letter Y.

Let’s start at the beginning. For Jews, according to tradition, this is 5779. Why? Because that is the total number of years since the creation of the world, according to the Bible, first outlined by Rabbi Moses Maimonides in Sanctification of the Moon, written in 1178CE. CE, you might ask? I’ll come to that in a moment.

For Muslims, the year is 1440 because 1,440 years ago, Muhammad migrated from Medina to Mecca in present day Saudi Arabia (the trip is known as the Hijra). Called the Hijra calendar, the Muslim year follows the lunar cycle, which has 354 days a year, 11 days less than the solar calendar. That’s why Ramadan occurs at different times of the year, across different years. Last year it began on 16 May. In 10 years time, in 2029, it will begin on 16 January.

The Christian year, which we nearly all use, is counted from the birth of Jesus, with BC and AD denoting years before and years after. AD stands for Anno Domini (translated as “in the year of our Lord”) and BC “Before Christ”. In case you’re worried, there is no year zero: AD1 immediately follows 1BC.

Understandably, Muslims, Jews and others don’t perceive the chronological designations of AD or BC as neutral, but rather as professions of Christian belief. Muslims use AH, which stands for Anno Hegirae, (“in the year of the Hijra”). However, Muslims, like Jews, Hindus and others, recognise that the global system of dating is the Christian calendar, technically called the Gregorian calendar, regardless of it being a product of western Christian colonialism.

For these reasons, it is increasingly usual to substitute AD and BC with CE (“common era”) and BCE (“before common era”), the term “common” referring here to the commonly accepted year. Phew. We’ve achieved consensus – it is indeed 2019.

But there’s another surprise because the Gregorian calendar has only been in use for the last 275 years, in the UK at least. Before 1752, the Julian calendar was the system of dating years. It was this calendar, starting in 46BC (or CE), which added one extra day in every four years (giving us our leap year) because scientists under the Roman emperor, Julius, calculated (rather accurately, I think) that the earth takes 365.25 days to complete its circuit around the sun, not a straight 365 days. Unfortunately, this calculation was not completely accurate. In fact, the sun’s circuit is not exactly 365.25 days – it actually takes another eleven and a half minutes. This may seem a very small amount, but over the years the figure builds up. It emerged that the Julian calendar was losing around eight days each millennium.

In 1582, under Pope Gregory, the problem was examined because the date of Easter was becoming worryingly distant from the Spring Equinox, when it was traditionally celebrated. A new calendar – thereafter called the Gregorian calendar – was brought into use. By that stage, the Julian calendar had added 10 days too many to the calendar, so Pope Gregory decreed that the day after 4 October 1582 should be 15 October 1582, thus correcting the error.

Unfortunately, the new calendar was not adopted universally – different countries began to follow it at different dates. Catholic countries such as France and Spain adopted Gregory’s calendar straightaway. In Great Britain, the calendar was adopted in September 1752 but other countries adopted it even later – Greece in 1923 and Turkey in 1927. Confusion abounded – one consequence for historians is that they have to be very careful dating time-sensitive correspondence during these centuries.

By the time Britain (and the US) changed its calendar, one more day had to be omitted, 11 days altogether. Apparently, citizens did not react kindly to an act of parliament which advanced the calendar overnight from 2 September to 14 September. Benjamin Franklin, however, welcomed the change. “It is pleasant,” he wrote, “for an old man to be able to go to bed on 2 September, and not have to get up until 14 September.”

Although the Julian calendar of 46BC instituted 1 January as the first day of the year, during the Middle Ages, European countries replaced the new year with days of religious significance. The official new year in Britain, for example, was Lady Day (celebrating the Virgin Mary) on 25 March, but the loss of 11 days in 1752 pushed this back to 5 April. Another day was skipped in 1800, to 6 April. By the way, if you pay tax in the UK, you now know why our tax year begins on 6 April, a choice I had previously found strange for the new financial year.

Let’s end discussion of the religious year at the beginning; in fact, at the very beginning, at least according to Archbishop James Ussher, Primate of All Ireland between 1625 and 1656. After many years research, he identified the moment of creation as “the entrance of the night preceding the 23rd day of October... the year before Christ 4004”. That is, around 6pm on 22 October 4004BCE, according to the Julian calendar.

Good luck working out what that year that is according to the Gregorian calendar or the Jewish calendar or the Hijra calendar or…

Next week is: Z is for Zealotry

Listen to each episode of ‘An A-Z of Believing: from Atheism to Zealotry’ on the Woolf Institute podcast site or wherever you get your podcasts

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Written and presented by Dr Ed Kessler MBE, founder and director of the Cambridge-based Woolf Institute, this compelling guide to religious belief and scepticism is a must-read for believers and nonbelievers alike.

Founded in 1998 to explore the relationship between religion and society, the Woolf Institute uses research and education to foster understanding between people of all beliefs with the aim of reducing prejudice and intolerance.

Says Dr Kessler: “Latest surveys suggest that 85 per cent of the world’s population identify themselves as belonging to a specific religion, and in many parts of the world the most powerful actors in civil society are religious. Understanding religion and belief, the role they play and their impact on behaviour and decision-making is, therefore, vital.”

Dr Kessler – who was awarded an MBE for services to interfaith relations in 2011 – is an affiliated lecturer with the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University, a principal of the Cambridge Theological Federation and additionally teaches at the Cambridge Muslim College.

He says: “This A-Z of Believing aims to show how the encounter between religions has influenced and been influenced by the evolution of civilisation and culture, both for good and for ill. I hope that a better understanding of believing will lead people to realise that while each religion is separate, they are also profoundly connected.”