Am I right to judge a Biblical professor for using BC and not BCE in an academic paper? For context, said paper was published in 2013.
Okay, here's my take on the issue:
My general rule is that time should be marked with the metric being used by the group being talked about.
The issue with BC/AD is that it's often used outside of its proper context, which is Christian societies and cultures. The birth of Christ has nothing to do with Medieval Islamic kingdoms, Chinese emperors, Indigenous peoples, etc.
If this is a Biblical scholar talking about Biblical contexts, I'm fine with BC/AD being used. Unless it's talking about Jewish people, in which case I would suggest that the Hebrew calendar would be more appropriate.
But at the end of the day, the BC/BCE debate isn't the hill I'm going to die on. BCE is fundamentally just BC in a different outfit. The dates are the same. Using BCE doesn't really do anything to de-center Christianity or disrupt Christian hegemony.
-Reid
