I was reading a book recently about Pythagoras and other philosophers and noticed the dates in the book were BCE (before common era) instead of BC
(before Christ), and CE (commo[n] era) instead of Anno Domini, the year after Christ.
Wrong! Not even
close! Most egregiously, translating "
Domini" as "
Christ" is always
wrong.
At issue are a mere 2 words of Latin, which have been in widespread secular use for centuries. Self-professed
traditional Catholics ought to be able to get them right.
Scientists and historians revised new publications making "BC" (Before Christ) and "AD" (Anno Domini = The Year of Our Lord in Latin) obsolete, attaching an implication of animosity towards non-Catholics.
Not quite. Because we are indeed looking at
Latin, the endings of words signify meanings in ways for which English needs
prepositions. So the "
-o" & "
-i" of "
Anno Domini" signify the Latin
ablative of
point-in-time, and the
genitive (often coïnciding with English "possessive") cases, respectively. The translation to English is wrong without the English preposition "
in" (although sometimes "at" instead for a
point-in-time).
Furthermore, the translation is wrong when it includes "
Our". Whereas Latin can imply the English
definite pronoun "the", Latin cannot imply the
possessive adjective "our". And sure enough, the Latin at issue includes no
"nost·er, -rī", unlike in the prayer
"Pater noster" known for centuries by its correct literal translation "
Our Father".
So the surprisingly troublesome 2-word Latin phrase should always be translated to English as "
in the
Year of the Lord", and not any other wording.