Report Format -- Key to full date reports.

Throughout the articles on the Bible Time website a standard format of date report is used. That format usually contains 9 fields, though a short form is also used with 5 fields. The values of those fields are different ways that the individual day in question is known. This article explains the meaning of each field.

Background

All queries on this system return dates in a standard format. No matter what the cause of the report, either as a result of a query through one of the online forms, or through the result of a hard-coded query embedded in a web page, the answer follows exactly the same format.

The following report is an example. This particular day is for Resurrection Sunday, on March 25 of the year 31 AD. The rest of this page explores the meaning for each field in the report.

Multiple Rows

In some queries, depending on the use, there may be additional dates, this example shows only one date. This particular report shows the day as known in nine different ways. This is how real world calendars operate. Each day is known by different labels assigned to that day by various calendars. By having all the various labels provided for each date cross calendar correlation is possible.

Because most browsers are on smaller screens, the 9 pieces of data provided for each date are spread across only 5 columns. The rest of this page explains the various fields in detail.

Day of Week

The day of week for the individual day is provided in the left most column. Highlighted here with a double arrow (⇉). If you don’t see the arrow your browser is not displaying Unicode and should be upgraded. In this case the day in question is Sunday. This system only knows days by day name, so the day name occupies the space of two rows in the other columns.

The day name cycle has no known changes and has operated on the standard 7 day cycle used today for all known time. This is thus the same 7 day cycle used today. There are differences of opinion about which day of this 7 day cycle should be considered the "first day" Europeans typically draw calendars with Monday as the first day. Americans and Jews typically place Sunday as the first day.

To avoid confusion these date reports do not indicate day of the week but rather use the day name.

Use as an audit tool

Most of the fields on these reports can be used for audit purposes but the day of the week is especially useful. Historical records that are translated or are simple copies of original source material run the risk of a date being translated to a different calendar. Translation usually messes up the day-of-the week if someone fails to properly understand the calendar in question. Improper day-of-the-week is a key way of finding translation errors.

An example of how this works can be seen in this example date. History records two facts about Jesus’ resurrection. It was on March 25 and it was on Sunday. (The Bible only mentions Sunday, Church tradition mentions March 25.)

The "OS" calendar, the "AUC" calendar and the "AD" calendars used in the example are all drawn in green indicating they are valid for this period in history. (Colors are explained below.) A Roman centurion giving his log to his superior in Rome would have used the "AUC" calendar and though he would have not called it the 25th in his report, he would have indicated the 25th day of the month as we understand it now. This report says that day was indeed what today we would call a Sunday. (The roman centurion of the day would have used a Latin variation on this day-name.) In this example the day in question passes this audit test, both known facts about this day agree. If they did not, we would either have a calendar translation error or in this case we would be on the wrong year.

Bible Date, Adam’s Epoch

One of the principles of the Bible Time system is that time in the Bible is both 1) day-accurate and 2) given to the reader on a special calendar used to record the Bible. That period is drawn in green (see colors below) when dates are within the Bible’s historical period. They are drawn in blue (also see below) when the date in question is passed the Biblical era. Dates are known to continue and are day-accurately alignable between the two date counting systems. The day in question is known on that Bible calendar as given in this field.

The abbreviation AA indicates this is a date from Adam. A complete definition of the Bible calendar is given here.

This particular day is in the year 11019 from Adam, in month 10 on day number 11. This particular calendar is the one used to write the rest of the Bible. It was not used at the time of Jesus in any publicly known way.

Bible Date, Exodus Epoch

The Exodus Epoch for the Bible Calendar began at the Exodus from Egypt sometimes measuring time from Egypt is more useful than measuring time from Adam so that time is given on each date report.

In this case the day in question is 1519 years from the Exodus on the 10th month on the 11th day. Note that Jesus visited the temple at age 12 and is now here at the end of his 30 or so year life so we can roughly see that Jesus must have stayed behind at the temple on or close to the millennium break in his era. (So somewhere around 1500 FE.)

This epoch is measured "From the Exodus" it is abbreviated "FE" This has the same month and year structure as the calendar from Adam and is offset by a 9500 year difference, the difference in years between the start of Adam’s life and the Exodus from Egypt.

As the day for a year story points at an historical culmination at 3501/1/15 FE, this particular date provides an easy approximation of the time through this interval. 1519/10/11 is about 2000 years before the end of the current era. This date field is also often easier to read than the larger numbers used in Adam’s Epoch.

The definition of the Bible Calendar is given here.

Modern Date, Gregorian Calendar

This is the date as viewed by the modern Gregorian calendar, the most common calendar used in the world today.

As the Gregorian calendar was adopted around the world various countries dealt with the problem of dates given on both calendars. An example is this: a legal contract might be written that said a building was to be leased for 1 year ending on a certain date. The contract was written before the date conversion. The meaning of the contract was implicitly the "Old Calendar" while everyone switched to a "New Calendar." To cope the NS was added to Gregorian dates to indicate a "New Style" date. NS was eventually dropped from dates that were unquestionably new.

Since these reports generate dates on both calendars the world wide standard NS abbreviation is used here. The definition of the Gregorian Calendar is given here.

The date used in the example is Sunday, the 25 of March in the year 1 AD. As viewed by the modern Gregorian calendar this same day is known as Sunday, March 23, 1 AD. The difference of 2 days is due to the differences in the Julian and Gregorian calendars.

The NS calendar is the most accurately aligned with seasonal cycles on the earth and is the best calendar for validating the time of year when different events happened.

The NS calendar is the one usually used by astronomers, but dates can be converted to historical dates by a well meaning but ultimately harmful astronomers. If you were told, say, that an eclipse had happened on March 25, 31 AD, which calendar should you use to determine the exact day? You cannot know unless told and so the apparently accurate date is only specified within 2 days. For dates before 46 BC the 2 day error seen here grows substantially.

Modern Date, Julian Calendar

This provides the date as the day was known on the Julian Calendar. As this calendar is the most common calendar supplanted by the modern calendar it is abbreviated "OS" for "Old Style." A convention used almost universally at the time of conversion.

There are many quirks in the use of this calendar. The biggest area of confusion is the use of March 25 as New Years day. This was the Christian tradition back to the time of Jesus. Memory of Resurrection Sunday was carried forward in the New Year’s day tradition. It makes many date calculations error prone as the Christian year did not end until its last day on March 24.

All dates presented in this field on date reports use the Christian New Years date.

The Julian calendar is explained in detail here.

For completeness, the Pagan year definitions, where January 1 is New Years day, is captured in the Roman calendar explained below.

Roman Calendar, City of Rome Epoch

The Roman Calendar system began counting years at the founding of the City of Rome, and year counted this way are abbreviated with "AUC" as their ending. Most almanacs contained perpetual calendars and provide the modern correlation to the AUC year counting system.

Most civil documents Roman times were given on this calendar, though the year of the reign of the emperor was the common notation, as it was in the English speaking world into modern times.

There was substantial change in the Roman calendar over time, an overview of it is found here.

The dates in this column attempt to reflect the dates as actually lived, and so an attempt is made to track the known date changes. No roman date anywhere is trustworthy before the start of the year 46 "BC" as it was at this point that control of the calendar was switched from the political arena to the "scientific" arena and the calendar became regular.

Before 46 BC leap months required a political action of the Roman Senate. (or of the Roman priests, according to some sources) The superstitious Romans would not vote for a leap month if the Roman Empire was at war, something that happened often. This makes all dates given in the Roman world before 46 BC subject to significant errors. No dates given from any source for a BC date before 46 BC should be trusted at all.

There are also quite a few other date details known and implemented in this family of calendars. 46 BC was known in the Roman world as the "year of confusion", the leap year pattern was every 3rd year for a time, then suspended before stabilizing in 8 AD. All such known quirks are coded and implemented here.

Roman Date, Jesus’ Epoch

When Christianity took over and renumbered the Roman AUC years, the "AD" and "BC" notations were adopted to indicate a different form of year counting as being in effect. 753 AUC became 1 AD , 752 AUC became 1 BC and so on out from this transition year.

Christians also firmly in control at Rome abandoned the pagan new years day of January 1 and moved it to March 25. Because the Christian year numbers are sometimes the only implied difference between AUC and AD years, this box uses the odd case of leaving new years at January 1.

Depending on your calendar use this may be the right choice.

This is the calendar that should be used when a known historical date from an authentic source is to be viewed on the system. Note that there was substantial differences in the structure of this calendar before the year 46 BC. Read the detail specifications for the early roman calendars here.

Days by number, Numbered from Adam

These day numbers are prefixed by with "AA:" indicates the day number "After Adam" as counted on the Biblical calendar used in the Bible Date column. This system of day numbers provides positive day numbers, defined along the lines of Biblical days, from the beginning at Adam. All day numbers likely to be encountered on all biblical studies are positive using this day numbering scheme.

This system is artificial in the sense that no historical use of this number system was ever used. (It takes a computer before practical use of day numbering systems are possible.)

This number provides provides two sources of possible audits. Because the months on the Bible calendar are always 30 days, the last two digits of the AA Number always agrees with the last two digits of the day of the AA and FE dates. This is also an important audit tool when large day counts, such as the 12,000 days indicated in Revelation 7, are charted using the online tools. In all cases of days being separated by even multiples of 1000 days, the last three digits of the AA Number for each date are the same.

Days by number, Julian Days.

These day numbers are prefixed with "JD:" this day counting system is known as the Julian Day counting System, after the man who invented it. JD Day numbers are a world wide standard for counting of individual days. JD day numbers are commonly used by astronomers.

This day counting system defines its days differently than the rest of the calendar, so take care. Julian days actually start at Noon, GMT, on the day otherwise in question, so up until Noon, GMT, in any given day, the day is still on the previous Julian Day. Since the calendar tools behind these date reports do not care about hours, this odd day-start time is ignored. The JD number provides another source of cross-check to the online calendar system. It can also be used for audit purposes. It is not as useful as the After Adam day numbers as some day numbers are negative, leading to confusion on the part of human readers.

Color Key

All reports generated on this system use color to warn of misapplied dates. The issues with choosing the right calendar for various uses are complex. The problem is that calendars are mathematical instruments which are defined well beyond the times when they are typically used. Often, we see various sources re-dating events across different calendars. This is a huge problem since it causes severe problems of error just from the lack of understanding the current calendar.

To help with these problems the Bible Time tools use a coloring scheme to help prevent gross errors of interpretation. The following is an example report showing the way the reports can be colored.

The following explains what each color means on these sorts of reports.

• Green is used to indicate widespread use. Green dates are generally trustworthy.

• Blue is used to indicate that this is past the point of widespread use on the calendar in question. This is true of the Biblical Calendar after the fall of Jerusalem, the Roman calendars after the adoption of the Gregorian calendar.

• Red is used to indicated that the calendar in question was unknown to anyone on the date in question. This means that the calendar in question is simply being run backwards from when it was used to an earlier date. Knowing back-dates like this is useful as it can be used as a system verification. The Gregorian Calendar, abbreviated n. s., for example, is in very close agreement with the seasons of the earth, so it should be the one consulted if you are interested in the season for an event otherwise dated on a different calendar.

• Black is used to indicate a date not widely used or for which there are issues of accuracy. Black is used in some important ways:

  • On the Exodus Epoch of the Biblical calendar to indicate caution before the Exodus.
  • On the Roman calendar before 46 BC to indicate uncertainty over unknown intercalenary months.
  • On the Gregorian calendar to indicate its lack of full scale adoption. (The English speaking world’s adoption in 1752 marks widespread adoption for our purposes here, though take care, other countries would adopt much later than this.)