The infamous "Zero Year" in Biblical calculations

RubaDub

Maybe I'm being too critical and don't understand other relevant factors, but it seems very strange to me that that those who studied Bibical prophesies and timelines didn't know that there was no Zero year.

I mean, if you are trying to map events from the BC/BCE era to the current AD/CE era wouldn't it be somewhat obvious to a scholar how the time is calculated ?

Couldn't you just find a common date on the Jewish calendar before and after the Zero year and compare it to today's Gregorian calenadar to find the number of actual years that elapsed?

Maybe it's more complex than I understand but if you are in the business of making predictions, it seems like you should know the basics.

Rub a Dub

JWoods

What makes it worse is if they were so fixated on 1914 that they changed the root date by a year to make up for it instead of making the end date a year sooner.

St George of England

very strange to me that that those who studied Bibical prophesies and timelines didn't know that there was no Zero year.

Who studied Bible prophesies? C T Russell had a couple of clothing shops and J F Rutherford was a lawyer. Hardly graduates in a related field?

George

teel

Erm... the 'celebrated WT scholars'?

Yes, this was bugging me too, they can't be that thick... for 70 odd years

sir82

if you are trying to map events from the BC/BCE era to the current AD/CE era wouldn't it be somewhat obvious to a scholar how the time is calculated ?

There's your problem right there. You assume the ones counting pyramid inches and ruminating on "a day for a year" are "scholars" - a less than apt assumption.

JeffT

A surprising number of people don't know this. In late 1999, just before the turn to 2000 I heard a debate on a call in radio show going back and forth for an hour about how the millinium didn't really start until 2001. 90% of the people involved could not get their heads around the fact that there was no zero year.