The headline from the subliterate British idiot (well,he’s either subliterate or deliberately deceptive, although I wouldn’t rule out both at once, yet), Nick Squires, tries to sensationalize a yawner:
Seriously, is there any literate person anywhere in the world who didn’t already know this? No, really. The error in a sixth century monk’s calculations has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the NT record of Jesus’ birth. None. Zilch. A big zero with the rim kicked off. It’s nothing more or less than a moderately interesting piece of trivia about one small aspect of one of the relatively early stages in the development of the most common Western calendar.
The article makes clear that the “years earlier” in the headline (leading people astray right there) is around two to maybe as many as seven years’ difference between Dennis the Small’s erroneous calculation and Jesus’ probable birth (most scholarship settles around four years). Oh, but do notice the idiocy in the lede:
The ‘mistake’ was made by a sixth century monk known as Dionysius Exiguus or in English Dennis the Small, the 85-year-old pontiff claims in the book ‘Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives’, published on Wednesday.
WTF? Why is “mistake” in sneer quotes? And why “claims”? And why–citing the sub-title of the article, “The entire Christian calendar is based on a miscalculation… “–try to cast doubts about the “entire Christian calendar”?
It’s all about the Hivemind’s anti-Christian narrative, folks. File the information somewhere for a trivia game and move along. Nothing to see here (unless you are a history buff).
BTW, again: “Little Monk Dennis'” placement of the birth year of Jesus is an anomaly. Very, very few authorities, from the early church Fathers on, before and after Lil Denny, agreed with his placement, and by far the majority have come down on a placement anywhere from 4-6 B.C., by Lil Denny reckoning. So, for darned near a couple of millenia, any literate person knew what is being trumpeted in the article as “news”. Only incurious subliterates will find this to be news.
Hm..
Of minor interest I suppose. But these clowns look for any excuse to deride Christians and Christianity anyway.
I was watching a History Channel program a week or two back about Sodom and Gommorah. It was essentially from the viewpoint that the Bible is nothing more than a collection of myths and stories “but wait” archaeological finds support the idea that an asteroid impact in Europe might have been responsible for a rain of fire and stone from the skies that just happened to destroy many cities in the plains that would just happen to include the supposed sites of these mythical cities and the star charts happen to coincide with the alleged time “BCE” of Abraham and Lot so maybe this myth reflects an actual event – but even though this new evidence seems to corroborate the biblical story “God” and “Angels” couldn’t have been involved even though so many of the other particulars of the story seem now to be confirmed.”
Yes, I know it’s a horrible run-on sentence but the lengths the media and edumacation establishment will go to avoid acknowledging God are just like that.
Indeed, Perri: the forces of the Hivemind and the Academia Nut Fruitcake Bakeries do everything they can, as often as they can, to run truth into a dark alley for a brutal mugging.