Uh-Oh, Maybe We Missed the Big Day
The millennium is about to end, as everyone who reads this page knows well. What’s less widely understood is that the counting to the year 2000 began with the birth of Jesus. However, what scholars are quick to say – not intending to dampen millennial fever – is that the count is simply wrong: the millennium actually turned several years ago. Sorry, but we all missed it.
Time being what it is – a necessary fiction – the year 2000 is based on a calendar (another fictive device) that rests on an arbitrary division of time itself: the years before the birth of Christ (B.C.) and the years after the “anno Domini” (the “Year of Our Lord,” or A.D.). If modern scholars are right, Jesus was actually born four to six years “before Christ,” which means that we are already well into the third millennium.
Where did the calculations go wrong? No one can blame Pope Gregory the Great, the 16th-century Roman pontiff who worked out the calendar used by most Western societies today. Thanks to Gregory, we have a system of months and days so accurate that only 26 seconds separates the Gregorian calendar from the solar year.
A better candidate is Dionysius the Short, a monk who lived a millennium earlier. Dionysius was commissioned by Pope John I in 525 to develop a standard liturgical calendar so that Christians everywhere would celebrate Easter and other feast days of the church on the same date. Dionysius was a canon lawyer as well as a mathematician and an astronomer. However, all he had to work with was the Emperor Diocletian’s version of the Roman calendar, which dated the years “ab urbe condita” – from the founding of Rome. Since Diocletian had unleashed one of the worst persecutions of Christians, Dionysius decided to create a new calendar numbering the years from the birth of Jesus. Using the Gospels of Matthew and Luke as guides, the monk calculated – erroneously – that Jesus was born in the 753d year of the old Roman calendar, which eventually became the year 0 B.C. in the Christian West.
Able though he was, Dionysius was not blessed with the tools of contemporary historiography. According to Matthew and Luke, the only two Gospels that mention his birth, Jesus was born when Herod the Great was King of Judea. Today, however, most Scripture scholars reckon that Herod died in 4 B.C. That alone suggests Dionysius was off by several years in calculating the birth of Jesus.
Luke adds a further confusion. He places the birth of Jesus “while Quirinius was governor of Syria,” an area that included Judea. Historians, however, now know Quirinius was not appointed governor until A.D. 6 or 7. According to Roman records, however, a Roman legate named Quintilius was in charge of Judea from 6 to 4 B.C. If Luke, who wrote his Gospel some 70 years later, got the names confused, that would place Jesus’ birth nearly six years “before Christ.”
Short of discovering a notarized birth certificate, historians will never know for sure exactly when Jesus was born. Even the dating of Christmas, which celebrates his birth, is arbitrary. The church selected Dec. 25, scholars believe, to coincide with – and religiously counter – pagan celebrations of the winter solstice.
Even without the work of Dionysius, there would be ample opportunity to celebrate other millenniums. According to the Jewish calendar, which attempted to count from Creation itself, this is already the year 5757. The Islamic calendar, which begins with the flight of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in A.D. 622, follows the cycles of the moon rather than the sun. Since the Islamic year is only 354 days long, the year is now 1418. If the Chinese calendar governed, we would be preparing to celebrate the 17th year in the 78th cycle. Those who plan to drink in the new millennium in Jerusalem may have to wait a day to celebrate. In 1999 Dec. 31, New Year’s Eve, falls on a Friday night, the start of the Jewish Sabbath. That’s a conjunction of time and the eternal that even Jesus might have relished.
Where in the World Should Americans Go Next?GLOSSARY:
dampen make less strong
pontiff a chief priest, esp. the Pope
canon an established law of a Christian church
unleash fig set free (a dog) from a leash
Gospel any of the four accounts in the Bible of Christ’s life (Eвангелие)
Scripture holy writings, esp. the Bible
legate a government employee who represents his government in a foreign country
arbitrary decided by or based on chance or personal opinion rather than reason
pagan a person who is not a believer in any of the chief religions of the world
winter solstice
the shortest day in the year (December 22 in the northern half of the world)ample (more than) enough
relish enjoy
An oasis in the middle of the Central Asian desert, Kashgar was once the great pit stop on the Silk Road. Perhaps in the next century, Kashgar will again find itself on the world’s crossroads. It is not hard to imagine young 21st-century back-packers and trust-funders jamming this medieval city in much the same way they flocked to Prague in the early 1990s. The e-mails to Mom will be epic: beauty, excitement, isolation. However, as the expatriate population grows, tourist-friendly dance clubs and sushi bars will open, along with whatever will stand in for the Gap (the name of the clothes store) and McDonald’s in 80 years.
In the next millennium, even Central Asia, about as remote as Americans can get now, will likely be well trodden. Finding an unusual, or even uncrowded, destination will be hard. The last frontiers will be gone, the undiscovered country will not exist. As air fares fall, roads are built, countries open up and the world’s middle class multiplies, tourism will be one of the great growth industries of the next century. Travel experts promise as long as there is peace and prosperity, people will travel. They are already trying to spot the “in” spots of the future.
However, not just any place will do. As leisure time dwindles, it becomes more precious. Future travelers will increasingly expect excellent service, beautiful facilities and lots of comfort, because people want to be pampered. Airports all over the world are starting major renovations. Spas and hotels will keep on booming. Travel agents say luxury will be in; service will be in. Some people are even staying in hotels in their own city, just to escape. Getting away without going away will only get easier as techno-savvy entrepreneurs build more places like Japan’s Phoenix Seagaia, an enormous complex where you can ski and surf indoors.
Still, virtual reality will never be able to replace the feeling of real sand in your bathing suit, and relaxation may not be enough for the overworked yuppie of the future. Already, extreme or “adventure” vacationing is popular among baby boomers. Travel agents say they are looking for trips that pack a lot in a short period of time. It is not enough to relax and get a tan, but they want to explore the culture, lose weight and rekindle their relationship, all in three days. Outward Bound on the moon?
The desire to learn something while sipping Margaritas and snapping pictures is most evident today in so-called eco-tourism. Traveling in an environmentally friendly way is likely to remain faddish, as people shell out big money for week-long tours of Amazon tributaries guided by paleo-archeologist Ph.D.s. For most, though, genuine eco-travel will be prohibitively expensive. Manufactured exoticism, like the yet-to-be-built floating mall-cum-amusement park Phoenix World City, will likely be cheaper.
And then there are the “dependables,” as travel researchers call the people least likely to be in Kashgar in 2020 and most likely to be at Disney World right now. For them, a bit of artificiality may be the best policy.
The millennium itself is bringing still more of centers for recreation. Britain is planning to erect a monster Ferris wheel, the Millennium Wheel, that will literally cast a shadow over Parliament. A 25-minute ride into the sky will afford families spectacular views of London and the surrounding area. Millions will spin. Says the editor of the forthcoming “Rough Guide to the Millennium”: “It is completely pointless, but what a fantastic idea!” Like a virtual Kashgar in Las Vegas in 2050.
GLOSSARY:
sushi a Japanese dish consisting of raw fish served with rice
trodden (tread) walk or step
dwindle become gradually fewer or smaller
pamper show too much attention to making (someone) comfortable
spa fashionable place with a spring of mineral water where people come for cures of various diseases
yuppie a young person in a professional job with a high income, esp. who enjoys having a fashionable way of life
baby
boomers people who were born from 1945 to/till 1964
faddish in style
Compiled by Vladimir Pavlov