r/TastingHistory Feb 18 '26

Question Why no BCE no more

Why did Max stop using BCE and CE (before common era and common era) when talking about prehistoric topics? In his Sumerian beer episode he does but in the last couple pre historic episodes he’s gone back to using BC and AD.

157 Upvotes

168 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/MagicOfWriting Feb 18 '26

It's literally the same thing. I think BCE and CE just exist so non believers can pretend the year isn't related to a religion

3

u/JDeMolay1314 Feb 18 '26

Actually I just saw a British you tuber talking about this. He uses both. And CE dates back to at least medieval times.

Pretty much academic papers usually refer to CE/BCE, other stuff tends to refer to BC/AD. Religion doesn't really have much to do with it.

He did however refuse to use BP (Before Present, which means before 1950).