What is the meaning of BC and AD (B.C. and A.D.)?
Answered from the commentary of A. J. Pollock
B.C. means “Before Christ,” and A.D. means *Anno Domini*, Latin for “in the year of our Lord”; they mark dates in relation to the year of Christ’s birth.
The above is AI generated summary based on the writers below.
What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
At the outset this is most evident. It was His birth in the humble stable of the inn at Bethlehem that has divided time into two parts in the reckoning of the civilised nations of the world. For hundreds of years, day after day, millions upon millions have dated their letters, business men their correspondence, parliaments their statutes, as so many years since our Lord was born. The letters B.C. stand for Before Christ; the letters A.D. (Anno Domini, Latin, in the year of our Lord), stand for After Christ. This surely testifies to the very deep and profound impression that our Lord, crucified in shame and ignominy after only a very brief three-and-a-half years of public service, made on mankind.
No wonder the world pays homage to our Lord and Saviour every day when letters and documents are headed with a date based upon the day, as far as is known, of our Lord’s humble birth in the stable at Bethlehem.
B.C.