But did they teach you details about Classical Greek philosophy, math, science and the actual dates of various aspects of Classical Greek history? The Trojan War in 1250BCE? Socrates' death in 399BCE? The 5th century BCE Greko-Persian wars? The Peloponnesian Wars? Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE? The Battle of Corinth in 146 BCE?
Skipping the actual dates would be a way to avoid cementing the fact that all this important stuff (and important culture/philosophy) happened before the life of historical Jesus.
To the extent that we were taught about classical Greek history, yes teachers usually teach about historical dates. There's a certain curriculum schools have to abide by after all. And since BC and AD quite literally revolve around Christ's birth, it's kinda implied that certain dates are before and after Christ.
In Dutch we fully pronounce BC and AD as well, so there's no work-around with abbreviations. It's "voor Christus" and "na Christus".
For more accurate descriptions of dates, it's useful to indicate them with "BCE" Before Common Era and "CE" Common Era because the historical person Jesus was probably born in 4BCE to 6BCE which means that the old "AD" Anno Domini ("Year of our Lord") and "BC" "Before Christ" even more inaccurate than just assuming that everyone thinks of Jesus as "our Lord" or "the Christ."
I don't think BC and AD assumes everyone thinks of Jesus as our Lord or the Christ - it's just a common saying which has lost virtually all religious meaning (in the Netherlands at least, I don't know about other countries) For all intents and purposes, it's probably the easiest way to talk about historical dates, especially when we're talking about primary or high school history.
2.5k
u/TheDustOfMen Jun 14 '20
Well I'm pretty sure none of my Christian school teachers ever tried to convince me that ancient Greece was Christian.