What is the difference between B.C. as in " before christ " and B.C.E. ?

Question

Also what does the E stand for? And are there other such acronyms, or whatever you call them(?), when noting the date of an event? please explain. TX

Answer 1

BCE means "before the common era," and is a newer phrase for events before the birth of the Nazarene Carpenter.  The phrase is an effort to acknowledge the fact that most people of the world do not know of, much less worship, the Christian savior.  

The epoch* is the same;  they've just removed the "Christ" from it.

Answer 2

"Before common era." This abbreviation has come to replace the previously used B.C. ("before Christ"), and covers the period of history prior to the birth of Christ.

Answer 3

B.C.E. means "Before Common Era."  It means the same thing as "Before Christ," since the common era is generally dated from what is supposed to be the birth of Christ.

Answer 4

Basically they mean the same thing, but BCE is less offensive to non Christians. (Before Christ and  Before Common Era)

Answer 5

The real difference is that the term "BC" was devised early on, prior to the development pf political correctness. "BCE" became its mandated replacement when it was determined that any reference to Christ was unacceptable to some people.

Of course, there are some of us who translate the term "BCE" into "Before Christian Era" so it didn't really do much good.

Answer 6

B.C.E means before common era...i guess sum ppl got offended w/ before christ so, they prefer to use BCE

Answer 7

berfore common era-regular way of stating time

before christ-christians way of telling time

Answer 8

BCE Before Common Era

Same thing but less "Christian" and less offensive to non Christians

Answer 9

A ridiculous attempt to politically correct yet another thing that doesn't need changed. It's supposed to take any religion leanings out of historical reference points and make it more secular but really becomes just foolish when the starting point remains the estimated birth of Jesus being year 0. Before Common Era and Common Era taking the place of the BC and AD. Ludicrous!