When BC and AD became BCE and CE in a textbook

By Kevin D. Brady · Published 2026-10-11 · Last updated 2026-10-11 · Research status: Original rationale not fully established

A change in language raises a question

Why do some textbooks use BCE and CE where others use BC and AD? The dates remain the same, but the labels change. My interest was not satisfied by being told that one terminology was more common in a particular setting. I wanted to know when an identifiable decision was made, who made it, and what reasoning supported it.

That question required narrowing the investigation. "When did the world switch?" assumes there was a single event that may not have occurred. A more testable question is when a particular publication adopted the terminology and what its authors said about the choice. That gives us a decision we can examine rather than an assumed worldwide transition.

The primary source we recovered

The investigation led to a physical copy of The Western Heritage, sixth edition, published by Prentice-Hall in 1998. In the preface, page xxviii, a note on dates and transliterations announces that this edition changes its date designations from BC and AD to BCE and CE. Photographs of the note and publication information are retained with the research. The note documents an intentional editorial change in this edition. It does not claim that these authors invented the terminology or that every school, publisher, or historian changed at the same time. [D1]

The same passage discusses preferred English transliterations of Arabic terms. That establishes that the dating announcement appears alongside other editorial terminology choices. Proximity alone does not prove that all the changes shared one motive. We must resist adding a causal explanation that the passage itself does not supply. [D1]

What the finding does and does not explain

The note answers a concrete question about the publication's practice. It gives us a place to locate the decision in the history of this textbook. It does not, in the passage examined, provide the reasoning behind the change in date labels. That leaves the central question open even after a useful factual discovery.

Religious accommodation, consistency with academic practice, inclusiveness, or secularization may be proposed as explanations. Those interpretations need evidence connecting them to these authors' decision. A statement from a different publisher would document that publisher's position, not automatically the motive of this editorial team. Likewise, my concern about preserving Christianity's place in historical understanding is a viewpoint to examine, not proof of another person's intent.

Why the search mattered

The research moved beyond broad summaries to an identifiable primary source. A photographed preface could establish something that a general account of naming conventions could not: this edition explicitly announced its change. That discovery narrowed uncertainty without eliminating it. We learned more about what happened while remaining careful about why.

The experience also exposed a common weakness in how questions are framed. "Why was AD replaced?" can imply that replacement was universal and compulsory. Examining one publication avoids building the investigation on that premise. Further research would compare editions and seek contemporary author or publisher explanations, editorial correspondence, or other records linked to this specific decision.

The discernment lesson

We should recognize when we are being asked to accept a conclusion without enough facts to comprehend it. Discernment does not require rejecting every explanation offered to us; it requires understanding what supports it and where the evidence stops. In this case, the primary source records a change but leaves its reasoning unstated. That is a useful finding precisely because it tells us which question remains unanswered.

What does this source establish about one textbook? What additional evidence would support a claim about the authors' motives? How might your own beliefs affect which explanation you find most persuasive?

Sources

D1. Donald Kagan, Steven Ozment, and Frank M. Turner, The Western Heritage, sixth edition, Prentice-Hall, 1998, preface, page xxviii, "A Note on Dates and Transliterations." No claim is made here about a universal adoption date, the earliest use of BCE/CE, or an author's undocumented motive.