ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 31, 1995 TAG: 9601020165
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
WHEN IT COMES TIME to designate the start of a year, it's not as simple as counting backward from 10.
At midnight tonight, a lighted ball will complete its descent in Times Square and it will be Jan. 1, 1996.
Well, not exactly.
Never mind that at midnight in New York City it already will be early morning on New Year's Day in France, or that it will be only 9 p.m. Dec. 31 in Seattle. There are far more profound discrepancies.
For one thing, the year that begins Monday probably should be numbered 1999 or 2000 or 2001. The numbers problem has to do with a monk (a very smart monk) who lived a long time ago and who meant well.
The monk was Dionysius Exiguus, who was asked by Pope John I in the 6th century to come up with a method for calculating the date of Easter that would resolve vexing differences.
Dionysius, an expert in astronomy and mathematics, came up with tables for fixing the date of Easter each year. And while he was at it, he decided to renumber the years of the calendar to focus on the birth of Jesus instead of on the founding of Rome, the event that most of Europe used as a starting point.
Dionysius placed the birth of Jesus in the 753rd year of the old Roman calendar. Trouble is, Christian scholars generally agree that Herod the Great, King of Judea, died in the 750th year of the old Roman calendar - and the Gospels say that Jesus was born in Herod's reign. He was probably a year or two old when Herod passed on.
All right, so the numbers are a bit off. Other religions and cultures have the same problem, if it is a problem.
On the Jewish calendar, the new year will not arrive until Sept. 13, Rosh Hashanah, when the year 5757 begins. Why 5757?
``It's like everything else - an arbitrary number,'' said Rabbi Joel Meyers, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly.
Arbitrary, but hardly meaningless. The Jewish calendar, devised during the Talmudic Period (roughly between 200 and 600 A.D.) and based on the cycles of the moon, was supposed to count the years since the world began.
``We've been counting this way ever since,'' said Meyers, as aware as anyone that the world is a lot older than 5,757 years of age.
Muharram, the Muslim new year, marks the anniversary of the long journey of Mohammed from Mecca to Al-Madinah in what is now Saudi Arabia, where he established the first Muslim state.
Mohammed Salem Agwa, the director and imam of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, explained that the start of Muharram is based on the phases of the moon. The Muslim year 1417 begins May 18.
The Chinese New Year will begin Feb. 19, when the year 4694 arrives - meaning, essentially, that it is that many years since the Chinese started counting, according to Yong Chen, special assistant to the executive director of the Chinese American Planning Council.
The calendar is based on the cycles of the moon and is synchronized with the solar year by adding extra months at fixed intervals.
The feasting and fireworks in Chinatowns next year will mark the Year of the Rat. In 1997, the Chinese will mark the Year of the Ox, to be followed by years of the Tiger, Hare, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig - then back to the Rat.
Culture and tradition aside, tonight and Monday will inspire a lot of celebration, secular and otherwise. Karen Klestzick, a spokeswoman at the Jewish Theological Seminary, said she will mark the Jewish New Year next September with appropriate solemnity, and that she will attend ``a low-key party'' with friends tonight.
``There's nothing wrong with having two New Years,'' she said.
Chen said some Chinese-Americans would join tonight's celebrations and some would not. ``If you go to Times Square, I don't think you'll find many Chinese faces,'' he said.
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