Anno Domini
Meaning “in the year of the Lord,” this anchors the modern Gregorian calendar to the calculation of the birth of Christ made in 527 by Dionysius Exiguus. NT exegesis cannot confirm the calculation; Matt. 2:19 sets the Nativity before Herod the Great died (4 b.c.). Some interpreters of Luke 2:3 associate it with the Augustan census of Quirinius in a.d. 6- 7.