Shroud of Turin; Matt Lauer's teleprompter thinks Jesus died in "one A.D."

I already knew that in order to host the Today Show, one had to pass some sort of atheist litmus test. It became obvious long ago that individuals could not rise to the top of the MSM/DNC food chain without some degree of hostility to (or at least ignorance of) Christianity.

But I did not know that ignorance of history is a requirement also. Nor did I suspect that basic math (addition, subtraction, counting, etc.) is "frowned upon" as well. I have often suspected that network teleprompter writers believed that history began only with Vietnam, but I never knew how literally true this suspicion was.

On Good Friday, March 21, Matt Lauer's teleprompter featured a segment on the Shroud of Turin, the alleged burial shroud of Jesus.

Shroud of Turin

















There is a question as to how old the Shroud is, with some scholars believing the Shroud to be a Medieval hoax (about 600 - 700 years old), while others believe it was used for Jesus' burial (shortly after Jesus' death on the cross). Without taking sides in the dispute, I note only the questions that Matt Lauer asked one of the experts. While I don't remember the exact question, the question was prefaced with the assumption that the Shroud may have originated in "1 A.D." Lauer repeated "1 A.D." a second time moments later.

Even a moment's reflection would reveal that Jesus could not have died in "1 A.D." Jesus lived about 30 years. His death is generally recognized to have occurred between 29 A.D. and 33 A.D. Even if one did not know when Jesus died, his death could hardly have occurred in "1 A.D." He would have been only 1 year old at that time. If Lauer's teleprompter assumed that Jesus was born in "1 B.C." or "zero" (there was no year "zero"), then how would we number the years in which Jesus was alive?

In fact, the year "1 A.D." marks the year of Jesus' birth, not his death. "A.D." does not mean "after death" as we supposed when we were five years old. It means Anno Domini - in the year of our lord. The phrase is Latin [not the language spoken by people in "Latin America," but the language of ancient Rome and its subject territories].

I am not trying to make a case here, as these facts are well established and commonly recognized. I am simply trying to point out that these questions should have occurred to Lauer as he was reading "1 A.D." on his teleprompter. But I am beginning to suspect that we have only begun to plumb the depths of MSM/DNC ignorance.