Later he became a teacher. He taught Torah to a Samaritan woman, breaking religious, ethnic, and gender barriers at the same time. He reasoned with rabbis, debated priests, instructed Roman centurions. When he died, he died with a sign above his head in three languages:
IESUS NAZARENUS REX IVDAEORUM
It’s abbreviated as INRI.
Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews.
Of course, Pilate sold him short. When Jesus rose from the dead, he defeated Rome. They assassinated Him, but he came back. He won. He became, in Caesar’s stead, emperor, not just King. Lord of the world, not just of Judea. It would take centuries before the world learned of the existence of it’s new emperor, but eventually the ambassadors reached the known world. It met it’s new Lord, and it knew what to do. A new calendar was needed. When a new emperor comes, the clock is reset: It is year one. On it goes until the emperor dies and his reign ends. Then a new emperor and a new calendar. But what if we had an emperor who will never (again) die? Then each generation will share the same calendar. We won’t date events by ‘the 10th year of the emperor Augustus’ or the 8th year of the reign of President Bush, or the 50th year of the glorious leader Fidel. We’ll calculate them by the 2008th year of the reign of our lord and savior, Jesus Christ. We’ll abbreviate them with AD (anno domini) using the Latin of the alleged city of eternal conquest, which remains now, only as a linguistic artifact preserved only by the kingdom that replaced it.