Those who have been proclaiming the year 2000 as the first year of the third millennium clearly have a vested interest in establishing the accuracy of their claim - otherwise they will look foolish.
While taking no sides, I have questions. Does not the claim depend on the first century AD, and thus the first millennium, having begun with the year 0 AD? Otherwise both periods would be left a year short, leading to contradictions in terms.
If, as one is driven to suppose, the calendar in use at the time of Christ's birth was the Julian one, because Julius Caesar was undoubtedly a Roman the existence of the year 0 AD would depend on the existence of a zero in Roman numerals, and that is surely very doubtful.
Of course the matter is not made easier by the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian one which forms the background to the current argument (in the course of which change 10 days were lost); nor is it made easier by the fact that Christ was reputedly born a few years BC (new style) rather than on the exact line between BC and AD.
Maybe a Christian scholar could help us all by explaining.
DAVID PYOTT Western