Therefore, the first year that he counted with HIS calendar should be the first year that we count. Let's try to figure out what year he counted first. A key to clearing up a lot of misunderstanding on this subject is in correcting one crucial but common error. Dennis was NOT measuring time from Christ's birth. He was measuring from Christ's incarnation.
People read incarnation and assume it means birth.
It does not. The incarnation occurred 9 months before Christ's birth. While technically wrong theologically, think of incarnation as Christ's conception. The next step is being aware of one of the existing calendars that Dennis worked with. It was the Roman calendar that measured from the supposed founding of Rome.