A brief introduction of the relationship between Bible and Western culture
Abstract:Bible is a historical book to record the history of the ancient Hebrews development as the main content , not only that, as a Christian classic, the Bible which is also full of the extremely profound philosophic thoughts, has the extremely profound influence on the development of Western culture.
Key Words:Bible Western culture influence
1、General background
The main contents of the Bible is the law, rules and orders, the nation of Israel, each period in the history of the prophets, all kinds of epic, song, love song.In this vast and broad space, a religious epic included stories, allusions, proverbs.Tales of Biblical literature has been wrote from the beginning of missionary work in Rome . It relates to the myth, legend, ancient history, system, law, customs and ethics. It is a cover and contains everything of ancient culture encyclopedia.Fry believes that the Bible is not only the literature or not only a literary.However. Many people often only thought the Bible as propaganda and Christian religious books, while ignoring its cultural and literary influence .The Bible play an extremely important role in the western society and culture and it became one of the major cultural characteristics of Western society.From the teachings of Jesus and Paul, we see that the Old Testament Laws - circumcision, dietary restrictions, blood sacrifices, Sabbath observance and the many other rules - are no longer binding. Jesus and His apostles gave us a radically new understanding of the true intent of the Old Testament Law; they brought a new era of the rule of love for all people and spiritual truth instead of rule by law.
2、Bible and Western art
Art in the western world, as in other parts of the world,has always been strongly influenced by religion .Biblical stories are often the theme of western masterpieces, which of course would contain biblical figures, especially during the Renaissance. Works with "Bible" content in Western literature which are thought as an opportunity holds the very great proportion in the multitude of literary works. "The Bible" contains a variety of prototype from many western literary works. The famous western poet and writer, whether Christian or not, almost all of them known "Bible". Many great writers even directly chose source material from "the Bible" to formed a very unique culture phenomenon because the works that occured frequently in the "Bible" characters and eloquence are more numerous to enumerate.
Dante was known as "the last poet of the middle ages and the first poet" in the new era of life and he is a devout Christian.His writings were obviously affected by Christian "Bible" and his masterpiece "the Divine Comedy" instructed by Rome poet Virgil who is representative of the classical tradition of reason , regarding the love Beat Ali Zi as heaven guides to represent the medieval tradition of belief. The conception of the so-called "hell" Christian "Purgatory" "heaven" three realms to construct the poet once in process, the dream, symbol and meaning, the writing, the reality and the ideal, all together, many references "the Bible" allusions. Famous paintings include Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper”,Raphael Sanzio’s “Deposition of Christ,”Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni’s fresco painting of the Sistine Chapel’s celling,etc.Music is viewed by the church as another way of carrying god’s message to man,and thus numerous composers have written large number of hymns that definitely have biblical references, and some operas that have biblical themes,for example,the Messiah.
The bible as the source of western civilization and Greek civilization (i.e., the Hebrew civilization and Greek civilization) crystal.Its inheritance, the old testament Hebrew civilization brings together ideas, legal system, religious traditions and folk poetry, is serious in the history of the twists and deep introspection.While the new testament more reflects the collision and combination of Hebrew civilization and Greek civilization, in fact laid in the Mediterranean region before and after the Eurasia foundation and form the concept of the cultural phenomenon widespread and ancient language features. Two Greek civilization in Christian classic biblical communication, as the thought in the development of western ,"know", "line" and "faith" unity created the foundation, discuss "true" in western culture and pay attention to "love" prestige value system gradually formed. Culture, as it were, in the sense of "western civilization" and "Christianity" has a close relationship in the development of religious history. Western cultural phenomenon it a typical Christian characteristics and nature also make the bible in the all countries in the process of social life and culture occupied a unique or supreme status,so it influence people's thinking in the western countries . Mentality and culture produce a full range of influence to make its traditional go into a very great degree with constitute "bible" thinking characteristics, theme characteristic, even the language features.
3、Bible and philosophy
Bible has influenced western philosophy of scientific orientation,value judgment, western people's way of thinking, the ability to express and understand the scope, what’s more ,it still has influence character by potential ability . The first is that it contains the ancient "Bible" impact on the development of philosophy of religion, of the origin of life and universe development as well as the end-result is proposed and the problem of philosophy. "The Bible" collected many ancient ethnic religious beliefs and myths which are thought to be provoking, enlightening. The Hebrew, Babylon, Egypt, Persia, Greece, Palestine.Signs of primitive thinking and naive imagination involving "chaos, imagine a universe was the origin of the world," the beginning of the ancient society, reflects the nature and destiny of human thought, put forward the basic problem of the universe and the the world is "from any cause, how to live, where to go". The ending word of "Bible" itself has a strong artistic charm and aesthetic value, plus the influence of Christianity on Western culture influence character by environment.It is not difficult to find that the western culture laid a deep imprint of the bible. In-depth understanding of "the Bible" connotation, we can better understand western culture. The famous people , Newton,ever said that we believe the bible of god has the most high philosophy. I found the bible are more exact than any other popular history and has morereliable credentials。
The essence of Christianity divine split fold, reveals the inherent contradictions of people and in order to point out one of the highest spiritual realm - beyond the human nature, completely return to god, to god's path, so as to achieve the ideal of good. This good state is actually belongs to the religious beliefs of a moral realm. In this sense, Christianity is the most can make people consciously aware of the moral value of ethics, religion. It is promoting kind, justice, compassion, and affection, the theological SanDe: faith, hope, love, in the roots and the secular society ethics stick closer.
4、Bible and daily life
In the west, Christmas, Easter and good Friday the three important traditional festival are closely linked with Christianity. Christmas is religious festival when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus , Easter commemorates the resurrection of Jesus and Good Friday commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus. In daily life, there are many customs are closely related and christian. Baptism is one of them which is from the Bible stories. Many Western parents also like named newborn with biblical names.
Marriage in the west is also an important customs which is related to Christian. Christianity think marriage is established by god and it is sacred.It means that the couple should swear to each other in front of god. So in general, wedding ceremony is presided over in the church and finished by the pries. Go into the hall ordeerly, study bible, vows , congratulations , exchange small tokens of marriage,then the church declared, sing, pray blessing. June fixed religious program , what's more,the funeral of westerners is also with strong solemn Christian color.People often mourn and memorise during the process but without injury
Conclusion: above all ,Christianity and the bible have multifaceted influence on western culture. As Samuel huntington said, "western Christian... that it was only the most important features of western civilization from history." We can say that in some degree if we do not understand the Christian .we cannot really understand the western culture. And the Bible, the Christian classic , is the backbone of the Christian culture. It is not just a religious classic,it is also a rich content and comprehensive encyclopedia. It has a comprehensive influence, psychology and culture of thought in all nationalities in the west.In addition,it has extremely profoundly influence on the development of the western medieval and modern culture. It is visible that the sentence that if do not have the bible , a western cultural history have to re write is not much more true.The Bible is the most important book in the history and the global human drama in it.
References：/Introduction to European Culture /by Wang Zuoliang 、Zhu Yu
/Biblical Allusion And Usage of Examples/by Tian Yusan、Hu Junqian
/The Cornerstone of The Prototype of the Bible /by Xiao Sixin
/A Introduction Course of Biblical Culture /by Ren Dongsheng
Student:Liu Lu ID:119134016 Class:英111
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