英语本科毕业论文欧美人所理解之天堂世界观.doc

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1、本科毕业论文 欧美人所理解之天堂世界观学生姓名： 学生学号： zyy02011 院（系）： 外国语学院 年级专业： 2003级英语本科2班 指导教师： 二七年五月The Analysis on the OccidentalsWorld View of HeavenWang Yan TaoUnder the Supervision ofXia MinSchool of Foreign Languages and CulturesPanzhihua UniversityMay 2007ContentsAbstract Key Words 摘要 关键词 Introduction1.Ancient P

2、eriod2A. The Secret of Bible .2B. The Basic Structure of Paradise 3. Middle Ages and Renaissance Period4A. Analysis about Concept after Culture Blending 4B. Diagram of the Structure of the Heaven .6C. The Evidence Existing in Paradise Lost.7. The Period after World War 9A. The Summary of New Ideal i

3、n Modern Time .9B. Non-followers World View .10C. Followers World View. 12Conclusion.15Acknowledgements16Bibliography .17AbstractThis thesis is about occidentals world view of heaven and how it comes into being. It begins with the research of history. The thesis analyzes the forming of ancient Chris

4、tianity, and why it becomes strong after the edict of Milan catholic and the Crusades. Christianity blends with Anglo-Saxon culture on Western ideology. It makes the stereoscopic comparison from various aspects. The intent of the thesis is to provide an historical perspective of the origin and devel

5、opment of Western culture and then to draw together all the opinions and summarize the relevant information from that survey, and why the westerners use the doctrine mentioned in the thesis as their moral standard.Key WordsTimeline; History; Culture; Heaven; hell; Angels; Demons; Christianity 摘要此论文关

6、注西方人是如何看待他们自己神话中的天堂。以及这种世界观如何逐渐形成，主要是从历史研究出发，通过研究古代基督教文明的形成，米兰赦令后天主教的壮大，以及十字军东征所带来的天主教文化与蛮族文化的结合，特别是与昂格鲁-撒克逊文化的结合对西方文化意识形态的影响。就多个方面作出线性的立体的比较。其目的是要为读者提供正确理解西方文化的来源与发展历史的全新视角,以及总结他们以这种千年以前的宗教教义作为他们的道德标准的原因。 关键词时间顺序; 历史; 文化; 天堂; 地狱; 天使; 魔鬼; 基督教IntroductionNumerous scholars, experts, even scientists de

7、vote all their life to study on the puzzle. But most of them to the bitter end got a great many of revelation. In another word they, through a good while and arduous researching, only received more new questions. These people maybe seem a little foolish but in fact they are all brave and genius man

8、for they dare to challenge the ultimate question of human. Through their researching many great authors, maestros, drawer and a lot of mental wealth are born. So the thesis can be spread out based on the wealth.First of all heaven is an important unit of culture to almost every nation, furthermore i

9、ts definition all comes from religion. In semantics it is as an abstract sign which imply a kind of space that contains another type of human being who is dead. But in fact the world view of the field is being changed constantly. Most people will be confuse when they read the religious works such as

10、 bible, however most non-followers are peoples like this. This thesis is divided into three historical stages. They are Western Roman Empire period (the period before the Christianity came into being)，Middle Ages and Renaissance period, and the period after world war . The first section illustrates

11、the structure of the Paradise. Coming along with the advance of civilization the world view of heaven has changed lot. The second section describes the condition of Middle Ages, and the third section indicates the condition of followers and non-followers and the different ideology between them. Each

12、 section contains the phenomenon, concept and analysis of the world view which existed in occidentals in each period.I. Western Roman Empire PeriodA. The Secret of Bible In fact in the bible people can neither find more concrete information that how about heaven is, nor find the information about th

13、e hell, even in the next canon including four evangel books, Apostles acts or Revelation. But curious people will found in literature works or myth stories nowadays there are many a stories mentioned various kind of wizardly stories, demons or angels. If they are all fabricated, for they can not fin

14、d any clue in canon at all. The problem exists in the bible itself. Are the stories in bible real? The bible extensively spreading nowadays is “the king James version.” But James I who doesnt like the puritans thought in the footnote of “Geneva Holy Bible”. In 1604, in the Hampton Court meeting he d

15、ecided to translate another English Holy Bible, which didnt make annotation. The result was Majesty origin Holy Bible in 1611. But in this new bible only seventy-five percent of the original edition was reserved. (Carver Yu, History of Christianity, 1990) So it is understandable why a lot of informa

16、tion cant be found in that version. In fact the bowdlerizing to the bible had begin before Catholic came into being. The missing chapter mainly occurred in Evangel book and revelation. General name of the lacking parts is called Apocrypha, which means the fabricated bogus under the name of author of

17、 the bible. There is a very important chapter named Enoch II，in which there is a relative integrity world view about heaven. For that time peoples surveying technique of astronomy had improved a lot, so people knew various kinds of planet and they conceived that the heaven is divided into several fl

18、oors and each floor is like the earth, wide, flat, with various rare plants, animals, and fairness fairy. The bottom of the upside floor is the sky of the subside floor. In the inter-space of two floors it is full of clouds. There is no war, disease, even no death. The farm land there is always luxu

19、riant, and the farmer there always get harvest All in all it is full of happiness. Of course, the earth is the lowest floor and full of hardships. Various spirits in different level settle down there. The most interesting phenomenon is that people believed the planet is the original shape, and they

20、considered the stars as being flat and been enchased under the bottom of the upside sky floor for dark night so they could see them. However in the daytime they couldnt see it because of clouds. The general confirming and agreement is that the content about the structure of heaven, god and angel, in

21、itiate the work that the angel been marked off a systematic classification and assign name. It must be the sky rank memoir by Greek Dionigil Areopagita. (H. Faukeel, 1978) It was recorded at the end of chapter 17 in Acts of the apostle. The angels amount and stratum as well as the general structure

22、of heaven were recorded. “Seven” is in occidentals favor. Maybe with Enoch as the source, legendary in the Christianity, the sky boundary is divided into seven floors until religious reform. The Protestantism cleaned these mythical doctrines out. But according to the Dante Alighieris Divina Commedia

23、 (Alter, Robert, The World of biblical literature, 1991.), the sky boundary combines with the astronomy at that time. For example, the moon takes the Earth as center with various stars to orbit about. B. The Basic Structure of ParadiseIn The Old Testament and The New testament there is little inform

24、ation about heaven, especially in ancient Palestine. If you have read the bible you must be aware of that. It is because there was no systematic structure at all at that time or the authors didnt want the reader to understand it at all. In English three words can express “heaven”: Eden, paradise, an

25、d heaven. Eden is the first place that can be called “heaven” in the history because paradise or Eden peculiarly figures at the garden that Jehovah set. Further more through this sentence “And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria.”(第二章，第十四节，创世记，圣

26、经原本 ) people can presume the first “heaven” of humans existing on the ground easily. Because Assyria is a name of a place which is nearby Palestine, so the first impression up to human is that heaven is a place that can be found on the earth. Its feature is a beautiful garden with cost-free fruit, l

27、ovely animals, and beautiful angels. . Middle Age and Renaissance PeriodA. Analysis about Concept after Culture Blending:The process of occidentals history is not smooth. This period is mainly the process of evolution of Germanic tribes from barbarians to the high level feudal society. At this time

28、the Catholic had already occupied the dominant position. Their world view of heaven almost came from Roma Catholic. The power of right of the church arrived to the top. First two important concepts must be brought up. They are pilgrimage and the city of god which was perfected by father Augustine (C

29、arver Yu, History of Christianity, 1990). Proverbially the holy land of Christian is Jerusalem. So no matter who they are or what job they did, they all came there for pilgrimage. Because of the poor and primitive traffic tools, an occidental followers way to go to Jerusalem from Europe is unimagina

30、ble. The world view of the people at that time was much different from the peoples in the present. They believed the world was flat. Some special place, such as Jerusalem, was close to heaven. If somebody was close to there, he was also close to the heaven. On the contrary the further the place is f

31、rom Jerusalem, the darker the place is or it is closer to hell. In their mind the world was like a dish; the centre of the circle is Jerusalem and the path to heaven is also located there. And if you walk away enough length from there you will find hell. And the structure of heaven is the same as se

32、ven floors of the sky boundary. And the god became Jesus many years ago. Though Trinity theory is popular even in modern time, obviously Jesus is much more famous than his father and the Holy Ghost. But there are new imaginary creatures, among which the most typical one is a firing dragon. In the st

33、ory of Knights of rounds, chapter two Lancelot and the Round Table there represented a young man named Lancelot who was resolved to be a knight and afterward he killed the firing dragon and some titans which maltreated human being and he became a knight finally. People believed the evil creature suc

34、h as firing dragon living at the edge of the “dish”. Only the supernatural hero who was chosen by the god such as Lancelot could destroy them, and protected human beings from the threat of the hell. In their mind the world had been cut into three parts: the city of god, human world, and the hell. It

35、 was mentioned “city of god” located on the sky where normal people could not arrive, but its door was in Jerusalem. Only the follower could find or could pass the door, then got to the heaven. And the people who belonged to other culture is the embodiment of the demon. For example, Muslims is defin

36、ed as infidel, a kind of demons; they all came from hell and they are the allies of firing dragon, Satan or something evil. Infidels force occupies the edge of world and they invaded and injured the human world continuously. At this period there were an amount of knight legendaries, the scholasticis

37、m propaganda of church, and The Crusades was together composed the important part of world view of the ancient occidental. After the long Dark Ages Renaissance had came. It is not often possible to date movements in history precisely，but early in the 13rd century a revival of learning occurred, whic

38、h is one of the signs of the passing of medieval culture. It is known as the Renaissance or the “rebirth”. It is not a return to antiquity，although it is often associated with the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman manuscripts. It began in Italy and spread northward into Europe. It took a differ

39、ent form in the north from that in the south. The scholars in this movement who revived an interest in the writings of antiquity are called humanists. The rise of humanism represents a sort of boundary line between medieval culture and modern times and their widely differing thought patterns. But to

40、tally it is said Renaissance is a period that culture advanced at a high speed. And it is right in this period human made the most progress. The key point is that Renaissance not only started and occurred in Italy but also spread over the whole Europe. It brought up literature, art to Italy, science

41、, and philosophy to Germany, development to England. This period is luxuriant with culture. At this time the construction of heaven is much more considerably perfect than before. Through several centuries the theory of religion has been developed much. It became an open automatic-renew system. The h

42、oly bible is transcribed frequently for adapting new concept which is generated in science or other field, such like literature, and philosophy. In Renaissance an integral systematic structure of heaven and hell had been set up by a book named The Divine Comedy. Dante，the author of The Divine Comedy

43、，which deals with hell，purgatory and heaven，is the first to write serious literature in the Italian language. B. Diagram of the Structure of the HeavenIn Dantes work there is clear information about hell，purgatory and heaven. The structure of hell and heaven is cone-shaped. The purgatory is a high h

44、ill. Heaven is a huge cone standing on the sky which is divided into seven or ten floors. The higher the floor is, the closer to the god one is. The god is the top of the heaven, and there are many bright angels flying around him. The Hell is like a handstand cone which inserts deeply into the earth

45、. It is divided into several floors. The most popular definition is thirteen floors. In The Divine Comedy there are nine floors. There are seven demons living in bottom in its center and the leader of demons is Lucifer who is an angel original. The earth is the cover of the hell. Demons want to poke

46、 it out at all times. The purgatorys function is like a bridge or some kind of path which links the two parts. The Heaven and the Hell are combined with each other in reversed conditions, bottom to bottom. The earth is penetrated by purgatory hill. It seems like a common hill on the earth from outsi

47、de, but in fact it is the path joining the Hell and the Heaven. It is said the wonderful hill locates somewhere in Palestine. What has been analyzed above can be illustrated by the following diagram:C. The Evidence Existing in Paradise Lost:From then the religious organization could not help but to drop the classical theory which defined the heaven in the sky finally. Instead some religious organizations, such as Vatican church, choose the “room th