『英文版』西方思想经典

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《Heritage of Western Intellectual Tradition: A Sourcebook》

上海外语教育出版社  2008年4月第1次

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Unit 1

The Christian Bible

Pretest

1. What do you know about the Christian Bible?

2. Why is the Bible so significant to so many people in the world?

3. What are the messages conveyed through the creation story and the Exodus?


What You Will Learn in This Unit

1. Some knowledge about the Christian Bible

2. Important sections from the Bible

3. Chinese creation stories

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Introduction

Christianity is the world's most popular religion as roughly 33% of the world population is believed to be Christians (roughly, Muslims take up 18%, Hindus  16%, Buddhists 6%, Chinese traditional  religions 4%, and atheists 16%).

The Christian Bible, also called the Holy Bible, the Sacred Book or Scriptures of Judaism and of Christianity, is the most widely distributed  book in human history.

Literature, art, and music of Western culture are deeply indebted to biblical themes, motifs, and images. Translations of the Bible helped the development of Western vernacular languages.

The word "Bible " derived through Latin from the Greek biblia, or "books", the diminutive form of byblos, the word for "papyrus" or "paper", exported from the ancient Phoenician port city of Biblos.

The Jewish Bible or the Hebrew Scriptures contains 39 books originally written in Hebrew. The Christian Bilbe comprises of two pars, the old Testament and the New Testament.

In 1382 the first complete English Bible appeared in manuscript by the English reformer John Wycliffe (1328-1384)，whose goal was to liberate the Bible from its possession and use by clergy alone to the hands of the laity.

The controversy over the Bible, or Biblical Criticism, gave rise to two branches of modern learning: exegesis(critical interpretation) and hermeneutics(the science of interpretive principles).

The Old Testament, used by Roman Catholics, contains the Bible of Judaism plus 7 other books and additions to these books. The Old Testament used by the Protestants is limited to the 39 books of the Jewish Bible. It was written originally in Hebrew during 1200 to 100 BCE.

The word "testament" derives from the Latin word for "covenant," and the term "Old Testament" was said to be devised by a Christian, Melito of Sardis, at about AD 170 to distinguish between the "Old Covenant" that God made with Israel and the "New Covenant" established through Jesus Christ.

The first 6 books of the Old Testament tell how Israelites became a people and settled in the Promised Land, an area roughly corresponding to present day Palestine, and the following 7 books are a continuation of their story on this Land. The last 11 books contain poetry, theology, and some additional historical works.

The style of the Old Testament includes narratives, poetic works, law, and apocalypses.

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Genesis

The English title is derived from genesis kosmou(Greek, "origin of the cosmos"). The book falls into two parts: chapters 1-11 are concerned with the primeval history of humankind and contain stories about the first man and the first woman, and the first covenant made by God with humanity in the person of Noah; chapters 12-50 are mainly an account of the lives of the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or a history of the origins of the Hebrew nation.

The basic aim of Genesis is to relate creation and history to God, and, specially, to explain the role of Israel in the world. Genesis is still regarded by many as a literal account of the Creation but most see it as myth or legend expressive merely of tribal beliefs, superstitions, and mores, though archaeological investigations have revealed that events, places, and persons in Genesis most probably have basis in historical fact.

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In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said,"Let there be light": and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light Day, and the darness he called Night.
And the evening and the morning were the first day!

And God said,"Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters."
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

And God called the firmament Heaven.
And the evening and the morning were the second day.

And God said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear": and it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth": and it was so.

And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And the evening and the morning were the third day.

And God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth": and it was so.

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

And God said,"Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven."

And God created great whales, and every living creture that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And God blessed them, saying,"Be fruiful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth."

And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

And God said,"Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind": and it was so.

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And God said,"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepth upon the earth."

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, "Be fruiful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

And God said,"Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every green herb for meat": and it was so.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.