Bible Reading
Bible Reading: Beneficial to English Language Learning
I. Introduction
Holy bible is the religious classic of Abraham religious, combined by thirty-nine volumes of the Old Testamentt and twenty-seven of the New Testament, totally sixty-six.
The original books of the Bible were written in three major languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, and the Koine Greek. Wyclif, Tyndale and Coverdale translated Bible in a significant way.John Wycliffe has translated covering maximum aspects in new Testament first time. Wycliffe's work prevailed until the sixteenth century. Wyclif’s words in literature were just like innovation in words. His role is vital after birth of great language. The words like “Unsatiable”or “Unglorious”were native origin produced by Wyclif. Later such words were replaced by prefix “In”. If you go through old additions of Bible, you will like to read “Impossible” as “Unpossible”(Norton, 1998:67). Tyndale can be considered as father of English literature’s phrases and compounds especially related to great feelings and mood. “Broken-heart”, “Long-suffering”, “Peace-maker”, “Stumbling Block”, are a few examples. “Beautiful’ and “Elder” are widely used words taught by Tyndale to us. Tyndale's efforts were not in vain, though, his New Testament was completed in 1525 and in 1535, Miles Coverdale, a scholar and friend of Tyndale, published his translation, partly based on Tyndale's work. Coverdale’s coinages like “Tender mercy”, “Pilgrim’s progress”, “Kind hearted”, “Blood-guiltiness”, “Noonday”, “Morning star”and “Loving kindness” made Holy writing language quite rich. King James appointed 54 scholars, drawn from Oxford and Cambridge universities and renowned for Greek and Hebrew expertise to translate Bible in English for the common people. Their aim was to “to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one.” Their New Testament was based largely on Tyndale’s translation. It is estimated that 80 to 90 percent of Tyndale’s wording passed into the King James Version of the New Testament. Various denominational and organizational goals have produced, and continue to produce; Bibles fit the needs of English speakers in all walks of life.
All in all, Bible’s translation into English has great impact on the language transition to the Modern English and made great impact on English as language and literature. Many basic concepts and principles of western culture have come down from
the Bible. Many common English phrases and expressions have their origins in the Bible as well.
II. Bible’s influ ence on English language learning
Today it is not just a religious classic, but an encyclopedia with rich content and colorful characteristics. The King James Version, with its brief but natural, specific but graceful language, has great influences on the English languages (Zhang, 1999:46-48).
2.1 Vocabulary
Vocabulary comes first. Bible’s influences on vocabulary mainly reflected in the aspects of biblical characters, biblical events, and biblical idioms.
2.1.1 Biblical characters
There are many characters in the Bible with various personalities, images and experiences. As time goes on, these characters have become the idiographic objects standing for certain kinds of people and are endowed with special image and meaning. Here are some examples.
Judas: J udas was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ’s. He betrayed Jesus, so no people would have this name today in the Western world because it is symbolic of betrayal and conspiracy. (Dunkling, 1997:47)
Solomon: Solomon was king of ancient Israel, who dominated a rich and strong county in his times. God was so happy that he requested only wisdom rather than enjoyment, longevity or the destruction of his enemy and finally fulfilled his desire. This name now means wisdom. (Gresswell, 1993:24)
Adam and Eve: At the very beginning, God made a man with mud according to his own image and named him Adam. Adam was the first human being, all human beings’ forefather. The saying “as old as Adam” hence means very old or out of date.
2.1.2 Biblical events
The Bible describes many historical events and tells many legendary stories. Some imaginative war scenes were described in these stories on the base of true history for the purpose of spreading God’s words. Allusions to these events are often made in everyday life. Examples are as follows.
The Last Supper: It originated from the story when Jesus had the supper with his twelve disciples and announced that one of them had betrayed him before Passover. Since it was the last dinner Jesus had together with his disciples on a table which had
been framed up by one of these twelve disciples that The Last Supper is used to imply being betrayed by an especially good friend.
The kiss of death: This idiom comes from the story that Judas betrayed Jesus, who told the Jewish domina tors to seize Jesus after he kissed Jesus’ face, which action was to help them to identify the exact man they wanted. A kiss of death is today a symbol that it seems somebody’s very kind to do something for you but actually he is persecuting you.
Original sin(Adam’s sin): It stands for human proclivity to sin. This one is quite difficult for Chinese people to understand because we believe human nature is good while Christians believe that everybody is born evil for human being’s forefather Adam ate that forbidden fruit and was driven out of Paradise. (Liu & Feng, 1997:35-42)
2.1.3 Biblical idioms
Ever since Adam’s birth, the best seller in the world so far is the Bible. For most of Westerners especially the Americans and English, and for learners of the English language and culture, the Bible is an essential necessity. With the spread of Christianity and the Bible’s increasing influence, a lot of expressions from the Bible are widely used. These expressions, which cover almost all parts of our social and cultural life, are becoming English idioms which have been used frequently now (Xue & Gao, 2003.10). Here are some of them:
Fall by the wayside: to fail or stop being done, used, or made
Fall on stony ground: ignored, disliked (of a suggestion, joke, etc.)
Greedy as Ahab: to describe somebody is as extremely miserly as the Ahab in the Bible
Devout as Abraham (Abraham is an honest man): a man of honesty, sincerity
Eloquent as Aaron (Aaron is a very talkative): to show somebody is very good at speaking
Strong as Samson: very strong
Vicious as Jezebel: very vicious
As poor as a church mouse
No wonder that Prof. Earnest Weekly Says “No work except Shakespeare has had so much influence on the phraseology of English as the Authorized Version of the Bible at one time familiar to all households”.
2.2 Proverbs
There are a large number of proverbs from the Bible that are known to both the old
and the young. Those that urge people to act kindly and persuade people from doing evil are especially attractive. They have be come a kind of moral standard in people’s written or oral language and influenced their words and deeds. (Zhang, 1999:76-77) The punishment is to be a life of a life, an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand and a foot for a foot.
Do as you would be done by. (Treat others in the same way as you would like to be treated.)
A tree is known by its fruit.
Better is a neighbor that is near than a brother far off.
When words are many, sin is not absent.
All who take the sword will perish by the sword.
Hatred stirs up strife; but love covers all sins.
Gossiping and lying go hand in hand.(The one who indulges in talking about others will lie).
The price of wisdom is above rubies.(Wisdom is superior to jewellery).
Pride goes before destruction
The Sabbath was made for man. Not man for Sabbath.
The lip of truth shall be established for ever; but a lying tongue is but for a moment.(The truth will last forever while lies exist for a second.)
There shall no evil happen to the just; but the wicked shall be filled with mischief.(Good man won’t suffer from disasters but the evil one will finally be punished).
Man proposes, but God disposes.
In the multitude of words there wants not sin; but he that refrains his lips is wise.(To speak less is better than more).
As a man sows, so he shall reap.
Ask and you shall be given.
To some extent, Bible is the soul of English Language, for it has numerous idioms and sayings to the English language. It is no exaggerating to say that poor understanding of the Bible and its culture means ignorance of western languages, literature and culture. Only with a good command of its meaningful words and expressions can we learn English better.
2.3 British-American literature
The literature of a nation always shows best what its language can do when it is well used. In learning a language we should cultivate a feeling for a good language. Such a feeling can best be trained by the reading of literature that matters. Many
writers quote the bible directly or use the symbolic meaning or merge the story to add the literary flavor owing to their characteristics of brevity, profound connotation and vividness.
2.3.1 Quoting the Bible directly
It is not difficult to find that some authors directly quote phrases from the Bible as the titles of t heir creations or take people’s names in the Bible as the names of their characters. In this way, they make their own works correspondent with or related to the Bible. The first epic in English literature, Beowulf, can serve as an example. Beowulf talks about God and says that the monster half-human Grendal is one of Cain's descendants. Cain's story originates from one chapter of the Old Testament ----the Creation. He killed his brother Abel because of envy, and then he became the first sinner in the world. According to the Bible's spirit, relating the fierce Grendal to the sinner Cain is reasonable. (Wang, 1996:7)
The story of Adam in Eden was also adopted by the great poet John Milton in the 17th century and became the stencil of the epic poem Paradise Lost. Although it was taken from the Bible, the poet's mind was not confined by the original. Milton was a pious Puritan. He should have used his exquisite pen to praise God, but he galloped his imagination to describe the devil Satan as a unique hero. When we look back the life of the poet，he lived in the 17th Republic Revolution with full enthusiasm, only to suffer the failure of the revolution and the restoration of the empire (Crevecoeur, 1925:2). But he did not stop fighting. Thus the Satan’s image became the symbol of the Puritan Revolutionaries. The description of Adam and Eva in the poem also set us thinking. When they were led by the angers to the east door and looked back, they did not lose heart but soon cleaned the tears and faced the boundless world traversing them.
And on the Eastside of Garden place
Where entrance up from Eden easiest climbers
Cherubic watch and of a Sword the flame (Milton, 2000:166)
The poem meant to express that man could be mature really only by tasting the life on his own.
2.3.2 Using the symbolic meaning of the Bible
Authors often quote the symbolic meaning of the Bible to make readers accept their works easily. Take William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venic e as an example. In the first scene the fourth act, Portia who disguised herself as a man appeared as a lawyer and pretended to refute the requirements by Bassanio. This made the fierce
Shylock who was under the hostile atmosphere feel gra tified. He can’t help shouting:“A Daniel come to judgment’s yea, a Daniel!
O wise young judge, how I do honor thee!” (Shakespeare, 2000:93).
H ere, “Daniel” is an allusion from the Bible. The Old Testament says that Daniel’s talent was extraordinary. Because of his stories, Daniel became widely accepted as the symbol of a wise and fa ir judge, and this symbolic meaning was what “Daniel” conveyed in Shylock’s shout.
Seeing the iceberg floating on the sea, we find that the tip above the water is only a small part of it. The relationship between the Bible and English-American literature is just like that between iceberg and the tip. Sometimes a sentence, a poem line, even a word has something to do with the Bible. The feeling is stronger when reading William Blake’s poem. One of the poems in the collections Songs of Innocence, which he wrote for children---Lamb describes a hairy happy lamb. It sometimes drinks along streams, sometimes eats grasses over the mead. Its tender voices bring happiness to the gorge. The poet can’t help asking the lamb: “Little lamb, who made thee?”, then the poet seems saying some nature’s mystery that “a man had the same name as you. He was meek and mild, and once he became a child” “We are called by his name”, “The God’s sheep” in the new Testament is Jesus. John who gave baptism said that “He is the God’s sheep, and he came to save man.” Jesus was the God’s son and was sent to the earth by the God’s will. The Virgin Mary was pregnant without a marriage. Then Jesus changed and became her son. So it is said that "Once he became a child ". And the New Testament records clearly Jesus' tenderness and modesty. Thus, to appreciate Blake's so short poem, we should read the Bible before. (Abrams, 1986:32)
2.3.3 Merging the stories of the Bible
American writer F.Fitzgerald’s masterpiece The Great Gatsby is an example. When we go through the novel we can find that the hero Gatsby is a Jesus-like character. There are many similarities between them. When we turn to Gatsby's life, it is easy to make three stages of it. They are similar to Jesus’. There are achieving goals, suf fering from death and renaissance. Gatsby denies his cheap parents and changed his name from James Gatz into Jay Gatsby. His friend Carraway called him the God’s son, and said that “he must be about His Father’s business”This is one important similarity between their experiences. New Testament Theodor Zahn said, when Jesus was 12, one day he sat in a holy palace in Jerusalem, said to his sad parents that “why do you come to find me? Don’t you know I must be about my father’s business?” Jesus’ father
naturally meant the God and in fact he denied his mortal father. His father is like the nominal Joseph, came to bury the son. Among the few people in Gatsby’s funeral, a man whose nickname is “owl-eyed glasses” once was a guest without invitation for Gatsby’s pa rty. The owl-eyed glasses’ appearance stand for the God—Gatsby’s mind’s father—who also came to Gatsby’s funeral. This is also correspondent with Jesus’ death. At the end of the novel, Gatsby’s friend Caraway wandered into Gatsby’s beach house in a clean moon night to farewell to this building which was once gleaming and dazing but now a bleak place. In his memory to his friend, he nearly treated Gatsby as the Dutch immigrates who came several hundreds years ago and the past Americans. This association and treatment can be considered as Gatsby’s regeneration .Gatsby’s American dream had not failed, and his spirit still existed. He once tried his best to recover the beautiful past and believed that dreams can come true. Caraway thought that Gatsby’s romantic spirit filled with ideal color should exist with the world. And Gatsby’s regeneration made us naturally think out the Bible’s story about Jesus’ appearance three days of his death. (Fitzgerald, 1999:95)
III. Bible’s impact on western cultur e
Learning a foreign language well means more than merely mastering the pronunciation, grammar, words and idioms. It means learning also to see the world as native speakers of that language see it, learning the ways in which their language reflects the ideas, customs, and behavior of their society, learning to understand their “language of the mind”. Learning a language, in fact, is inseparable from learning its culture. (Kramsch, 2000:7)
Christianity, which covers the biggest area in the world and has the largest amount of disciples, has become the main stream of western culture and permeated into their country’s political, economical, axiological systems as well as customs. The following are just a few examples.
3.1 Painting and films
Though the Bible's mark on culture may be clearly identified in some historic artistic master-pieces, such as Handel's orato-rio Messiah, or Leonardo da Vinci's painting “The Last Sup-per,”the Bible continues to imbue modern culture with its influence.
The Bible also finds its way into movies. Many of its stories have appeared on the
silver screen - none more famously perhaps than Cecil B. DeMille's epic The Ten Commandments. The film follows the life of Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land, although the text plays loosely with facts, says film review-er Peter Chattaway, a Christian living in Surrey, B.C.
The 1956 version was a remake of DeMille's 1923 silent film of the same name, he says. The earlier film tells Moses' story and then catapults into the 1920s, depicting applica-tion of the Ten Commandments to a modern era. “The film was very concerned with the influence of the Bible and the ancient culture involved in it,” Chattaway said.
Studio executives apparently still think there's cash in the biblical story. Moses will rise again on screens late this fall as Dream Works releases its first animated feature on the life of Moses entitled The Prince of Egypt. To ensure authenticity, the studio has shown clips of the film to numerous religious leaders, Time magazine reports. “They've gone out of their way to curry the favor of religious figures,”Chattaway commented.
3.2 Origin of VOA
It is also because the Bible has shown a strand of rich plots with humanitarianism of saving the world and rescuing the people that so many politicians and social workers crave to pick a drop of Bible’s distillation to surround their books or speeches with an aura of sanctity to increase their works’ influence. The name of the world famous broadcasting station VOA was born out of the slogan “the voice of the people is the voice of God” in the Bible. This name intends to lead people with the imagination that the Voice of America is the voice of God, the authority, the truth, justice and the harmonious paradise of human beings. (Chen, 1999:12)
3.3 Festivals
There are a few important festivals in the western concerning with Jesus Christ such as Christmas and Thanksgiving Day.
The name Christmas is short for "Christ's Mass". A Mass is a kind of Church service. Christmas is a religious festival when celebrated as the birthday of Jesus. There are special Christmas services in Christian churches all over the world. Exchanging gifts and sending Christmas cards are the modern ways of celebrating the Christmas in the world.
The birth of Jesus had a story: In Nazareth, a city of Galilee. The virgin's name was Mary was betrothed to Joseph. Before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Joseph her husband was minded to put her away secretly. While he
thought about these things, Gabriel, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and told him did not be afraid to take Mary as wife. And Mary will bring forth a Son, and he shall call his name, Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. After Jesus births, Joseph had to go up out of Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to Bethlehem, because he was of the house and of the lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth Jesus, and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. And that, Christmas is the feast of the nativity of Jesus, is on 25th, December every year. But nobody knows the actual birthday of Jesus. And the Christmas has become popular when Christmas cards appeared in 1846 and the concept of a jolly Santa Claus was first made popular in nineteenth Century.
3.4 People’s value
Historically, when true Christianity came to any region, those who were practicing Christ's commands would begin to reach out to help the poor, the oppressed, the sick, and needy. Most of the present hospitals, charity centers, orphanages and rescue missions were all founded by Christians in keeping with the Biblical commands of Christ to demonstrate His love to a needy world. God has always been interested in helping the weak, the feeble and afflicted. Ungodly societies destroy their weak, helpless and burdensome members. (Hao, 2005:103)
We are praying for all nations that practice abortion because this practice does not show the love of God toward babies. Rather, it is an unloving act that is adversely affecting all of society. Men and women are hardening their hearts to the idea of protecting the sanctity of a human life. Regardless of what those who believe in abortion rights claim, most abortions are not done to protect the mother's life or some other so-called valid reason, but, rather to allow the mother and father to escape their responsibility of caring for the little life they had a part in creating. Most abortions are done out of pure selfishness. The mother and father simply do not want a child to interfere with their plans. The Bible teaches we are to overcome selfishness, not encourage it. We need to reverse the law in our land that allows abortions so freely, as the soul of our nation has accepted a practice that we will all regret. The consequence
of murder is “a life for a life” and this will mean the loss of much life in our nation unless we repent.Numbers 35:33: “So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood o f him that shed it.”
IV. Conclusion
From what have been discussed in the previous, we can realize the importance of bible influence on English language learning. It is not exaggerating to say that poor understanding of the Bible and its culture means ignorance of Western culture and languages. Only with a good command of its meaningful words and expressions can we learn English better. So the more we know about this book, the deeper we will understand the Western culture and their language.
In the first place, bible should be given enough care to in our teaching. Presenting concise and accessible introductions to the Bible's most important characters, stories and themes, it encourages better understanding, study and analysis of the Christian element in Western culture. We can carry out the teaching of biblical background knowledge like this:
a. Selecting proper teaching material
b. Encouraging wide reading
c. Paying attention the way of teaching vocabulary in the classroom
d. Introducing bible information by audio Visual Aids
e. Encouraging communication with English-speaking Christian
f. Holding lectures about bible
Secondly, some good websites and books are recommended.
Students have acquired four skills—listening, speaking, reading and writing according to the demand of our traditional syllabus, they should apply the language to real life instead of ignoring the social meanings of language forms and language application in reality. It is essential for an English major to know about the biblical background. Without the knowledge of biblical background, students may misunderstand what the
speaker said. Furthermore, the conversation with English person is sometimes related to biblical background information. They should do some independent searching or reading to improve their biblical background knowledge. Some websites are suggested.https://www.360docs.net/doc/9a3836382.html,/bible/influence.php,https://www.360docs.net/doc/9a3836382.html,/bible/i ndex.html, http://www.newhope.bc.ca/guest03.htm. Some books are advised such as Holy Bible and Bible Story.
References
---------.Bible Story. Shanghai: Reproduced courtesy of Editorial Photo color Archives. Inc , 1991.
Abrams, M.H. The Norton Anthology of English Literature.New York: W.W.Norton Company, 1986.
Crevecoeur, St. John de. Sketches of Eighteenth Century America.New York: George S. MacManus Company, 1925.
Curran,Stuart.The Cambridge Companion to Bible. 上海: 上海外语教育出版社, 2001.
Dunkling, L. Naming Names. Beijing: English Salon, 1997.
Fitzgerald,F.Scott. The Great Gatsby.London: Wordsworth Editions Ltd, 1999. Gresswell, J. Collins Gem. Babies Names. Glasgow: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993. Hao Peng, Christianity & the Bible. Haikou: Nanhai Pressing Company, 2005. Herbert Schueller. An Analysis of style of Bible. Michigan : Wayne State University Press, 1969.
Kramsch, Claire. Language and culture. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2000.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. 上海:上海译文出版社,2000.
Norton, David. New American Standard. London: Penguin Books Limited London, 1998.
Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. 北京: 外语教学与研究出版社,2000.
Xuezhong, Gao Peng. English Words and Culture. Dalian: Dalian University of Technology Press, 2003.
Zhang Yali. the Impact of the Bible on English Language. Fujian: Fujian Foreign Language, 1999.
陈光明. 基督教《圣经》在西方文化中的影响. 安徽: 安庆师范学院学报, 1999. 刘意青, 冯忠国等. 圣经故事. 北京: 中国对外翻译出版社公司, 1997.
王佐良. 英国文学史. 北京: 商务印书馆, 1996.
Acknowledgements
First of all, I owe my earnest gratitude to my tutor, Ms. Liu for her being critical and demanding and yet caring and supportive, which therefore helps broaden and enrich my knowledge in the course of academic paper writing. And I should express my thanks to Mr. Wang for his insightful lectures, unstinting criticisms and valuable guidance.
Secondly, special thanks will also go to the other teachers who taught me during my fours years of college life.
Last but not the least; I am indebted to all my friends and classmates who constantly offer their concern, expectation and suggestion to me.
I’m grateful to you all.