"zhuang Zi" And "bible Study

As a chief representative of Taoist works Zhuangzi was philosophically profound and comprehensive which achieved great success in literary and exerted a tremendous influence in Chinese culture. The Bible, being Christian scripture, exerted a tremendous influence in world civilization with the propagation of Christian. Since the last years of Ming Dynasty when western missionaries came China, there had been many comparative studies of the western culture and Chinese culture. However, the study focused on the comparison of Confucianism and Christian, so it was deficient in the comparative study of Taoist works and Christian scriptures. This dissertation firstly concern with the comparative study of Zhuangzi and the Bible on the basis of the studies by the predecessors.Besides Introduction and Postscript this dissertation has five chapters dealt out three sections. The first is the comparative study of the survey of the two texts. Zhuangzi and the Bible were both born in the " axle period". Their historical backgrounds are the same: that is, the people lost the confidence in the God. The writers of the two books cherished firm conviction. They both aimed at saving people by arousing the masses of people to follow the Supreme Being.The second is the comparative study of ideological content. The two books are similar in interpretation of the origin and the master of the universe more or less, because the Tao in Zhuangzi and the God in the Bible are both above the world inner the things on earth, invisible but real, the Ultimate being difficulty to be known but for the people have to know. They both considered the man as created, limited and inspected human from the view of the limitless universe in order to guide them. They both considered that the ignorance of and deviation to the Super Being account for human's misfortune. Only by relying on the Super Being can man live happy and sound other than on man's wisdom, ethics or force. The ideal state of life is mingling with nature and caring for no self.The third is comparative study of the technique of expression. Zhuangzi and the Bible both written in many styles, there are wonderful stories, affecting poems as well as brilliant exposition. They have many same techniques of expression except for revelation and pre-revelation. For example, depicting their philosophy vividly. In a word, Zhuangzi and the Bible displayed astonishing similar though they were bom in different cultural environment. As crystallization of human wisdom the two books apply more concentrated study and true understanding in nowadays when international cultural interchanges and mixes together.