A Comparative Study On Analects And Pentateuch

Analects and Pentateuch enjoy vital positions in each cultural system respectively, but there have been imprecision and even mistakes with both present and traditional researches in terms of understanding and methodology. Against the general backgrounds of the ever-going development of Sino-Christian theology, and facing the violent torrents of globalization when human beings'are losing their spiritual essence, it is of necessity to seek for an opportunity of the dialogue between two different cultural schemes by comparisons between these classic canons.Characteristically, his thesis bears a large amount of references to the history and aims at improving and surpassing such studies as said, former and present, and therefore distinguishes itself from the same class. It principally appeals to hermeneutics which endeavors to uncover the author's intention, analytically combines both theorems for and against hermeneutical interpretations, resorts to Emberto Eco's concepts of model reader and model author, lays the research objects on the religious platform, compares the key conceptual images in both works, and finally reveals similarities and differences between the civilizations represented and presented by the works under this discussion.The thesis centers on such pairs as Jen (or Ren) and Superior Man (or Perfect Person), and that the Law and Righteous Man, and focuses on the determinant factors for their intercommunications: Heaven and God. They share a great deal of commons, and also differ greatly from each other owing to the different authorial attitudes towards their works: Although Confucianism as a religion is based on the idea of Heaven, its text expresses the humanistic affections for the present life, and hence a rupture between life of the humans life and the idea of the heaven, whereas Pentateuch as fundamental works of Judaism and Christianity presents such a trinity as consists of God, law and human life. The thesis argues that Confucianism sets heaven as its departure and also its destination, and the idea of tianming as its kennel concept, while Pentateuch epitomizes its doctrine as that man derives from God, and ought to take the divine journey to comprehend the entity of God. In this sense it may be said that these two civilizations are communicative to each other. Nonetheless, Each civilization still differs dramatically from the other, so that the differences and diversities define and characterize them both. Such a dialogue, as far as this is concerned, demands meticulous reflections.