The Views Of Holy Animals In Leviticus And The Animal Images In Western Ecological Literature

Facing the destroyed ecological environment caused by human behavior, the western academic world has raised stronger and stronger concerns with issues on the environmental crisis and animal protection in the 20^th and 21^st century. As a new kind of world view and methodology, the ecological way of thought and study has urged people to reflect on human behavior and its cultural root so as to find solution to the environmental crisis and to seek harmonious development between nature and society. This thesis is mainly focused on the relationships between human and animals as a response to the emergence of ecological movement and ecological literature since the 20^th century. It aims to rediscover the religious and cultural meanings of animals in the Bible, to reveal the different relationships between human and animals in the early Judeo-Christian belief and its inheritance, embodiment and development in the historical and cultural evolvement as well as in the western modern ecological literatures, and to provide new perspectives, spiritual resources and devotional revelation to the universal ecological problem and the studies of ecological literature.In the first chapter, an historical review is made on the western traditional view of human centrism and animal instrumentalism, and the neglect of the holy views of animals in the bible, namely the holiness of the sacred animals and the taboo animals, is proposed. In the second chapter, the generation mechanism and the religious basis of the views of holy animals in Leviticus is analyzed in an anthropological way. In the third chapter, the concrete religious meanings of the holy animals are interpreted in the perspective of the mutual infiltrative relationships among God, animals and human in the text of Leviticus. In the fourth chapter, the theological core information behind the holy animals, namely the thought of original sin and eschatology, and its contemporary influence in literature and ecology are revealed. In the fifth chapter, the worldly and cultural evolvement of the views of holy animals in the Bible, the holy animal images as innocent sacrifices or mysterious avengers in western ecological literature, and the thoughts of ecological original sin and ecological eschatology behind are discussed through the corresponding connection in themes and thoughts between theology and literature. In the last chapter, the revelation of the views of holy animals in the Bible to the creation and studies of the contemporary ecological literature is ultimately reached.