The best-selling book of all time is the Bible, so what about the second place? The answer is the classic British book The Pilgrim's Progress. It is a book that the Puritan priest John Bunyan began writing in prison in 1678. Many writers have compared John Banyan to Shakespeare and Milton, and have listed The Journey of heaven with Dante's Divine Comedy and Spencer's The Queen of the Immortals as the three major satirical works in world literature. The video has been removed by the publishers and has been translated into more than two hundred languages so far, but has never been made into a movie to be screened online in theaters. Now, a brand new animated film, Journey to Heaven, has been launched, retooling Banjan's classic story in a way that is accessible to all ages.
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Synopsis of the film "The Journey of heaven"
The book "The Journey of heavenly roads" is divided into two parts. "Journey to Heaven: Journey to Heaven" is the upper part, and the story adopts a most simple and easy-to-understand central metaphor: life is like a journey, and all the plots take place during this journey.
The film tells the story of a man named "Christian" who is reading a book and is terrified to learn that the city where he lives will be destroyed by fire.
The Christian told his wife, "We must get out of here, and the book says, if this city is destroyed, I don't want you, your children, or anyone else to die." ”
Yet the Christian's wife laughed at him, saying that he was acting like a madman.
She said, "You have to make a choice," forcing christians to choose between her and his journey.
In the end, the Christians decided to embark on a journey from their hometown of the City of Destruction to the City of Heaven. Wait until later to come back and save his family.
At this time, a man named "The Preacher" instructed him that he must flee his hometown and go to the Heavenly City.
But a Christian friend, a man named "Stubborn," encouraged Christians to stay and asked him why he had left his hometown.
The Christian replied that his hometown was dwarfed by everything in heaven, where there was the Golden Street, where there was no sorrow, and the kings of heaven had love. And the hometown he was leaving was full of evil and pain.
The celestial city he sought was full of good joy, which lasted forever.
During the journey, he met many people and met friends who assisted him, like "faithful".
Of course, the Christian also encountered many confusions and traps, he crossed the "forest of the world", and the temptation of the world wisdom mistakenly met Mount Sinai.
After being instructed by the preacher, enter the narrow door.
He fell into the "melancholy pool" and needed rescue, and even heard rumors that "the king of the heavenly city cannot be trusted".
The devotees, near the cross, climbed the difficult mountain, descended the low valley.
Fight with Abulun, enter the Valley of Death, enter the city of Xuanhua, and trap the castle of doubt.
The closer the Christian gets to the cross, the burden on him slowly lifts.
Eventually, Christians successfully crossed the River of Death and reached the Heavenly City to enjoy eternal bliss.
All this is mainly up to the Christians themselves to face and solve, although there are sometimes resting places on the way, such as the Fury Palace, the pavilion, etc., and sometimes there are warm receptions and guidance from friends such as preachers, interpreters, shepherds, and maids of the Rich Palace.
But the faithfulness and hope of his successive companions were the two important qualities that supported him through the narrow road of heaven.
Seeing Christian determination and perseverance, both inspiring and convicting, makes one wonder: How many times have I been lost in the "forest of the world"? How long have I been in The Void Market?
We should have the same attitude as the Christian, who has always fixed his eyes on eternal rewards and is loyal to the King of heaven.
02
The Story of John BanYan, author of The Journey of heaven
John Bunyan was born in November 1628 in a small village about a mile south of Bedford, England. His father was a local pot maker, and because of his family's poverty, Banjan received only a basic education.
In 1644, the English Civil War broke out, and the sixteen-year-old Bunyan joined the Parliamentary Army led by Cromwell. Returning to his hometown after the war, Ban Yangzi inherited his father's business and also became a pot maker.
He later married a woman from a poor background. His wife brought two books that her father had given her, one was The Ordinary Man's Way to Heaven and the other was Godly Life. Banyan was inspired to read these two books.
After a long struggle of faith, at the age of 25, in 1653 Bunyan joined an amornavigic church (Protestantism) in England, changing his fate.
In 1660, he was arrested on charges of holding religious services without permission (unlicensed sermons), and the authorities sentenced John Banyan to prison for illegal proselytizing. Banjan began his literary work during his long 12-year prison tenure, and the first part of "The Journey of Heaven" was written by him in prison.
In 1675, he was imprisoned again for illegal proselytizing, but this time less than a year later.
After his second release from prison, "The Journey of heavenly roads" was published for the first time.
Later, Bunyan wrote the second part of The Journey of heaven.
John Bunyan devoted himself to preaching until his death, and finally fell ill with fever on his way to visit his followers, and died in November 1688 at the age of sixty.
It is said that Ban Yang was so proficient in reading the Bible that he could memorize almost the entire Bible, so that Ban Yang became one of the most quoted and handy writers in history, and later people called him "the person who reads a book".
According to statistics, the "Journey of heavenly roads" directly quotes scriptures or parts with biblical meanings and allusions, up to more than 80 percent, and the first and second volumes quote 160 and 94 parables from the Bible respectively, which is a Christian work that quotes more scriptures in history.
Banyan's most frequent quote is the book of Revelation's "Behold, that sits on the throne...", which is the source of his strength, "for out of god's Word there is not a single word without power." (Luke 1:37)