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The Bible is teeming with monsters. Giants tromp through the land of milk and honey; Leviathan swims through the wine-dark sea. A stunning array of peculiar creatures, mind-altering spirits, and supernatural hitmen fill the biblical heavens, jarring in both their strangeness and their propensity for violence--especially on God's behalf.Traditional interpretations of the creatures of the Bible have sanded down their sharp, unsavory edges, transforming them into celestial beings of glory and light--or chubby, happy cherubs. Those cherubs? They're actually hybrid guardian monsters, more closely associated with the Egyptian sphinx than with flying babies. And the seraphim? Winged serpents sent to mete out God's vengeance. Demons aren't at war with angels; they're a distinct supernatural species used by Satan and by God. The pattern is chilling. Most of these monsters aren't God's opponents--they're God's entourage.Killer angels, plague demons, manipulative spirits, creatures with an alarming number of wings (and eyes all over)--these shapeshifters and realm-crossers act with stunning brutality, each reflecting a facet of God's own monstrosity. Confronting God's monsters--and the God-monster--may be uncomfortable, but the Bible is richer for their presence. It's not only richer; the stories of the monsters of the Bible can be as fun, surprising, and interesting as any mythology. For anyone interested in monsters, myths, folklore, demons, and more, God's Monsters is an entertaining deep dive into the creaturely strangeness of the Bible.

Supernal Serpent explores the development of the Leviathan tradition from its early roots in ancient West Asian and biblical accounts, up to the later rabbinic traditions. Concentrating on the theophanic features of Leviathan's appearances in Jewish biblical, pseudepigraphical, and rabbinic accounts, special attention is paid to the traditions found in the Book of Job and the Apocalypse of Abraham. Leading scholar Andrei Orlov argues that the Apocalypse of Abraham presents Leviathan in an anti-theophany, a revelation of the underworld's ruler. Orlov delves into the cultic significance of Leviathan and its roles as the sacred courtyard of the cosmological sanctuary and the Foundation Stone of the Temple of Creation. The volume further discusses the background of Leviathan's role as the foundation of the world in ancient West Asian, biblical, rabbinic, and Muslim texts. Orlov suggests that the idea of the cosmological temple with a primordial monster as its sacred foundation provide a sacerdotal alternative that allowed Jewish apocalypticists to perpetuate their cultic vision in the absence of the earthly Temple. The study also demonstrates that, in some Jewish materials, Leviathan is envisioned as a living embodiment of the divine mysteries, which are preserved by God from the beginning of creation, but will be revealed fully in the eschaton to the elect. Ultimately, Supernal Serpent proposes that the Leviathan tradition found in the Apocalypse of Abraham plays a formative role in this conceptual move towards the reification of divine knowledge in the form of Leviathan serving as a bridge between the ancient West Asian, biblical, and pseudepigraphical testimonies concerning the primordial monster and their later rabbinic and Muslim counterparts.

When looking at the sources that have been available from the Syria-Palestine region since the Chalcolithic and that depict or describe beings with more than one head or one face, two things become apparent: On the one hand, there are only a few sources and therefore beings with several faces or heads did not play a major role in the real world or mythological realm in the region if one compares the attested evidence with other cultures of the Near East. On the other hand, there are also clear innovations or inventions that distinguish the region unmistakably from other cultures, e.g. Egypt. Evidence of multiple heads in the Syria-Palestine region extends from the fifth millennium to the time after Christ's birth, while multiple faces only appear towards the end of the third millennium. The oldest finds from the Chalcolithic represent several animals or their heads on an object (such as a crown or a staff). It can be assumed that the multi-headed gods developed from these objects. The earliest forms of double-headed animals were borrowed from nature and elevated to the divine realm in the centuries that followed. Some of the multi-headed or multi-faced creatures known from the Bible, like many other finds from the Syrian-Palestinian region, can be traced back to Mesopotamian models or well-known depictions. The seven-headed serpent can be understood as the enemy of the gods par excellence, which is conquered in many written documents and illustrations and was known throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Starting from Mesopotamia, it is known from Ugaritic sources up to the Revelation of John and Coptic sources, with the number seven being the expression for evil as a whole. Multiheadedness is on the one hand a sign of power, but also of chaos and evil. The multiplication of heads is an expression of power: the struggle of a god with a multiple-headed being, such as its defeat, puts the struggle in a completely different light than if the enemy had only one head.

Leviathan, a manifestation of one of the oldest monsters in recorded history (3rd millennium BCE), and its sidekick, Behemoth, have been the object of centuries of suppression throughout the millennia. Originally cosmic, terrifying creatures who represented disorder and chaos, they have been converted into the more palatable crocodile and hippo by biblical scholars today. However, among the earliest Jews (and Muslims) and possibly Christians, these creatures occupied a significant place in creation and redemption history. Before that, they formed part of a backstory that connects the Bible with the wider ancient Near East. When examining the reception history of these fascinating beasts, several questions emerge. Why are Jewish children today familiar with these creatures, while Christian children know next to nothing about them? Why do many modern biblical scholars follow suit and view them as minor players in the grand scheme of things? Conversely, why has popular culture eagerly embraced them, assimilating the words as symbols for the enormous? More unexpectedly, why have fundamentalist Christians touted them as evidence for the cohabitation of dinosaurs and humans?

This book reads Revelation through the lens of the monster. Using monster theory, Heather Macumber approaches the cosmic beings in John's Apocalypse as other and monstrous regardless of whether they are found in heaven or the abyss, with significant attention paid to the monstrous body and how it causes both unease and wonder. Intertwined with descriptions of cosmic monsters, this book also interrogates the role of John as a maker of horror stories, who casts his opponents as the other and monstrous. Despite the tendency to view John and the heavenly creatures as the heroes of this apocalyptic tale, Macumber aims to recover their own liminal and hybrid characteristics that mark them as monstrous.

In Reading the Bible with Horror, Brandon R. Grafius takes the reader on a whirlwind tour through the dark corners of the Hebrew Bible. Along the way, he stops to place the monstrous Leviathan in conversation with contemporary monster theory, uses Derrida to help explore the ghosts that haunt the biblical landscape, and reads the House of David as a haunted house. Conversations arise between unexpected sources, such as the Pentateuch legal texts dealing with female sexuality and Carrie. Throughout the book, Grafius asks how the Hebrew Bible can be both sacred text and tome of fright, and he explores the numerous ways in which the worlds of religion and horror share uncomfortable spaces.

Since ancient times Leviathan and other monsters from the biblical world symbolize the life-threatening powers in nature and history. They represent the dark aspects of human nature and political entities and reveal the supernatural dimensions of evil. Ancient texts and pictures regarding these monsters reflect an environment of polytheism and religious pluralism. Remarkably, however, the biblical writings and post-biblical traditions use these venerated symbols in portraying God as being sovereign over the entire universe, a theme that is also prominent in the reception of these texts in subsequent contexts.This volume explores this tension and elucidates the theological and cultural meaning of ‘Leviathan'by studying its ancient Near Eastern background and its attestation in biblical texts, early and rabbinic Judaism, Christian theology, Early Modern art, and film.

Appealing to Monster Theory and the ancient Near Eastern motif of'Chaoskampf,'Safwat Marzouk argues that the paradoxical character of the category of the monster is what prompts the portrayal of Egypt as a monster in the book of Ezekiel. While on the surface the monster seems to embody utter difference, underlying its otherness there is a disturbing sameness. Though the monster may be defeated and its body dismembered, it is never completely annihilated. Egypt is portrayed as a monster in the book of Ezekiel because Egypt represents the threat of religious assimilation. Although initially the monstrosity of Egypt is constructed because of the shared elements of identity between Egypt and Israel, the prophet flips this imagery of monster in order to embody Egypt as a monstrous Other. In a combat myth, YHWH defeats the monster and dismembers its body. Despite its near annihilation, Egypt, in Ezekiel's rhetoric, is not entirely obliterated. Rather, it is kept at bay, hovering at the periphery, questioning Israel's identity.