Religion and Its Monsters - Softcover

Beal, Timothy K.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415925886 ISBN 13: 9780415925884

Publisher: Routledge, 2001

Synopsis

Religion's great and powerful mystery fascinates us, but it also terrifies. So too the monsters that haunt the stories of the Judeo-Christian mythos and earlier traditions: Leviathan, Behemoth, dragons, and other beasts. In this unusual and provocative book, Timothy K. Beal writes about the monsters that lurk in our religious texts, and about how monsters and religion are deeply entwined. Horror and faith are inextricable. Ans as monsters are part of religious texts and traditions, so religion lurks in the modern horror genre, from its birth in Dante's Inferno to the contemporary spookiness of H.P. Lovecraft and the Hellraiser films. Religion and Its Monsters is essential reading for students of religion and popular culture, as well as any readers with an interest in horror.

About this title

Review:

"Imaginatively written, entertaining, and well researched, this work of creative scholarship is a fascinating read.."
-"CHOICE, R.L. Massanari, Alma College
..."well researched. Recommended for religion and popular culture collections.."
-"Library Journal, December 2001
..."this is a fine, readable and often intriguing book."
-"The Plain Dealer
"This brilliant, twisted, imaginative book explores religion's dark side, from the predictable monsters of sacred texts to more startling choices from popular culture....When Beal concludes the book by explaining that 'our monsters are ourselves, ' it comes not as a cultural indictment from a self-satisfied pundit but an astute observation by a witty and wise fellow traveler."
-Publishers Weekly
"This is scholarship in cultural analysis at its best: well-documented, thought-provoking, and funny. Its crisp writing almost fools you into thinking it's simple. But it does what it says: it raises profound questions that survive their answers. Critical of the devastating prejudices that underlie the religious imagination, it stops short of moralizing. A bravura piece of what binds the cultural disciplines together."
- Mieke Bal, author of "Quoting Caravaggio: Contemporary Art, Preposterous History

About the Author:

Timothy K. Beal holds the Harkness Chair of Biblical Literature at Case Western Reserve University. He is author of The Book of Hiding and co-editor of Reading Bibles, Writing Bodies, both published by Routledge.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0415925886
• ISBN 13: 9780415925884
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248